Tools, Maps & Apps
Data at your fingertips to improve working lands and wildlife habitat.
WLFW and our partners developed free conservation targeting products using advanced spatial technologies that merge field-collected vegetation data, satellite imagery, and other environmental data.
Fast, powerful, and free, these online tools help practitioners quickly visualize and analyze how vegetation has changed across big landscapes or in small pastures. The vegetation data goes back to 1986, covers all rangelands in the contiguous U.S., and is updated every 16 days.
The Rangeland Analysis Platform and its associated data products—maps, calculators, charts and more—can identify where landscapes are still intact, where they face threats, and how productivity has changed over time. For instance, an app might show:
- How many pounds of forage a rancher has lost due to encroaching trees
- Where an herbicide treatment might stem the spread of invasive cheatgrass
- How wet meadows, springs or creeks fare during drought years
- Where wildfires have the most probability of burning based on grass production
Landscape Explorer is an engaging, interactive map application that highlights how Western landscapes have changed over time. Users can zoom in to any location from the Great Plains to the Pacific Coast and easily swipe between historical imagery from the 1950s and modern imagery from 2014-2023. Landscape Explorer makes it easy to see how how our western landscapes have changed in the past 70 years. Specifically, the application highlights:
- How woody plants like eastern redcedar trees and pinyon-juniper trees have encroached on native rangeland;
- How expanding croplands are gobbling up wildlife habitat and prime grazing lands;
- How urban and suburban expansion is impacting the West's wide-open spaces.
