Summary

The Methods Guide helps you find the field and remote-sensing methods most useful for your rangeland assessment and monitoring needs. It provides ratings, based on expert and user reviews, on how well each method performs to answer specific questions as well as descriptions, relative costs, references to rangeland applications, and contact information for the different techniques. To learn more about the Methods Guide please visit www.rangelandmethods.org.

Date: Printed on 09/08/2010

Topic: Potential habitat for rare or invasive species

Chosen scale: Small landscape(25,000 to 250,000ac)

Chosen date range:

Field Methods

Field methods applicable to your question are listed below. The field methods have been rated by experts according to their precision in answering the question you chose and the feasibility of implementing them. Deciding which method is best for your application will require more in depth comparison tables available with the compare button and consideration of details contained in the full abstracts of each method.

Sample design: Where you sample is every bit as important as how you sample. Sample design will determine whether or not your observations can address your overall objectives and question. An effective number and distribution of samples is required to make valid inferences from field data. Values for costs and level of required effort provided in the comparison tables are relative because the actual cost will depend on sample design. Visit our page on sample design.

Precision	Effort/Cost	Potential for Bias	Name
			Basal Gap Intercept
			Canopy Gap Intercept
			Daubenmire Method
			Density Quadrats (including Belt Transects)
			Dry Weight Rank Method
			Ecological Site Identification
			Line-point Intercept (for cover and composition)
			Nested Frequency
			Ocular Cover Estimates (plots)
			Pace Frequency
			Photo Plots - Quantitative Assessment
			Quadrat Frequency
			Step Point Transect Method
			Step-pin Transect Method

Remote Sensing Methods

Remote sensing methods applicable to your question are listed below. They are ranked by experts according to how well they can answer the question you selected as part of a complete analysis process. Sensors that work with a particular method or methods that work with data from a particular sensor will be highlighted by clicking on the items in the list. Deciding which method is best for your application will require more in depth comparisons available with the compare button and consideration of details contained in the full abstracts of each method.

Remote Sensors

Tested and Validated Methods

Name	Relevance
Unsupervised Classification
Change Detection
Supervised Classification
Spectral Mixture Analysis
Fractional Cover Estimate
Object-based Classification
Regression Kriging
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index
Soil-adjusted Total Vegetation Index
Enhanced Vegetation Index
Modified Soil-adjusted Vegetation Index
Soil-adjusted Vegetation Index
Leaf-area Index
Fraction of Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fPAR)
Net Primary Productivity Estimate
Tasseled-cap Transformation
Canopy/Texture Mapping