A Decision Support Approach to Sustainable Grazing Management for Spatially Heterogeneous Rangeland Paddocks.

Abstract

Public concern for the way land resources are used has led to the introduction of legislation in several Australian States requiring the demonstration of sustainable use of the pastoral resource. However, no practical system of appraisal of sustainability in grazing management systems exists. The common situation facing decision-makers at policy and enterprise levels is one of inadequate, unobtainable or inappropriate data, or systematic indeterminacy. This necessitates erring on the side of caution, through an adaptive integrated approach to decision-making. Such an approach requires: (i) an understanding of the key processes that govern the interactions between livestock, plants, and heterogeneous landscape systems; (ii) the identification of indicators of potential problems in these systems at spatial and temporal scales relevant to human use and management; and (iii) the availability of effective tools to evaluate management options in terms of their risks to the sustainability of the grazing land resource, and the profitability of production. This paper describes a decision support approach to improving our understanding of the complexities of grazing management systems. The paper first proposes an integrated framework for a decision support system (DSS) for evaluating the sustainability of grazing management in terms of the risk of changes to the vegetation and soil resource, and the profitability of production. It then examines an application of a DSS approach, called Landassess DSS, to the tropical woodlands in northern Australia, and discusses the broader implications for sustainable management of extensive native pasture livestock production systems.