BLM-ID Tasks GeomorphIS Team to Continue 2023 Vegetation Monitoring

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Twin Falls District (TFD) tasked the GeomorphIS-Pyramid Botanical Consultants team to conduct vegetation monitoring post-wildfire to document the success of vegetation treatments completed through the Emergency Stabilization and Burned Area Rehabilitation (ESR) program. The Assessment, Inventory and Monitoring (AIM) strategy is the approved monitoring strategy for land health monitoring and will be supplementing the guidelines used by the TFD Fuels program. The GeomorphIS team will be responsible for collecting data at 60 pre-determined plots. The distributed plots are on BLM administered lands throughout the TFD BLM (Burley, Jarbidge, and Shoshone Field Offices). These plots will be in their second and third post-treatment monitoring years. In recent years, large wildfires have affected sage-grouse habitat throughout the TFD. Areas burned by these fires were seeded with native cultivar seed mixtures or sagebrush plantings in existing vegetation. BLM policy is to monitor seeded/planted vegetation over a ten-year period to determine if the treatment(s) have met resource objectives and will aid in determining the success or failure of establishing native vegetation into disturbed areas.