Rudy Schuster

ECOSYSTEM SCIENCE is critical to making informed decisions about natural resources that can sustain our Nation’s HUMAN, ECONOMIC, & ECOLOGICAL well-being. The case studies on this site highlight the tangible benefits to the American public through USGS Ecosystem Science with regard to human, economic, and ecological dimensions.

The Collaborative Visitor Transportation Survey (CVTS) is a multi-agency effort to obtain a Federal Land Management Agency (FLMA) generic clearance to streamline data collection, making user feedback a more feasible part of transportation planning. This effort is led by FHWA’s Western Federal Lands Highway Division and is supported by the U.S. Department of Transportation Volpe Center. FLMAs that have played a key role in the development of the CVTS include: the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), National Park Service (NPS), U.S. Forest Service (USFS), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). Archiving the CVTS data in a central repository provides a valuable opportunity...

Tags: federal land management agency, survey, transportation

Results of a U.S. General Public Survey to Inform the 2018 North American Waterfowl Management Plan Update (2017)

This contains data from 1,030 surveys returned in 2017 from across the United States. Data were collected via a mail-out survey stratified by the population of each state. Data collected include nature-related activity participation, attitudes and barriers to hunting and birdwatching, knowledge of others who hunt and birdwatch, preferred birds, involvement in conservation activities, preferences for information channels on nature-related topics, trust in sources on nature-related topics, wetlands knowledge/visitation, evaluation of wetlands' ecosystem services, and demographics. The purpose of this survey was to inform the 2018 update of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan.

Categories: Data; Types: Citation; Tags: USGS Science Data Catalog (SDC), United States, birds, culture and demographics, society

The USGS National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center (NCCWSC) is currently engaged in an Ecological Drought initiative, focused on understanding the impacts of drought on natural ecosystems across the country. This project was designed to support the Ecological Drought initiative by creating a USGS EcoDrought Actionable Science Working Group. The goal of this working group was to identify science needs for drought-related decisions and to provide natural resource managers with practical strategies for adapting to and planning for drought. The working group engaged social scientists to garner advice on relevant social science research questions and data needs, as well as to identify any regulatory, institutional,...

Categories: Project; Types: Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: 2016, CASC, Completed, Drought, Drought, All tags... Drought, Fire and Extreme Weather, Drought, Fire and Extreme Weather, National CASC, National CASC, North Central, North Central CASC, Projects by Region, Science Tools for Managers, Science Tools for Managers, Social Science, Social Science, State of the Science, State of the Science, Fewer tags

Final Report: Building Social and Ecological Resilience to Climate Change in Southwestern Colorado: Phase 1

Southwestern Colorado is already experiencing the effects of climate change in the form of larger and more severe wildfires, prolonged severe droughts, tree mortality from insect outbreaks, and earlier snowmelt. Climate scientists expect the region to experience more frequent summer heat waves, longer-lasting and more frequent droughts, and decreased river flow in the future (Lukas et al. 2014). These changes will ultimately impact local communities and challenge natural resource managers in allocating water and range for livestock grazing under unpredictable drought conditions, managing forests in the face of changing fire regimes, and managing threatened species under shifting ecological conditions. Considering...

Categories: Publication; Types: Citation, Report; Tags: Data Visualization & Tools, North Central CASC, Science Tools For Managers, Social Science, climate change, All tags... earlier snowmelt, insect outbreak, severe drought, tree mortality, Fewer tags