Introduction to the BLM's Landscape Approach to Multi-Scale Natural Resource Decisions

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has developed a systematic, landscape-scale management approach to facilitate examination of resource values, trends, and management opportunities from a broad perspective to address increasingly complex and widespread environmental challenges that transcend traditional management boundaries.

Rapid Ecoregional Assessments (REAs), the initial step in this landscape approach, synthesize existing information about resource conditions and trends within an ecoregion, and identify areas of high ecological value and gauge the potential risks from climate change, wildfires, invasive species, energy development, and urban growth, and establish landscape-scale baseline ecological data to gauge the effect and effectiveness of future management actions.

The BLM has completed REAs that assess over 800 million acres of public and non-public lands in the United States.   REA data can be used with other regionally scaled information to inform regional strategies such as the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan in California, the offsite mitigation strategy for the Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone, the Greater Sage-grouse planning effort, and the location of Healthy Lands Focal Areas.

REAs will enhance the quality of land use planning and environmental analysis of proposed actions conducted by BLM field offices.  The BLM’s Assessment, Inventory, and Monitoring strategy assures that decision makers across the landscapes can use standard measurements of core indicators that were collected with a statistically valid sampling design to inform decisions and adaptive management.  For additional information about the components of the BLM’s Landscape Approach, please visit: http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/more/Landscape_Approach.html.