Vegetation Maps at the Passage of the Taylor Grazing Act (1934): A Baseline to Evaluate Rangeland Change After a Regime Shift

Abstract

The Taylor Grazing Act represents a regime shift 1 in the management of rangelands of the western United States that addressed the perception of widespread degradation with an unprecedented policy response. Prior to our efforts, data in the range survey maps were not readily accessible to researchers and land managers conducting long-term studies of rangeland conditions. Such data have proven of great value in long-term research. For example, research stations including the Jornada Experimental Range and the National Science Foundation's Long Term Ecological Research network engage in research to understand the long-term, large-scale ecosystem changes associated with biological, physical, and socioeconomic forces. Information about ecosystem conditions before and after major historical events or policy changes is an important tool for explaining past changes and predicting future ones. The Taylor Grazing Act was one such event; it initiated active federal management of public-domain rangelands and established property rights for what were previously open range grazing conditions. Thus, the passage of the Taylor Act constitutes a critical driver in the development of western US rangelands, the consequences of which are poorly understood in longterm research in southern New Mexico and elsewhere. Data

Evaluating Landscape Degradation Along Climatic Gradients During the 1930s Dust Bowl Drought From Panchromatic Historical Aerial Photographs, United States Great Plains

“…There is a wealth of observations on land surface conditions during the 1930s that has previously provided the basis for environmental interpretations (Browning et al, 2009;Skaggs et al, 2011;Williamson et al, 2011). Data sources are from contemporaneous peer-reviewed publications, government records from the Soil Conservation Service (SCS), ancillary experiment stations, and ground-based photographs held at NARA II facility in College Park, MD, United States.…”