Research Ecologist, Pest Management Research Unit, Northern Plains Agricultural Laboratory, 1500 N Central Ave, Sidney, MT, 59270, USA.
Agricultural Development Officer, Bureau for Food Security, U.S. Agency for International Development, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington D.C., 20004, USA.
J Environ Manage. 2020 Feb 1;255:109889. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.109889. Epub 2019 Dec 26.
Rangeland-based livestock production (RBLP) primarily occurs in drylands where interannual variation in rainfall directly and indirectly affects economies, plant primary productivity (forage production), and livestock reproduction and mortality. Tight ecological and economic links to climate variation constrain production in dryland systems, but producers have a breadth of strategies to reduce climate-related risks and maintain RBLP. Research on these strategies has focused on context-specific tactics linked to specific systems and/or geographies. Inspired by studies that look for broader patterns to offer frameworks for discourse and to advance collective knowledge, we review global literature to identify risk management strategies related to climate variability that are in widespread use across dryland rangeland systems and geographies. We organize strategies within three key decision areas for producers engaged in RBLP: profit and return options, land use, and herd management. Across the decision areas, four strategies emerge as playing a strong role in risk management across the globe, with refinements based on local conditions. These shared and prevalent producer driven strategies are dynamic management of forage supply (in the decision area of land use), dynamic management of animal demand (in the area of herd management), and diversification and use of social networks (both of which apply across all three decision areas). Within each of the decision areas, we found diversification reduces climate related risks but has circumstances under which it is less effective; for example, large landholders already buffered to risk via landscape diversity benefit less from livelihood diversification. In practice, implementation of the four strategies often results in livestock producers who do not maximize short-term profits but instead prioritize land resilience, large herd sizes, lifestyle goals, and longer-term economic sustainability. In this synthesis, we considered existing producer strategies for reducing risk related to climate related variability -- an intrinsic and defining characteristic of dryland rangelands -- in order to highlight valuable areas in which research can support problem solving across diverse RBLP geographies and economies, especially in a changing climate.
草原畜牧业（RBLP）主要发生在干旱地区，那里降雨量的年际变化直接和间接地影响着经济、植物初级生产力（饲料生产）以及牲畜繁殖和死亡率。与气候变化的紧密生态和经济联系限制了旱地系统的生产，但生产者有广泛的策略来降低与气候相关的风险并维持 RBLP。这些策略的研究侧重于与特定系统和/或地理位置相关的特定战术。受旨在寻找更广泛模式以提供讨论框架并推进集体知识的研究的启发，我们回顾了全球文献，以确定在广泛使用的干旱草原系统和地理位置中与气候变异性相关的风险管理策略。我们将策略组织在从事 RBLP 的生产者的三个关键决策领域内：利润和回报选择、土地利用和畜群管理。在所有决策领域中，有四项策略作为在全球范围内管理风险的强大策略出现，并且根据当地条件进行了改进。这些共同的和普遍存在的生产者驱动策略是饲料供应的动态管理（在土地利用决策领域）、动物需求的动态管理（在畜群管理领域）以及多样化和社会网络的利用（这两者都适用于所有三个决策领域）。在每个决策领域中，我们发现多样化可以降低与气候相关的风险，但在某些情况下效果较差；例如，通过景观多样性已经缓冲风险的大型土地所有者从生计多样化中获益较少。在实践中，四项策略的实施通常导致牲畜生产者不会最大化短期利润，而是优先考虑土地弹性、大畜群规模、生活方式目标和长期经济可持续性。在本综述中，我们考虑了现有的生产者策略，以减少与气候变化相关的变异性相关风险——这是干旱草原的固有和定义特征——以突出研究可以支持不同 RBLP 地理位置和经济解决问题的有价值领域，特别是在气候变化的情况下。
