Understanding the structure and composition of landscapes can empower agencies to effectively manage public lands for multiple uses while sustaining land health. Many landscape metrics exist, but they are not often used in public land decision-making. Our objectives were to (1) develop and (2) apply a process for identifying a core set of indicators that public land managers can use to understand landscape-level resource patterns on and around public lands. We first developed a process for identifying indicators that are grounded in policy, feasible to quantify using existing data and resources, and useful for managers. We surveyed landscape monitoring efforts by other agencies, gathered science and agency input on monitoring goals, and quantified the prevalence of potential indicators in agency land health standards to identify five landscape indicators: amount, distribution, patch size, structural connectivity, and diversity of vegetation types. We then conducted pilot applications in four bureau of land management (BLM) field offices in Arizona, California, and Colorado to refine procedures for quantifying the indicators and assess the utility of the indicators for managers. Results highlighted the dominance of upland and the limited extent of riparian/wetland vegetation communities, moderate connectivity of priority vegetation patches, and lower diversity of native vegetation types on BLM compared to non-BLM lands. Agency staff can use the indicators to inform the development of quantitative resource management objectives in land use plans, evaluate progress in meeting those objectives, quantify potential impacts of proposed actions, and as a foundation for an all-lands approach to landscape-level management across public lands.

了解景观的结构和组成可以使机构能够有效地管理公共土地的多种用途，同时保持土地健康。存在许多景观指标，但它们并不经常用于公共土地决策。我们的目标是 (1) 开发和 (2) 应用一个过程来确定一组核心指标，公共土地管理者可以使用这些指标来了解公共土地上和周围的景观级资源模式。我们首先开发了一个流程，用于识别基于政策的指标，使用现有数据和资源进行量化是可行的，并且对管理者有用。我们调查了其他机构的景观监测工作，收集了科学和机构对监测目标的投入，并量化机构土地健康标准中潜在指标的普遍性，以确定五个景观指标：数量、分布、斑块大小、结构连通性和植被类型的多样性。然后，我们在亚利桑那州、加利福尼亚州和科罗拉多州的四个土地管理局 (BLM) 外地办事处进行了试点应用，以改进量化指标的程序并评估指标对管理者的效用。结果突出了高地的优势和河岸/湿地植被群落的有限范围，优先植被斑块的中等连​​通性，以及与非 BLM 土地相比，BLM 上原生植被类型的多样性较低。机构工作人员可以使用这些指标为土地利用计划中量化资源管理目标的制定提供信息，