ARS | Publication request: Monitoring rangeland health: A guide for pastoralists and other land managers in Eastern Africa

Submitted to: Government Publication/Report
Publication Type: Government Publication
Publication Acceptance Date: March 12, 2010
Publication Date: April 30, 2010
Citation: Riginos, C., Herrick, J.E. 2010. Monitoring rangeland health: A guide for pastoralists and other land managers in Eastern Africa. Version II. Nairobi, Kenya: ELMT-USAID/East Africa.

Technical Abstract: This guide provides is written for people who want to design and implement a simple rangeland monitoring programme in eastern Africa that is based on ecological priniciples and reflects the status of key ecological processes. It outline a series of steps that enable community members and other land managers to decide what, where, when, and how to monitor, as well as how to interpret and apply the results of their monitoring. It is based on a simple set of methods for monitoring plant and ground cover, gaps between plants, plant height, and plant density. It also also provides instructions for collecting basic site information and observational data for interpreting monitoring results. The methods require only a pencil, a 1m stick, and a single datasheet, but generate data that are for the most part comparable with those collected using standardized monitoring protocols such as those applied by the United States National Resources Inventory (NRI).