NGO reports & data

San Pedro River Wet-Dry Maps (January 2012)

The San Pedro River wet/dry mapping dataset is a community effort to track the river’s health by monitoring the persistence of surface water during the driest time of each year. It is created by recording the end points of every wet section of the San Pedro River during June each year. Maps depict the wet portion of the San Pedro River.

• 2011 Wet-Dry Maps (updated 1/24/2012)
• 2010 Wet-Dry Maps (updated 10/4/2010)
• 2009 Wet-Dry Maps (updated 2/24/2010)
• 2008 Wet-Dry Maps (updated 8/26/2008)
• 2007 Wet-Dry Maps (updated 4/14/2008)

Managing Changing Landscapes in the Southwestern United States (January 2011)

This regional assessment examines the impacts of temperature change from 1951-2006 on natural resources in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. It documents that warming has already affected habitats, watersheds, and species in the Southwest, by influencing the timing of seasonal events or amplifying the impacts of natural disturbances such as wildfire and drought. The report concludes that to begin adapting to climate change, natural resource managers should reevaluate the effectiveness of current restoration tools, modify resource objectives, learn from climate-smart adaptive management and monitoring, and share information across boundaries.

• Managing Changing Landscapes in the Southwestern United States (7 MB)
• Supporting Information (1 MB)
• Errata (last updated 4/18/2011)

The First Five Years of the White Mountain Stewardship Project (August 2010)

The White Mountains Stewardship Project on the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in Arizona was designed to reduce the impacts of wildfires on communities, improve wildlife habitat, and help stimulate employment in the wood products industry. A multi-party monitoring board was convened to design a program for evaluating project effectiveness. This report summarizes results from five years of data on economic, social, administrative, and ecological indicators and provides recommendations for improving program effectiveness moving forward.

• Executive Summary (3 MB)
• Evaluating the impacts of forest treatments: the first five years of the White Mountain Stewardship Project report (14 MB)

Ecological Implications of Verde River Flows (February 2008)

Presents a literature review and results of a May 2007 workshop where 35 subject experts from 16 agencies and institutions synthesized the state of knowledge for central Arizona’s Verde River. Report describes the river’s ecosystem, including its hydrology, geomorphology, riparian, and aquatic habitats, and fish and wildlife species – and how components would respond to changes in surface- and groundwater flows.

• Executive Summary (2.7 MB)
• Verde River Ecological Flows Report (4.1 MB)

Huachuca Area Fire Partners Fire Management Plan (November 2005)

The Huachuca Area Fire Partners, an alliance of public and private groups in southeastern Arizona, came together to restore and manage fire activities over a 500,000-acre area that includes the Huachuca Mountains and surrounding grasslands. The Fire Management Plan provides a framework for landscape-level fire management — its goals include collectively implementing fire management projects that participants are unable to accomplish on their own and managing fire across jurisdictional boundaries.

Download file (12 MB)

Lessons Learned: Sonoran Desert Ecosystem Initiative (October 2005)

The document summarizes the lessons learned from The Nature Conservancy and Sonoran Institute’s multi-year collaborative project with the Bureau of Land Management and Department of Defense at the Sonoran Desert National Monument and Goldwater Training Range.

Download file (<1 MB)