Northern Great Basin Rapid Ecoregional Assessment (NGB REA)

The Rapid Ecoregional Assessments (REAs) seek to identify important resource values and patterns of environmental change that may not be evident when managing smaller, local land areas. REAs look across all lands in an ecoregion to identify regionally important habitats for fish, wildlife, and species of concern. REAs then gauge the potential of these habitats to be affected by four overarching environmental change agents: climate change, wildfires, invasive species, and development (both energy development and urban growth).

REA reports and associated geospatial data represent regional scale information and models about resources and change agents. This information is non-decisional but does provide context for cross-jurisdictional, multi-scale resource discussions, potential future conditions, and the basis to prioritize additional information needs.

The attached final report summarizes key results of the REA. The body of the report provides a summary section on methods used to generate the results. Extensive appendices provide complete details on methods and data used and data products delivered to BLM contain further details in their metadata. After this section is a summary of Key Limitations and Data Gaps that users of the REA products should be aware of to properly apply these products; specific limitations are provided in the report chapters.

BLM provided specific criteria for delineating the geographic extent of REAs. The study area for this REA is comprised of two ecoregions, the Northern Basin and Range and the Snake River Plains, identified going forward as the Northern Great Basin (NGB). The NGB encompasses southeastern Oregon, portions of southern Idaho, northern Nevada, and a small extension into northeastern California and northwestern Utah. It is the northern extent of the larger Basin and Range physiographic province and also includes the important upper Snake River drainage system.

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