Our goal is to determine how implementation of the three creeks grazing consolidation plan affects riparian conditions and ecosystem services across a multi-allotment, watershed-scale landscape

This Cooperative Agreement awarded by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) under the Aquatic Resources Management program (CFDA 15.244) provides $364,985.90 to support a 5-year project focused on assessing the impacts of the Three Creeks Grazing Consolidation Plan on riparian conditions and ecosystem services across a 57,000 hectare landscape in Utah. The project aims to determine how implementation of this new grazing management approach, which uses grazing duration and timing as tools, affects water quality, water quantity, riparian habitat, and other stakeholder-valued ecosystem services. It will also examine how additional restoration actions in the Upper Bear River Watershed impact riparian health. The findings will help BLM managers adaptively manage grazing and restoration efforts to balance livestock use with healthy riparian areas and desired ecosystem services.

We will also examine how additional restoration actions across the upper bear river watershed affects riparian health. The three creeks grazing plan altered grazing across 57,000 HA of public-private rangeland in 2022. A major innovation of this plan is to use grazing duration (i.e., length of time grazed) and timing (i.e., the season of grazing) as management tools to balance livestock disturbance with the generation of other society-valued riparian ecosystem services such as clean water, increased water quantity, riparian habitat for wildlife (e.g., fish sage-grouse), and erosion control. Additionally restoration projects across the upper bear river watershed may compound the beneficial outcomes of the altered gazing management on the three creeks project area and provide additional benefits beyond the project area. We will collect and analyze data on water quality, water discharge, riparian zone expansion, erosion potential, riparian herbaceous biomass, soil health and carbon (e.g., infiltration, bulk density compaction), streambank stability, herbaceous biodiversity, sage-grouse riparian habitat quality, and biocrust cover depending on funding available via the BLM and other sources. This proposed project identifies how managers can balance one of the most persistent, and at times controversial, uses of public land cattle grazing with the sustainable generation of additional stakeholder valued riparian ecosystem services. These services include: clean water, sustained water yield in streams, erosion control, riparian herbaceous biomass production, and healthy riparian habitat for brooding sage-grouse and fish. Our study is novel because we will examine how a grazing system not usually employed on US public rangelands (watershed-scale time-controlled rotation) compares with commonly employed grazing systems (season-long and deferred rotation), plus no-grazing exclosures in supplying these riparian ecosystem services. IT will document the conservation benefits of implementing this new grazing system by comparing riparian conditions pre-VS post-implementation. IT will also examine how additional restoration actions across the upper bear river watershed affect riparian health.results from this project benefit the public by determining if the new grazing system across the three creeks area improves multiple rangeland ecosystem services. The project will additionally help BLM managers adaptively manage the three creeks grazing project, and broader upper bear river watershed. This includes providing data to inform how cattle grazing affects stream water quality, water quantity, forage production, sage-grouse habitat, fish habitat, and riparian soil carbon sequestration. This also includes assessing how other restoration actions in upper bear river watershed affect these ecosystem services. Findings from the proposed work will allow managers to (1) understand benefits to riparian areas of implementing this innovative grazing management plan, (2) use collected data to adaptively manage ongoing grazing across the landscape to balance healthy riparian areas with livestock grazing, and (3) learn what additional actions may need to be taken to restore ecosystem functioning in areas where changes in grazing do not lead to desired improvements in riparian health.