Vegetation of Utah

Document Type

Contribution to Book

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Rangeland Resources of Utah

Publisher

Utah State University

Publication Date

1-1-2009

First Page

49

Last Page

94

Abstract

In order to organize and facilitate management of Utah’s ecosystems, generalization of the ecological variation found across the state is necessary. Ecosystems involve complex interactions between environment and biota, and there have been many efforts to generalize and categorize these interactions in order to gain a better understanding of their structure and organization. The most common method of categorizing ecological variations across large landscapes today incorporates the ecoregion concept. Ecoregions are geographic delineations of landscapes containing ecosystems linked by similar climatic, geologic, soil, and landform characteristics. The primary characteristics used to delineate ecoregions vary depending on the overall goal of the individual or management agency. Therefore, ecoregions vary in their geographic extent and shape, but tend to generally identify similar geographies and ecosystems. Examples of ecoregion delineations in Utah consist of the United States Forest Service Bailey Ecoregions (Bailey, 1995) and the Omernik Ecoregions used by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (Omernik, 1987)

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS