Identifying Priority Science Information Needs for Managing Public Lands.

ABSTRACT: Public lands worldwide provide diverse resources, uses, and values, ranging from wilderness to extractive uses. Decision-making on public lands is complex as a result and is required by law to be informed by science. However, public land managers may not always have the science they need. We developed a methodology for identifying priority science needs for public land management agencies. We relied on two core data sources: environmental effects analyses conducted for agency decisions and legal challenges to those decisions. We considered needs in four categories: data, science, methods, and mitigation measures. We classified topics as primary science needs when (1) the topic was analyzed frequently in agency environmental analyses, (2) our metric of quality/defensibility was low or mitig

SUBMITTER: Carter SK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11861505 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature