Sustaining Water in Sagebrush Rangelands
In the West, wet habitats cover less than 2% of the landscape, but these habitats are disproportionately important for both livestock and wildlife, like the Greater Sage-grouse. In the summer, sage grouse hens seek out these green ribbons in the sagebrush sea when the uplands dry out to raise and feed their chicks. These areas are also essential for the human communities in the West, supporting working ranchlands, hunting, fishing, and wildlife viewing. As drought becomes more frequent under a warming and drying climate, scarce water resources will become even more coveted by all users.
Riparian and wet meadow systems are referred to as green ribbons across the sagebrush sea. Our work primarily focuses on meadows, bogs, springs seeps, ephemeral and intermittent streams. Diagram created by Jeremy Maestas, Ecologist, USDA-NRCS West National Technology Support Center.
Despite their paramount importance, many springs, streamside riparian areas, and upland ephemeral wet meadows are degraded by headcutting, gully erosion, channel incision, vegetation loss, and other forms of degradation. These impacts disconnect wet areas from their floodplains, reducing natural resilience to drought and water storage capacity. Sustaining these scarce water resources is critical to proactively conserving the sagebrush ecosystem and working lands in the West, and will help to contribute to drought resilience as climate changes.
Putting Science into Practice
While there is no shortage of degraded riparian areas and wet meadows that need restoration across the West, there is a shortage of time, experts, and funding to address these resource concerns. There is also increasing interest in addressing degradation in riparian and wet meadow systems with simple, low-cost restoration techniques, the use of which has rapidly expanded. To support our partners in this work and to build off previous successes in this area, we have developed a Riparian and Wet Meadow Restoration Strategy to guide our work in this area. Here’s what we’re working on:
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We’re providing training opportunities, both virtual and in-person, on the use of Zeedyk structures and other low-tech process based restoration techniques. We are also working with partners to build a skilled workforce to carry out this work by strengthening the skill sets and knowledge of existing local conservationists, land managers, landowners and other partners as well as developing additional contractor support. Contact Mandi Hirsch, Sagebrush Conservation Coordinator, to learn more (mandi.hirsch@iwjv.org).
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This resource will be coming soon to Partners in the Sage!
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This work will help partners connect to the science underlying riparian and wet meadow restoration outcomes.
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We will work with partners to use spatial data to prioritize their riparian and wet meadow restoration work.
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We’ll keep telling the stories of folks across the sagebrush sea working to restore wet habitats!
For Zeedyk factsheets, videos and online training modules, technical documents, research publications, planning and permitting examples, stories of success, and spatial data tools, check out our One-Stop-Shop for Zeedyk Resources.
Learn more about Riparian and Wet Meadow Restoration:
Check out our new handout on low-tech process-based restoration:
“Using sticks and stones to improve incised streams and meadows”
Zeedyk Virtual Workshops
Simple, low-tech restoration methods developed for the drylands of the desert southwest by Bill Zeedyk provide effective tools for protecting and restoring meadow systems. These techniques are cost-effective and hand-built allowing more people to participate in restoration. Watch our Wyoming- and Utah-based virtual workshops with experts Shawn Conner and Jeremy Maestas to learn about reading the landscape to recognize meadow conservation opportunities and how to plan, implement, and monitor various low-tech “Zeedyk” structures.
Click the links below to access our virtual workshops.
What happens when we restore a wet meadow?
Watch this timelapse video of a landscape before and after a Zeedyk installation to see the ways that wildlife utilize this low-tech structure!
Looking for More Resources?
Check out the Resilient Landscapes Resource List. To assist partners with access to resources for project planning and assessment and to cut down on time spent searching for resources, we created a database of key resources related to fire and invasive annual grasses, wet meadow restoration, grazing, woodland expansion, game corridors, and more.
Resources that can be found here include science papers, frameworks and strategies, reports, data sources and tools, research syntheses and guides, webinars and workshops, factsheets, facilitation and collaboration resources, and communications resources.
