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Abstract. Extreme droughts like the recent 2011-2013 drought impacting the central and western UnitedStates present a challenge to sustaining livestock ranching operations and the ecosystem goods and services they produce. Wyoming ranchers manage half of this drought-prone state and are at the forefront of this challenge. We examined Wyoming ranchers' drought management strategies and how ranch characteristics affect drought management flexibility, a key component of resilience, through a mail survey. We find that many survey respondents manage drought in similar ways, by selling livestock and buying feed, highlighting the market risks associated with drought. Ranches that are larger, include yearling livestock, use shorter grazing periods, and/or incorporate alternative on-ranch activities (e.g., hunting) use more drought management practices and thus have greater flexibility. Larger ranches experience fewer drought impacts, highlighting advantages of a larger resource base. Our findings suggest three components of national drought policy that encourages flexibility and thus increases resilience of ranches to drought: (1) encouraging forage-sharing mechanisms; (2) promoting income diversification that is independent of climatic variability; and (3) facilitating a shift to diversified livestock production systems. These measures could increase sustainability of ranching livelihoods and provision of ecosystem services despite predicted increases in intensity and duration of future droughts.

Acknowledgements in 1979, and 2003. In 2008, the Federal Farm Bill added a provision to federal law that required states to do assessments of forest resources. These assessments are to identify key issues and define the status and trends across all forest lands in each state. To the extent possible, spatial areas (called priority landscapes) are to be delineated that help focus investments and other programs to deal with associated issues. A separate document must also be prepared that presents strategies to address issues and priority landscapes identified in the assessment. The intent of the 2010 Forest and Range Assessment is to meet both the state and federal mandates, hence it covers both forest and rangeland resources, on private as well as publically managed lands.In many ways, this assessment portrays a continuation of past trends of impacts from wildfire, development, forest pests, and exotic invasive species. However, there are also relatively new or markedly increasing potential threats from renewable energy infrastructure, off highway vehicle use, and climate change. Finally, traditional as well as new opportunities exist for shaping future conditions through emerging markets for biomass and other renewable energy sources; carbon, niche markets, and ecosystem services; innovative regional and local partnerships and strategies to conserve and manage open space and working landscapes for both commodity production and non-market benefits; and various tools, policies, programs and incentives to positively influence land management and use decisions. PRESENTATION OF THE 2010 ASSESSMENT SUMMARY OF CHAPTER RESULTSKey findings and highlights from each topic covered in this assessment are supplied in this section, organized according to the guidance given by the Forest Service's Redesign program. These highlights do not cover the topics in detail, but provide a quick review of topic coverage to serve as a supplement to the strategy report. ASSESSMENT California's Forests and Rangelands 6 CHAPTER OVERVIEWMany of the same ecosystems that have been hard hit by historical development are projected to be further impacted by development in the near future, particularly in and around the largest urban areas. The state's already large population is still growing, particularly in Southern California, and an estimated 3.9 million residents will be added over the next decade. This ongoing trend will maintain or increase pressure for land development that can increasingly compromise ecosystems across the state.Tools to address development threat to ecosystems, include land acquisition, easements, zoning policies, and policies to promote in-filling of existing developed areas.This chapter has a single spatial analysis which examines the threat of near-term development to ecosystems. Key Findings CHAPTER OVERVIEWThe concept of "working landscapes" was developed to encompass the idea that lands used for commodity production also provide crucial ecosystem services and that future demands make it essential that these system...

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The need to develop successful collaborative strategies is an enduring problem in sustainable resource management. Our goal is to evaluate the relationship between information networks and conflict in the context of collaborative groundwater management in the rapidly growing central highland region of Arizona. In this region, water-management conflicts have emerged because of stakeholders' differing geographic perspectives and competing scientific claims. Using social network analyses, we explored the extent to which the Verde River Basin Partnership (VRBP), which was charged with developing and sharing scientific information, has contributed to collaboration in the region. To accomplish this, we examined the role that this stakeholder partnership plays in reinforcing or overcoming the geographic, ideological, expert, and power conflicts among its members. Focusing on information sharing, we tested the extent to which several theoretically important elements of successful collaboration were evidenced by data from the VRBP. The structure of information sharing provides insight into ways in which barriers between diverse perspectives might be retained and elucidates weaknesses in the partnership. To characterize information sharing, we examined interaction ties among individuals with different geographic concerns, hierarchical scales of interest, belief systems (about science, the environment, and the role of the partnership), and selfidentified expertise types. Results showed that the partnership's information-sharing network spans most of these boundaries. Based on current theories of collaboration, we would expect the partnership network to be conducive to collaboration. We found that information exchanges are limited by differences in connection patterns across actor expertise and environmental-belief systems. Actors who view scientists as advocates are significantly more likely to occupy boundary-spanning positions, that appear to impede the success of the partnership. This analysis challenges widely held assumptions about the properties that separate successful collaborations from those that are less successful. It has implications for our understanding of the factors that constrain information processing, knowledge production, and collectiveaction capability in institutions.