Identifying Priority Science Information Needs for Managing Public Lands.

Autor: Carter SK; U.S. Geological Survey, Fort Collins Science Center, Fort Collins, CO, USA. skcarter@usgs.gov., Haby TS; Bureau of Land Management, National Operations Center, Denver, CO, USA., Samuel EM; U.S. Geological Survey, Fort Collins Science Center, Fort Collins, CO, USA., Foster AC; U.S. Geological Survey, Fort Collins Science Center, Fort Collins, CO, USA.; U.S. Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Region, Lakewood, CO, USA., Meineke JK; U.S. Geological Survey, Fort Collins Science Center, Fort Collins, CO, USA.; Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA., McCall LE; Contractor with the U.S. Geological Survey, Fort Collins Science Center, Fort Collins, CO, USA.; U.S. Forest Service, Mountain Planning Service Group Regions 1-4, St. George, UT, USA., Burton MK; Bureau of Land Management, Colorado State Office, Lakewood, CO, USA., Domschke CT; Bureau of Land Management, Colorado State Office, Lakewood, CO, USA.; Bureau of Land Management, Oregon/Washington State Office, Portland, OR, USA., Espy LD; Bureau of Land Management, Colorado State Office, Lakewood, CO, USA.; Bureau of Land Management, Office of Communications, Washington, D.C., USA., Gilbert MA; Bureau of Land Management, Colorado State Office, Lakewood, CO, USA.; Bureau of Land Management, Headquarters, Resources and Planning Division, Lakewood, CO, USA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Environmental management [Environ Manage] 2024 Nov 28. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Nov 28.
DOI: 10.1007/s00267-024-02080-3
Abstrakt: Public lands worldwide provide diverse resources, uses, and values, ranging from wilderness to extractive uses. Decision-making on public lands is complex as a result and is required by law to be informed by science. However, public land managers may not always have the science they need. We developed a methodology for identifying priority science needs for public land management agencies. We relied on two core data sources: environmental effects analyses conducted for agency decisions and legal challenges to those decisions. We considered needs in four categories: data, science, methods, and mitigation measures. We classified topics as primary science needs when (1) the topic was analyzed frequently in agency environmental analyses, (2) our metric of quality/defensibility was low or mitigation measures were frequently included for the topic, and (3) the agency was challenged on its use of science for the topic. We applied our methodology to the Bureau of Land Management-the largest public land manager in the United States-in Colorado, a state with abundant and diverse public lands. Primary identified needs were data on vegetation; science about effects of oil and gas development and livestock grazing on multiple resources, including terrestrial wildlife; methods for analyzing environmental effects for many topics; and mitigation measures for protecting vegetation, soils, water quality, and archaeological and historic resources. Science needs often reflect needs for facilitating and supporting the use of existing science in agency decision-making. Our method can be applied across agencies, geographies, and timeframes to help strengthen science use in public lands decision-making.
Competing Interests: Compliance with Ethical Standards. Conflict of interest: The authors declare no completing interests.
(© 2024. Laine E. McCall. Parts of this work were authored by US Federal Government authors and are not under copyright protection in the US; foreign copyright protection may apply.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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