Our Programs

We have divided our overall research program into six general categories.  These categories include long-term research efforts within the USDA ARS (the LTAR) or the National Science Foundation (the LTER).  We also have categories that include tools and technologies as a product of our science that are for use in land management and conservation.  These include the “Landscape Toolbox”, “Ecological Site Descriptions” and their supporting information, and “Monitoring and Assessment” technologies, training materials, tools and background literature.  We also include a category “Data Catalogs” that provide access to thousands of data sets, grouped by topics or landscapes.  These catalogs provide information on many different environmental variables collected within the Jornada Basin and at sites around the nation and the world.  These catalogs provide opportunities for further analyses of collected data.

The management of land resources, in the southwestern U.S. and more broadly across the US and on all continents, is challenged by three central problems:

1. What practices and technologies can be developed and used to improve land productivity and its provision of ecological goods and services?,
2. How can science best inform land managers in their application of conservation practices for land management?, and
3. Can we predict how land-based resources will respond to present and future climatic conditions?

Our research program based at the Jornada is directed towards finding solutions to these real problems. We have assembled thousands of data sets linked directly to our program or from other research locations or management agencies that have application to solving these problems.

Our intent is to provide data sets, science-based information, tools, and technologies,  that can be used, through simple or more complex analyses, to inform the various users, stakeholders and the public in their application of management practices and development of policies related to land management.