6: Maintenance and enhancement of long-term multiple socio-economic benefits

An increase in crime can accompany a loss of other economic opportunities in an area. One metric of crime rates is the number of crimes per a population of 100,000.

Tree canopies in urban settings can provide shade, reducing temperatures considerably. The number of days over 90 oF is one way of measuring potentially harmful heat in urban settings, which will vary with shading by tree canopy.

Evaluate urban areas that have higher percent of days over 90 degrees that can contribute to urban heat islands. Tree canopies in urban settings provide shade and reduce air temperatures considerably. The number of days over 90 degrees is one way of measuring potentially harmful heat in urban settings that can lead to unhealthy air quality and a host of health ailments in sensitive groups.

Determine how ranchers and managers are diversifying their income sources to maintain their ownerships and lifestyles. Activities such as fee hunting, conservation easements to protect areas of high conservation value and other forms of recreation have increased on rangeland properties. Increasingly, livestock are being used to manage fuels in conservation reserves and parks with a financial return to the herd manager. The potential for these and other untapped sources of income for ranchers has a bearing on whether or not the land can remain in current uses.

Parks and open space can be quite different from each other in the type, quantity, and quality of habitat they contain for wildlife and to allow natural processes to function. Parks with a lot of services and recreating people may provide fewer ecological benefits than an un-developed open space with little infrastructure.

When people recreate in natural areas, they can disturb animals not adapted to their presence (most animals). Some of these impacts have been studied and are predictable.

This indicator tells us about the labor force and the quality of local employment opportunities.

This indicator describes the extent to which economic policies and practices affect the conservation and sustainable management of rangelands. The indicator explores the relationship between micro-economic and macro-economic processes and long-term sustainable management on rangelands. Recent years have seen a transition from policies that primarily promote increased productive capacity on rangelands to a trend of encouraging ecosystem health and restoration. Extensive research has shown that important outputs of ranches are often not incorporated into conventional economic analyses. These outputs include things like family, tradition, and a rural way of life. In addition to their management-unit level effects, economic policies influence rural communities and regions.

Both the distribution of jobs across sectors and the change in this distribution are important information. Refers to the employment by industry, listed according to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). Industry and employment types include: a. Non-Services Related- Consists of employment in industries such as farm, mining, and manufacturing. b. Services Related- Consists of employment in industries such as retail trade, finance, insurance and real estate, and services. c. Government- Consists of federal, military, state and local government employment, and government enterprise.

The number of jobs available within occupation types can tell a lot about the economic activity in an area. In rural areas, jobs could be related to tourism, logging/milling, goods movement, and ranching. This indicator refers to the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system, where workers are classified into occupations with similar job duties, skills, education, and/or training, regardless of industry.