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Track: Agriculture
Steve Abbors
East Bay Municipal Utility District
500 San Pablo Dam Road
Watershed Headquarters
Orinda, CA 94563
Telephone: 510-287-0459
Fax: 510-254-8320
Reza Ghezelbash, Mardi Jackson
Using GIS Applications in Range Site Analysis
Defining Issue: EBMUD resource managers needed a tool to predict the optimum number of cattle (stocking rate) that could be permitted to graze watershed areas where soil type, slope and aspect vary by location, and rainfall varies temporally. The predictive model would be used to protect the main agency goals of water quality and biodiversity by helping to adjust stocking rates to minimize resource damage from grazing as conditions vary. GIS Solution: Develop an overlay coverage based on slope, soil, production, Residual Dry Matter* requirements, rainfall, and sensitive habitats to determine stocking rates. Use spatial change detection (temporal GIS) to monitor effects of different grazing regimes. Methodology: This application allows resource managers to determine stocking rates for grazing leases using ArcView and ArcInfo. It also allows the user to view and query other layers significant to management goals such as threat zones for fire risk, water quality, and sensitive species. Software: The
range site analysis model was built in ArcInfo using AML and AWK to dynamically output analysis and queries in both ArcView and ArcInfo. The program is designed to maintain the native look of an Esri command line function and allows the user to submit a request file that includes all the input parameters. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the use of GIS in range and watershed management. *Residual Dry Matter or RDM is a range management term that refers to the amount of dry vegetation that is left at the end of a grazing season and is measured and expressed in pounds per acre.
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