Research Papers
Assessing Transportation Infrastructure Impacts on Rangelands: Test of a Standard Rangeland Assessment Protocol

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Abstract

Linear disturbances associated with on- and off-road vehicle use on rangelands has increased dramatically throughout the world in recent decades. This increase is due to a variety of factors including increased availability of all-terrain vehicles, infrastructure development (oil, gas, renewable energy, and ex-urban), and recreational activities. In addition to the direct impacts of road development, the presence and use of roads may alter resilience of adjoining areas through indirect effects such as altered site hydrologic and eolian processes, invasive seed dispersal, and sediment transport. There are few standardized methods for assessing impacts of transportation-related land-use activities on soils and vegetation in arid and semi-arid rangelands. Interpreting Indicators of Rangeland Health (IIRH) is an internationally accepted qualitative assessment that is applied widely to rangelands. We tested the sensitivity of IIRH to impacts of roads, trails, and pipelines on adjacent lands by surveying plots at three distances from these linear disturbances. We performed tests at 16 randomly selected sites in each of three ecosystems (Northern High Plains, Colorado Plateau, and Chihuahuan Desert) for a total of 208 evaluation plots. We also evaluated the repeatability of IIRH when applied to road-related disturbance gradients. Finally, we tested extent of correlations between IIRH plot attribute departure classes and trends in a suite of quantitative indicators. Results indicated that the IIRH technique is sensitive to direct and indirect impacts of transportation activities with greater departure from reference condition near disturbances than far from disturbances. Trends in degradation of ecological processes detected with qualitative assessments were highly correlated with quantitative data. Qualitative and quantitative assessments employed in this study can be used to assess impacts of transportation features at the plot scale. Through integration with remote sensing technologies, these methods could also potentially be used to assess cumulative impacts of transportation networks at the landscape scale.

Resumen

Los disturbios lineales asociados con el uso de vehículos (incluyendo vehículos todoterreno) en áreas naturales han incrementado dramáticamente en todo el mundo en décadas recientes. Esto ha sido causado por una variedad de factores que incluyen el aumento en la disponibilidad de vehículos todoterreno, la infraestructura asociada con el desarrollo (petróleo, gas, energía renovable, desarrollo ex-urbano) y actividades recreacionales. En adición a los impactos directos, la presencia y uso de estas calles puede alterar la resiliencia de áreas adyacentes a través de efectos indirectos tales como alteraciones en los procesos hidrológicos y eólicos del sitio, en la dispersión de semillas de especies invasoras, y en el transporte de sedimentos. Hay pocos métodos estandarizados para evaluar los impactos de las actividades de transporte sobre el suelo y la vegetación en pastizales áridos y semiáridos. La Interpretación de Indicadores para la Salud de los Pastizales (IIRH) es un método cualitativo que ha sido ampliamente utilizado y que ya está aceptado a nivel internacional para la evaluación de pastizales. Evaluamos la sensibilidad de IIRH a los impactos de calles, caminos y ductos en áreas adyacentes a estos disturbios, muestreando parcelas ubicadas a tres distancias de estos disturbios lineales. Hicimos esta evaluación en 16 sitios seleccionados al azar dentro de cada uno de 3 ecosistemas (las Planicies Altas del Norte, la Meseta del Colorado, y el Desierto Chihuahuense) para un total de 208 parcelas de muestreo. También evaluamos la repetibilidad de IIRH cuando es aplicado a gradientes de disturbios causados por calles y caminos. Para finalizar, examinamos qué tan correlacionadas estuvieron las evaluaciones de atributos de las parcelas con las tendencias de un grupo de indicadores cuantitativos. Los resultados indicaron que la técnica de IIRH es sensible a impactos directos e indirectos de las actividades de transporte y que la desviación a partir del estado de referencia disminuye a medida que la distancia al disturbio aumenta. Las tendencias en la degradación de procesos ecológicos detectadas con las evaluaciones cualitativas estuvieron altamente correlacionadas con los datos cuantitativos. Las evaluaciones cuantitativas y cualitativas utilizadas en este estudio pueden ser utilizadas para examinar los impactos de la infraestructura de transporte a la escala de la parcela. Por medio de la integración tecnológica de sensores remotos, estos métodos también podrían ser utilizados para examinar los impactos acumulativos de redes de transporte a la escala del paisaje.

Section snippets

INTRODUCTION

The amount and extent of vehicle activity in rangelands of the world have rapidly increased in recent decades. This increase is due to a variety of factors including availability of all terrain vehicles, recreational activities, oil and gas development, and ex-urban development (Hansen et al. 2002; Williams 2003; Brown et al. 2005; Vias and Carruthers 2005; Watts et al. 2007; Leu et al. 2008). Development of renewable energy sources, including wind and solar, is predicted to lead to additional

General Approach

The study was conducted in three semiarid regions of the western United States: the Northern High Plains (Wyoming), the Colorado Plateau (Utah), and the Chihuahuan Desert (New Mexico; Fig. 1; Table 1). Coupled qualitative and quantitative protocols were applied across a broad spectrum of impacts caused by common road and trail types in the three regions. The study was conducted at four sites for each of four road types in each of the three regions for a total of 48 sites sampled. Each site was

Attribute Level

Significant differences in qualitative attribute rating distributions (P < 0.05) were detected among the three distance classes (Near, < 5 m; Far, 5–10 m; and Control, > 40 m) with greater plot attribute departure from reference condition near disturbances (Fig. 3, open bars) across most attributes and each study area. In all three study areas, the differences between Control and disturbed plots (Near and Far) attribute rating departures were generally greater in Soil and Site Stability and

DISCUSSION

Results of this study indicate that IIRH is both sensitive to impacts and correlated to quantitative measures across many types of road-related disturbances and a broad range of ecosystems, although the severity of impacts detected varied. IIRH attribute ratings indicate that hydrologic function and soil and site stability are the primary ecosystem processes negatively impacted by road, trail, and pipeline development across all three ecological sites studied. Analysis of coupled

IMPLICATIONS

Results from this study indicate that IIRH is well suited and can be consistently applied for detecting areas adversely impacted by multiple stressors, including off-highway vehicle use and energy development, and has the potential to provide information on cumulative impacts. Because IIRH assessments are potentially a low-precision measurement (low repeatability over time with a variety of observers), they should not be used for monitoring. However, the integration of multiple observational

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks to Michelle Mattocks, Stephanie Baker, and Chandra Tucker for assistance with field work. We would also like to thank local BLM and NRCS staff for assistance with planning and reference sheet development, including David Trujillo, Phil Smith, Shane Green, Dana Truman, Lynn Jackson, Arnie Irwin, Ben Adams, Kay Medders, Steve Hannan, and Janelle Gonzales. We would like to thank Skye Wills, Matt Bowker, Joel Brown, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

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This work was funded by the Bureau of Land Management.

Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the US Government.

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