Hi again!

This week we joined tech crews who will be working in the Eagle Lake, Surprise and Alturas field offices for an intensive week of training for a new, statewide land health assessment field protocol called AIM. AIM was developed primarily by the Great Basin Institute and Jornada with partners including the US government (BLM in our case), Nevada Conservation Corps, and International Conservation Volunteer Exchange. The goal of the new protocol is to provide a standardized set of data that is interdisciplinary and scalable. In other words, we collect data on vegetation and soil in such a way that the data from the hundreds of plots across Nevada, California, and Utah (to list a few) can be combined into a single analysis or broken down into understanding how best to manage the land on a small-scale, such as in each field office.This type of standardized methology is especially helpful to the BLM in providing scientifically sound data and a system that can be repeated by different offices. 

We had long field days learning everthing from the detailed protocol, soil morphology and taxonomy, UTV driving and plant identification so that we can break into our prospective groups to carry out AIM at our own randomly selected plot locations. I learned so much in such a short amount of time, and was able to meet field scientists from different offices and organizations, including the GBI crews that will be working on AIM and ES&R (Emergency Stabilization and Restoration after fire). This is my first full week on the job, and although it was long (averaged 11 hour days), I never got tired of being out in the field practicing useful, interesting skills and protocols.

As a reward, my roomate/fellow CLM intern and I will be floating down the river this weekend! Mmm.  

Until next time,

Deb