These baseline data are primarily focused on the SE study area. In many cases, the socioeconomic study area for a BLM planning action is different from the planning area. This occurs because decisions made by BLM can impact socioeconomic conditions in proximate lands and communities, based on where monies flow and how and where services and goods are obtained. A socioeconomic study area may also be larger than the planning area because key socioeconomic data are only available for geographies (e.g. counties) that extend beyond the planning area. The term “SE study area” in this section refers to geographies that slightly differ from the planning area being evaluated in other sections of the document.

Spanning almost 17 million acres, the SE study area is composed of 5.2 million acres in Clark County and 11.6 million acres in Nye County (BLM 2007). Of the total land in the study area, BLM manages the largest portion (55 percent), followed by the U.S. Forest Service (13 percent), Department of Defense (13 percent), Department of Energy (5 percent), private land owners (5 percent), National Park Service (4 percent), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (3 percent), Bureau of Indian Affairs (1 percent), State of Nevada (0.4 percent), and Bureau of Reclamation (0.2 percent). The large majority of land in the SE study area is federally managed, including 98 percent of the land in Nye County and 88 percent in Clark County (BLM 2009).

The total population of the SE study area was estimated to be just over 2 million in 2012, with Clark County accounting for slightly less than 2 million and Nye County accounting for 43,000 people (U.S. Census Bureau 2014). The SE study area has several urban areas, but the majority of the area is rural and sparsely populated. In 2012, the overall density of the SE study area was 77.6 people per square mile, with 248.3 people per square mile in Clark County and 2.4 people per square mile in Nye County. Clark County is much more densely populated than the rest of the state or the nation, and Nye County is far less densely populated than either the state or nation. Population Area and Density for 201256 displays the population area and density for 2012.

The most urbanized and populous portion of the SE study area is the Las Vegas metropolitan area, located in central Clark County and encompassing the cities of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, and Henderson, along with several unincorporated communities. Other communities with small but expanding populations lay in proximity to the metropolitan area, including Pahrump to the west and Mesquite and Boulder City to the east, with the latter two situated along or near the Colorado River and Lake Mead. Large amounts of land in Clark County and the large majority of Nye County remain remote and rural, with smaller communities scattered across the area. Both Clark and Nye counties are accessible by road, train, and air travel, and from the north, south, east, and west. Major highways include Interstates 15, 215, and 515; U.S. Routes 93 and 95; State Routes 157, 159, and 160; and County Route 215. The primary interstate to and from the area is I-15, running between Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. The Union Pacific Railroad (a class one railroad) provides freight service to the area. McCarran International Airport offers domestic and international flights to and from the area. Within the SE study area, RTC Transit is a bus system that services the Las Vegas metropolitan area of Clark County. The Southern Nevada Transit Coalition provides bus services to and from some of Clark County’s outlying areas, including Mesquite and Laughlin.

Native Americans have a long history in the Southern Nevada region (NPA 2010a, Nation Master Encyclopedia 2010, and Wikipedia 2010). In prehistoric times, as early as 350 B.C., the valley was inhabited by the Ancestral Puebloan people. Sometime around 1000 A.D. the Southern Paiutes, who were a hunter-gatherer society, moved into the area and coexisted with the Anasazi, who left the area around 1150. The Southern Paiutes continued to occupy the Moapa Desert and the Colorado River region, living near water sources and hunting, gathering, and farming. White settlers began moving to the area in the mid-1800s as a result of the creation of the Old Spanish Trail (linking Santa Fe, New Mexico, with Los Angeles, California), the establishment of the rail system, and the discovery of gold and silver in the mountains of Southern Nevada. With western expansion, the population of Mormon settlers and other pioneers of European descent continued to increase, and the land that the Paiutes used was eventually taken by white settlers for their crops, livestock, and settlements. The Paiute population declined as a result of the unfamiliar traditions and diseases brought by the new settlers. In 1869, the Moapa Band of Paiute Indians was moved to the Moapa River Indian Reservation. The size of the reservation has changed over time, and today the reservation covers 71,954 acres of land in Clark County (Moapa Paiutes 2010), although it does not include the watershed and lands along the Colorado River that Native Americans once occupied. The Las Vegas Paiute Tribe today has 3,810 acres of land at the Snow Mountain Reservation (Las Vegas Paiute Tribe 2010) and 12.5 acres in downtown Las Vegas. The Fort Mojave Indian Tribe has more than 5,500 acres in the SE study area at the southern tip of Nevada.