Southern Colorado Plateau Network
Inventory and Monitoring Program
The Southern Colorado Plateau Inventory and Monitoring Network (SCPN) is one of the 32 networks created as part of the Natural Resource Challenge of 1999.
The SCPN is composed of 19 parks located throughout the diverse landscapes of northern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, southwestern Colorado and southern Utah. Most of the park units lie within the southern Colorado Plateau ecoregion, but a few parks are allied with the Arizona-New Mexico Mountains and Southern Rocky Mountains ecoregions. The parks range in size from 14 to more than 500,000 hectares, with more than 750,000 hectares within the network designated or proposed as wilderness.
The goals of Inventory and Monitoring networks are:
- inventory the natural resources and park ecosystems under National Park Service stewardship to determine their nature and status;
- monitor park ecosystems to better understand their dynamic nature and condition, and to provide reference points for comparisons with other, altered environments;
- establish natural resource inventory and monitoring as a standard practice throughout the National Park system;
- integrate natural resource inventory and monitoring information into National Park Service planning, management, and decision making;
- share accomplishments and information with others and form partnerships for reaching common goals and objectives.