Gene Fults is a rangeland management specialist retired from USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and a current Director of PNW SRM. Today he is employed by the Center for Survey Statistics and Methodology (CSSM) at Iowa State University.  CSSM houses the Natural Resource Inventory (NRI) data for USDA NRCS.

NRI is conducted periodically in the United States by USDA NRCS. The NRI program collects and produces scientifically credible information on the status, condition, and trends of land, soil, water, and related natural resources on the nation’s non-federal lands.  It is the largest field-based survey of natural resources in the world.  Inventories of natural resources have been conducted for over 65 years on non-Federal lands. For rangelands, the 12 current inventory and assessment protocols were developed in a collaboration of federal agencies, were tested for several years across the continental United States, and were set in 2004. The same set of protocols was applied to Federal rangelands beginning in 2009. 

This presentation describes the protocols and some of the new relevant information being generated by this longitudinal statistical study of on-site rangeland inventory.