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ARS Home » Plains Area » Las Cruces, New Mexico » Range Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #338496
Title: A climate change indicator framework for rangelands and pastures of the USA

Author
item OJIMA, DENNIS - Colorado State University
item Reyes, Julian Jon
item AICHER, REBECCA - University Of Maryland
item ARCHER, STEVEN - University Of Arizona
item BAILEY, DEREK - New Mexico State University
item CASBY-HORTON, SUSAN - Texas Tech University
item CAVALLARO, NANCY - National Institute Of Food And Agriculture (NIFA)
item TANAKA, JOHN - University Of Wyoming
item WASHGINTON-ALLEN, ROBERTA - University Of Tennessee

Submitted to: Climatic Change
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/28/2020
Publication Date: 11/20/2020
Citation: Ojima, D.S., Reyes, J.T., Aicher, R., Archer, S., Bailey, D., Casby-Horton, S.H., Cavallaro, N., Tanaka, J., Washginton-Allen, R.A. 2020. A climate change indicator framework for rangelands and pastures of the USA. Climatic Change. 163:1733-1750. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-020-02915-y.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-020-02915-y

Interpretive Summary: Grasslands, shrublands, rangelands, and pasturelands (GSRPs) provide important agricultural products such as dairy and meat, and also support the communities in and around these areas. The sheer areal extent of GSRPs, as well as their management by humans, make them extremely vulnerable to changes in climate. This paper provides a set of indicators to examine how trends and relationships among environmental and socio-economic variables change over time in the context of climate change. We determined an initial set of five indicators that tell a story of how climate change is affecting GSRPs. We look at environmental variables such as the amount of vegetation present, as well as socio-economic ones such as changes in the value of livestock products. This paper is important to rural communities, producers, ranchers, and land managers because of the relevance to sustainably managing vulernable GSRP landscapes under more extreme weather variability and long-term climatic changes. The indicators presented here provide a foundation for future research in GSRPs to ensure the long-term ecological resilience and also economic viability of these landscapes.

Technical Abstract: Grasslands, shrublands, rangelands, and pasturelands (GSRPs) comprise more than a third of the land area in the United States and worldwide. The ecosystem goods and services derived from GSRPs provide critical wildlife habitat, forage for livestock, water conservation, and soil stabilization to support biodiversity and livelihoods across these systems. This paper synthesizes various definitions of GSRPs and demonstrates their importance as a coupled human and natural system. A simplified conceptual model is presented to frame our selection and development of possible indicators of climate-related response of the social-ecological dynamics of GSRPs. An initial set of five system indicators were selected including: land cover extent, net primary productivity, beef cattle numbers, human demographics (e.g. age, gender, ethnicity), and value of animal products. The conceptual model provides a systems perspective of the impact of climate change on the social-ecological dynamics of GSRPs including measures of the resilience and vulnerability of ecosystem services in regards to the five indicators. Examples of the types of regional information associated with the indicators are provided. Guidance for future efforts in indicator development is offered.