Part 8: Getting Started: Designating Study Locations, Photography, and Precipitation

Designating Your Data Collection Sites

Study sites should be carefully and clearly marked for photography and other methods of data collection. The information for each site should be entered on the Study Location and Documentation Data form. There are several methods that can be used to mark sites. You can develop your own methods; here we present some suggestions:

System 1

• Consecutively number transects after the name of the location on the ranch. For example, if the allotment or pasture is called Mesa Ridge and is part of the Palo Verde Ranch, you can start numbering the transects PV - Mesa Ridge #1, PV - Mesa Ridge #2, etc.

System 2

• Sites may be identified by their location within a township, range, and section. For example, a site in Section 12 was designated as 03N-37E-12-01, the next transect at this site designated 03N-37E-12-02
  • The township designation would be the first three characters, for example, 03N.
  • The next three characters would be the range (37E).
  • The third set of characters would be the section (12)
  • The last three characters would be the sequential transects at this location, such as (01).
• Based on the above example, the site designation would be 03N37E1201
• This system can of course be adapted to your local area.

System 3

• Sites may be numbered according to their location relative to the location of the initial marking stake.
  • The first character in this site identifying system is a letter designating the site’s location relative to initial stake. The quadrat northeast of the stake is designated as “A”, the northwest, southwest, and southeast quadrats are likewise designated “B”, “C”, and “D”.
  • These large quadrats are then divided into township number, followed by range number, and then section number; these designations are the next characters in the site designation identifier.
  • The next three characters are used to identify sectors within a section (to a size greater than 10 acres) and follow the same pattern (but using lower-case letters) as the first characters in the site designation: the quadrat northeast of the stake is designated as “a”, the northwest, southwest, and southeast quadrats are likewise designated “b”, “c”, and “d”. The starting point for this character is the center of the section.
  • The last character in this site designation identifier is a series of numbers starting with #1 based on the smallest site within the sector.
• An example for site 1 and 2 located in SE1/4NE1/4NW1/4 of Section 8, T3S, R21E would be numbered (D-3-21) 8Bad-1 and (D-3-21) 8Bad-2.

You can, of course, design your own site designation scheme; these are simply meant to give you ideas on how to set up your site identification system. It is critical that your scheme be specific and understandable to others conducting monitoring on your ranch.