Rangelands A Resource Under Siege

This volume comprises the proceedings of the Second International Rangelands Congress held in Adelaide, Australia in May 1984, and includes some 350 contributions drawn from 43 different countries. The Congress addressed the problem of the conflict between land-users and the degradation of this valuable resource. Some 40% of the Earth's land surface is and or alpine and therefore unsuitable for agricultural cultivation. Collectively, these lands are known as rangelands and in their natural state they constitute a habitat for grazing animals, both domestic and wild. Despite their low productivity, rangelands have been used for thousands of years as a source of food and fibre, but other uses such as mining, tourism, recreation and conservation are exerting increasing demands. The result is often conflict between land-users and degradation of the resource.

Natural grasslands, pastures and meadows are among the vegetation types most frequently investigated with phytosociological methods. This was one of the reasons why volume 13, Application of vegetation science to grassland husbandry and agriculture, edited by W. Krause, appeared as one of the first volumes of this handbook. It appeared under the chief editorship of Prof. R. Tiixen and in his time main emphasis of the handbook was placed on Ziirich-Montpellier methods and the European vegetation. When we redesigned the handbook we felt the need to include other methods and aims of grassland analyses as well as a more global coverage of grasslands. Especially the natural dry and semidry areas of the world needed to be covered. was very fortunate in getting Prof. Tueller of the University of Reno I Nevada as an editor for this volume. He and the colleagues he motivated to compile volume 14 on Application of vegetation science to rangeland analysis and management have created a truly global coverage of the topics interesting for vegetation analyses in natural grasslands. Since volume 13 covered the problems of anthropogenically created grasslands, this topic was not expressly treated in order to avoid duplication. For the same reason no specific attempt was made to get more papers from Europe and the temperate forest region in general. The cooperation with Dr. Tueller has been very rewarding for me.

The chapters in this section place the problems of vegetation and climate interactions in semi-arid regions into the context which recur throughout the book. First, Verstraete and Schwartz review desertification as a process of global change evaluating both the human and climatic factors. The theme of human impact and land management is discussed further by Roberts whose review focuses on semi-arid land-use planning. In the third and final chapter in this section we return to the meteorological theme. Nicholls reviews the effects of El Nino/Southern Oscillation on Australian vegetation stressing, in particular, the interaction between plants and their climatic environment. Vegetatio 91: 3-13, 1991. 3 A. Henderson-Sellers and A. J. Pitman (eds). Vegetation and climate interactions in semi-arid regions. © 1991 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Desertification and global change 2 M. M. Verstraete! & S. A. Schwartz ! Institute for Remote Sensing Applications, CEC Joint Research Centre, Ispra Establishment, TP 440, 1-21020 Ispra (Varese), Italy; 2 Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI48109-2143, USA Accepted 24. 8. 1990 Abstract Arid and semiarid regions cover one third of the continental areas on Earth. These regions are very sensitive to a variety of physical, chemical and biological degradation processes collectively called desertification.

Although traditionally defined as areas where natural vegetation is exploited for grazing by domestic and native herbivores, rangelands are used by many different people, for a host of purposes. As well as livestock products, rangelands provide fuels, minerals and water and are used for ecotourism, recreation, nature conservation and as carbon sinks. More than half of the earth's land surface is rangeland and millions of people, both within and outside the rangelands, depend on them. This book addresses the important issues confronting the rangelands and presents new concepts and approaches for the management of rangeland resources. It is relevant to the people who live in or depend on the rangelands, and to the institutions and organisations that support them.

This book provides reference material for those responsible for grazing land management in China and its long-term consequences (environmental, social and economic). It responds to the urgent need to collate and review some of the major degradation experienced in China's vast pastoral lands. An outline is presented of the major biological processes and socioeconomic influences that operate in selected pastoral rangelands in China. In this book, the authors had confined their analysis to the impact on the resource from a rangeland user's perspective, but recognized the much wider impacts and urge fellow researchers to take up the challenge of addressing the environmental and social impacts of these major land degradation episodes. The historical case studies described in the book represent a failure to manage for the extreme climate variability that characterizes north and west China's vast arid rangelands.

First published in 1995. This title presents the proceedings of The Second International Conference on Range Management in the Arabian Gulf, 1990. The objectives of the Conference were to: evaluate progress made following the First Conference; exchange information on range management development; review advances in applicable technologies; discuss potential strategies for range enhancement and assemble pertinent recommendations for enactment. As such, these proceedings will serve as a reference base for researchers, professors, lecturers, and students alike, both at advanced undergraduate and graduate levels.

Climate variability has major impacts in many parts of the world, including Australia. Developments in understanding of the El Niño - Southern Oscillation Phenomenon have introduced some skill in seasonal to inter-annual climate forecasting. Can this skill be harnessed to advantage? Or do we just continue to observe these impacts? How does a decision-maker managing an agricultural or natural ecosystem modify decisions in response to a skillful, but imprecise, seasonal climate forecast? Using Australian experience as a basis, this book focuses on these questions in pursuing means to better manage climate risks. The state of the science in climate forecasting is reviewed before considering detailed examples of applications to: farm scale agricultural decisions (such as management of cropping and grazing systems); regional and national scale agricultural decisions (such as commodity trading and government policy); and natural systems (such as water resources, pests and diseases, and natural fauna). Many of the examples highlight the participatory and inter-disciplinary approach required among decision-makers, resource systems scientists/analysts, and climate scientists to bring about the effective applications. The experiences discussed provide valuable insights beyond the geographical and disciplinary focus of this book. The book is ideally suited to professionals and postgraduate students in ecology, agricultural climatology, environmental planning, and climate science.