The BLM's Canyon Country Fire Zone (CYFZ) Fuels Program has a long list of completed WRI funded projects widely distributed over Carbon, Emery, Grand and San Juan counties of southeastern Utah. Monitoring has been implemented and is ongoing for the majority of these projects. This year the Blanding East, Devil Canyon, Ford Ridge, Horse Canyon, Little Baullie Mesa, and Tavaputs projects are the primary focus of BLM's monitoring campaign. The CYFZ's GIS/Monitoring generally has one person responsible for achieving the monitoring goals however the position is currently vacant. The wide distribution of these projects combined with the vacancy of the monitoring specialist necessitate this proposal for additional monitoring help. These monitoring projects are designed using a stratified random sample approach. Treatment areas are stratified by ecological site and 4-12 three-spoke macroplots have been randomly established within the dominant or co-dominant ecological sites. This affords the opportunity to perform valid statistical analysis on the data. Since vegetation response to fuels reduction may take several years conducting post-treatment vegetation surveys on these projects is important and would provide a unique opportunity to bolster these longer term data-sets and conduce to evaluate longer-term vegetation responses to fuels reduction treatments and seedings in upland pinyon-juniper woodlands. Pre-treatment data has already been collected, by the BLM Fuels program, on all of the following projects and post-treatment data has already been collected on Blanding East (pre-), Devil Canyon (pre-, 1st, 3rd growing seasons), Ford Ridge (pre-), Horse Canyon (pre-, 1st, 3rd growing seasons), Little Baullie (pre-, 3yr). Pre-treatment monitoring will be established on the Tavaputs project. Employing students and interns from the University of Colorado to assist provides a valuable educational link. They gain experience in the field, with fuels, with the BLM, and with the WRI program while making money to pay for tuition.

Objective 1 - Data collection: Blanding East Devil Canyon Ford Ridge Horse Canyon Little Baullie Mesa Tavaputs Objective 2 - Data Analysis & Report Writing Analyze data and write basic reports showcasing results.

Threats to ecosystem health, wildlife habitat and livestock grazing could occur through impacts related to drought, invasive species and failure of WRI projects to achieve objectives. Periodic monitoring of WRI projects is essential to understanding whether project objectives have been achieved and are persisting.

Federal Land Policy and Management Act Public Rangeland Improvement Act Environmental Quality Improvement Act BLM National Assessment, Inventory and Monitoring (AIM) Strategy WRI Monitoring

Monitoring and reporting the vegetative response and structure following fuels treatments. Monitoring is an essential tool to verify whether or not quantifiable fire mitigation and vegetative restoration has been achieve and how many years post-implementation these results are valid.

This monitoring project monitors vegetation cover, bare soil and other indicators that relate to erosion and run-off. Science based methodologies of monitoring data collection can help verify that fuels treatments have a desired outcome for the benefit of watersheds.

BLM National Assessment, Inventory and Monitoring (AIM) Strategy WRI Monitoring

Line-point Intercept Cover and Height Nested Frequency Belt Tree Density Repeat Photography Gap Intercept

Quantitative and statistically sound monitoring of 5 post-treatment WRI funded fuels projects.

BLM WRI University of Colorado- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Verification of treatment results is best achieved through many years of consistent monitoring. The acquisition of these data can provide scientific support for analyzing the ecological response of these projects and inform future adaptive management processes. Distribution of the data will be and important component of this monitoring project. The data will be uploaded in various databases for future studies and analysis across multiple disciplines including; land manager agency's, university's and other research institutions.

Domestic livestock benefit by gaining a better understanding of the herbaceous response to treatment. The collection of data on randomized plots throughout these project areas provides a quantitative look at forage availability through time.

06/05/2017

07/21/2017

2018

Line-point Intercept Cover and Height Nested Frequency Belt Tree Density Repeat Photography Gap Intercept

This project was so good last year we decided to do it again. Our budget funded a field crew of four University of Colorado students for six weeks. Monitoring data was collected on the following projects; Blanding East, Devil Canyon, Little Baulllie Mesa, Horse Canyon and Colorado Tamarisk Removal. Monitoring methods used both the Utah BLM Fuels and National BLM Assessment, Inventory and Monitoring (AIM) protocols. By condensing the field season into 6 weeks we were able to sample during the flowering phases of most of the forbs making plant identification much easier. The CU students are currently finalizing the analysis and making graphs and charts. This collaboration provided great monitoring data consistent with the BLM mission as well as a great learning opportunity for the undergraduate students. Look in the documents section for Power Point Repeat Photography and spread sheets of data for each project.

We plan to continue this type of monitoring project each year for the next several years.