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Part of Grazing and range management

Range health

Rangeland health evaluates forests, grasslands, shrublands and tame pasture to ensure key ecosystem functions are maintained.

Overview

The Government of Alberta has developed tools to assess the health of rangeland ecosystems and evaluate the overall condition of a range site.

Rangeland health assessments

The health of rangeland ecosystems is measured by the ability of rangeland to perform key ecological functions:

  • maintenance of soil/site stability
  • net primary production
  • capture and beneficial release of water
  • nutrient and energy cycling
  • functional diversity of plant species

Assessments of these indicators are used to evaluate the health of forest, native shrublands and grasslands, and tame pastures, and enables the province to determine the ecological health of public rangelands.

These tools are also available for use by ranchers, students, researchers and resource managers.

Workbook and worksheets

Range Plant Community guides

Assessing rangeland health requires knowledge of the kind and type of rangeland being assessed. Before using the tools below, you will require assistance from range plant community guides. To find a listing of the guides, see:

Workbook

Field worksheets and score sheets

Forest

Grassland

Tame pasture