The impact of climate variability on land use and livelihoods in Australia's rangelands

Climate change is probably one of the greatest threats facing humans into the next century. The effects of a changing climate in Australia will be most strongly felt in the rangelands; arid and semiarid grazing and marginal farming land that makes up about 70% of the land area of the Australian continent. Over the next century, Australias rangelands are likely to experience hotter temperatures, lower annual precipitation, and more frequent droughts and dust storms. These conditions will have a marked influence on pastoralism, dryland agriculture, and the sustainability of agricultural enterprises, its people, and their communities. Climate change will reduce ground-storey plant cover, reduce livestock and crop yields, place a greater burden on a declining pastoral land, and increase land degradation and soil nutrient loss. Increasing climatic variability will affect local communities by intensifying the displacement of people from rural areas, reducing community size and the provision of infrastructure and health services, and placing an increasing social burden on communities. Strategies to mitigate the effects of climate change include the use of different breeds of grazing animals, altered livestock rotation systems, crop desertification, the use of new crop varieties, and development of management strategies that reduce the risk of flooding, wildfire, and drought. Overall, the adaptive capacity of rangeland managers will depend on their financial and social resilience and their ability to innovate and access new information. Overcoming policy and social constraints to adaptation will need to be a high priority of government.