Historical Ecology, Restoration, and Management of Springs in Desert National Wildlife Refuge

Springs in Desert National Wildlife Refuge, Nevada are critical to wildlife conservation and have long histories of human use and management toward different goals. I use a historical ecology approach to summarize the... [ view full abstract ]

Springs in Desert National Wildlife Refuge, Nevada are critical to wildlife conservation and have long histories of human use and management toward different goals. I use a historical ecology approach to summarize the human-spring relationship over time in this part of the Southern Paiute ancestral territory. I triangulate data collected from archeological pedestrian surveys and botanical species composition surveys at 10 Refuge springs, in addition to semi-structured interviews, literature review, and archival research to achieve a multi-dimensional view of spring use, management, and ecological change over time. In the face of threats by regional water scarcity and federal land withdrawl from Refuge protection, this provides a multi-disciplinary baseline of springs and their historical variability to serve as reference points for use in future management and restoration. The political and economic drivers of land-use change are discussed alongside summaries of individual spring histories in a deliverable report and as part of my master's of science thesis in Anthropology.