RANGE RESOURCE ANALYSIS AND MANAGEMENT 
FLOW CHART 
(Oregon Division of State Lands Survey) 
PREPARATION OF WORKING MATERIALS 
Lands Records and Base Maps 
(Locate Parcels) 
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| Aerial Photography 
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PROJECT SURVEY 
~ Delineate & Interpret Types 
LEGEND AND KEY DEVELOPMENT 
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Map with 100 percent ground | ° oe 
check & ecological | / 74 Si 
data gathering a, Doubtful Reliable 
| vy. Interpretations 
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Ground Check | 
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Assign Legend Symbols 
Interpretations 
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[Photo Interp. Keys & Aids 
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| Ecological Legend 
Compile Data 
Prepare Summary Report 
USE AND APPLICATION 
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Set Policy 
and 
Objectives 
Strengthen and 
Add to Resource 
Information Base 
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| Develop 
Action ; 
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4 
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| Program 
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FIGURE 7.—An abbreviated flow chart showing the 
major steps in a resource analysis program that 
makes maximum use of aerial photography as a 
working tool. 
tershed management, wildlife management, and 
recreation development and management of all 
nonarable land resources. It is the only ap- 
proach that will put multiple use management 
on an automatically coordinated common base 
—an accurate picture of the inherent ecologi- 
cal characteristics of the land from which all 
these uses are derived. Such resource analyses 
cannot be prepared without strong reliance on 
remote sensing and aerial photo interpretation 
as a means of preparing the maps and as a val- 
uable aid in the identification of similar kinds 
of land. 
In summary, the following four important 
values are derivable from an ecological re- 
source analysis: 
(1) It provides a common base for the accu- 
mulation of more resource information related 
to individual or groups of uses and to results 
from the application of particular management 
practices. 
(2) It provides the needed stratification 
base for obtaining data to index or measure the 
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response of the resource to man’s manipulative 
activity. All too frequently past attempts to 
document vegetation changes have led to the 
decision “no significant response” when the 
problem was merely excessive, unidentified 
variability in the data. The solution to this 
problem is proper stratification of samples in 
the acquisition and summarization of data. 
(8) It provides an excellent way to extend 
research results and management practices to 
ecologically equivalent sites and thus to re- 
move most of the guesswork in the application 
of information to new areas. 
(4) It provides an answer to the question 
“What is range and forest site?’ This resource 
analysis approach provides a natural basis for 
determining site potentials for any use or prod- 
uct of the land. 
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE-— 
Despite the successes and problems asso- 
ciated with the interpretation of vegetation re- 
sources from conventional panchromatic aerial 
photography, this system of remote sensing is 
greatly underdeveloped in relation to its poten- 
tial contribution. This has resulted from prob- 
lems of quality control and from past conserva- 
tive attitudes regarding the expenditure of 
funds for photography that is especially suited 
to the needs of the range resources analyst. 
Conventional aerial photography can tell us 
far more about vegetation resources than the 
average technician realizes. Range people have 
a lot of catching up to do. Let us: 
(1) Write and insist on appropriate specifi- 
cations for useful aerial photography. 
(2) Learn to interpret and use in our day- 
to-day work high-resolution photography of an 
appropriate scale and season of photography to 
best meet our needs. 
(8) Begin concerted research and manage- 
ment to unravel the community ecology and 
vegetation-soil relationships to provide the 
basis for ground examinations that are essen- 
tial in accurate photo interpretation, and 
(4) Become skilled photo interpreters of 
conventional photography so that we will 
know both how and when to use the more so- 
phisticated systems that are now lying on our 
doorsteps ready or almost ready to be picked 
up and applied in doing a better job of range 
resource development, improvement, and man- 
agement in a sound multiple-use setting. 
As we move ahead in vegetation resource use 
development and management in the United 
States, the combination of resource ecology and 
remote sensing will place a recording of the 
resource of unimagined quality at the finger- 
tips of the decisionmaker. Through the combi- 
nation of these two sciences, resource ecology 
and remote sensing, we will be able to relegate 
