Precipitation in the form of rain and snow is critical to many aspects of working lands from controlling the growth of vegetation used in grazing by livestock and wildlife to recharging local water resources found in springs, tanks and riparian areas. Land management decisions often require some knowledge of how much precipitation fell within a management unit to assess how past actions have performed and what to do next. For example, do forage conditions reflect a lack of precipitation or grazing management? Did the next pasture or allotment in my rotation get any rainfall over the past season?
Given that precipitation monitoring is important, where and how do we usually get this information? Typically, we consult websites and maps that track precipitation observations from airports and backyard observers. These ‘official’ sites, managed by volunteer and federal agency programs, do a good job of maintaining a steady stream of high quality data, but often are located near cities away from rural and backcountry areas where the bulk of land management activities occur. Estimates provided by interpolating between these official gauges can provide just that, estimates. Knowing how much and when precipitation fell in your pasture, allotment or land management unit is a key variable for sound decision making and requires collecting precipitation data directly at that site.
Overall, this “best practices” guide will cover some of the basic approaches to collecting and using precipitation observations at remote sites in support of rangeland management including:
- Tying observations to a drought plan
- Where to place gauges and how often to record observations
- Managing and using precipitation observations
This guide will also highlight some new tools that help put your precipitation observations into a longer-term climatological context. Knowing how much it rained is one thing, but knowing that observation is below average for that location and time period is additional insight critical to interpreting and using that piece of information to support a management decision.