Kansas
Rangeland Production Lost to Tree Encroachment

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Rangeland Production Lost to Tree Encroachment

Report updated November 10, 2023. See the changelog for details.

Production lost to tree encroachment in 2022
Cumulative production lost to tree encroachment (1990-2022)
968,908 tons
20,997,982 tons

Rangeland Production Losses Map

Click any county on the map below to access its report.

The map above depicts percent production loss in 2022 relative to what would have been achievable had tree cover not changed since 1990. Counties that appear red have had the most production losses in the state as a result of tree cover increases.

Rangeland Production Losses Plots

The plots below show herbaceous production lost to tree cover expansion on an annual (left) and cumulative (right) basis for years 1990 - 2022. The annual plot displays the same information as the map above. Rangeland production may increase when tree cover has declined due to disturbance or management.


Rangeland Production and Tree Cover Summary

Rangeland production in 2022 22,578,414 tons
Rangeland production losses in 2022 968,908 tons (4.11%)
Cumulative rangeland production losses since 1990 20,997,982 tons
Tree cover in 2022 1,470,119 acres
Tree cover change since 1990 +988,133 acres
Tree cover percent in 2022 6.76%
Download the data table used to produce this report.

Supporting Information

The Working Lands for Wildlife (WLFW) science team maintains a woodland expansion database to track annual tree encroachment and resulting losses of herbaceous production in rangelands. Here, these data are presented as national, state, and county summaries.

Tree encroachment is the most commonly used scientific term internationally to describe the increase of tree plants at the expense of herbaceous plants in grass-dominated ecosystems. We therefore use this term in this report, but we acknowledge the importance of local and regional terminology that may better contextualize this process in rangelands. Around the world, expansion, invasion, infill, encroachment, colonization, state transitions or regime shifts are used to characterize this biological process. Ultimately, this model characterizes production losses in rangelands due to increases in trees - irrespective of the regional distinctions used to describe the process.

Vegetation productivity is the most fundamental and important metric in rangelands and measuring losses in rangeland production to tree encroachment at multiple scales has been one of the major knowledge gaps in the rangeland discipline. Wildlife, livestock, and many ecosystem services rely on herbaceous production (i.e., the combined production of grasses and forbs) that is being displaced by tree encroachment.

The production loss statistics and figures presented in these reports are derived from the analysis in Herbaceous production lost to tree encroachment in United States rangelands. In this report, estimates of production losses are directly related to tree cover change based on a 1990 baseline, and changes are not the result of climatic or land use factors (which the analysis accounts for). In short, the values presented in these reports represent the difference between the production that would have been achievable given stable tree cover since 1990 vs. observed production estimated using a satellite-derived dataset. This is referred to as a yield gap, as depicted in the plot below.

Areas analyzed in these reports

These reports estimate rangeland production losses on lands that historically functioned as rangelands. Within historical rangelands, areas heavily modified by row-crop agriculture and the built environment are excluded. We provide additional information regarding rangeland classification below. Report statistics include:

  • Total area: The total area of the state or county covered by the report.
  • Analysis area: The land area used to generate the data found in this report. All land cover classes were included in this analysis except lands labeled as 1) "cultivated" in the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) Cropland Data Layers, 2) "developed" in the 2016 National Land Cover Database (NLCD), and 3) "historically forested" in the LANDFIRE Biophysical Settings (BpS).
  • Area excluded from analysis: The land area removed from this analysis. Specifically, this is the total area labeled as 1) cultivated (NASS), 2) developed (NLCD), and 3) historically forested (BpS).

Analysis area summary for Kansas

Analysis area map for Kansas

Theses production reports will be updated periodically when new data and models become available. The original calculations for these data are outlined here, and include data derived from the Rangeland Analysis Platform V2. Model updates and deviation from the original modeling analysis are summarized below:

2023-11-10: Major model revision to incorporate data from the Rangeland Analysis Platform V3, ensuring reports are up-to-date through 2022. Included in this update is a revised land use mask from NLCD 2021, resulting in a slight reduction of the analyzed acreage due to ongoing agricultural conversion. Consequently, this revision may cause discrepancies in production loss estimates compared to the original reports, affecting data even from years prior to 2020. Please note that the 2022 data is provisional and subject to refinement in future updates.

Report generated on 2023-11-10.