Adaptive grazing management in semiarid rangelands: An outcome-driven focus

Authors: Derner, Justin; BUDD, BOB - State Of Wyoming; GRISSOM, GRADY - Rancho Largo; KACHERGIS, EMILY - Bureau Of Land Management; Augustine, David; WILMER, HAILEY - Forest Service (FS); SCASTA, J. DEREK - University Of Wyoming; RITTEN, JOHN - University Of Wyoming

Submitted to: Rangelands
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/18/2021
Publication Date: 3/3/2022
Citation: Derner, J.D., Budd, B., Grissom, G., Kachergis, E., Augustine, D.J., Wilmer, H., Scasta, J., Ritten, J.P. 2022. Adaptive grazing management in semiarid rangelands: An outcome-driven focus. Rangelands. 44(1):111-118. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rala.2021.02.004.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rala.2021.02.004

Interpretive Summary: Land managers often use adaptive management within and between years, and across their ranch/allotments to learn from implementing management practices and make adjustments when needed. Short-term monitoring procedures should be focused on locations where change is happening, or uncertainty is high. Long-term monitoring procedures should emphasize consistent methodology across years for multiple ecosystem services. Adaptive management success requires identifying and prioritizing outcomes and key timing of information feedback from monitoring that can be incorporated into management actions that can be made rapidly when adjustments are needed.

Technical Abstract: In diverse semiarid rangelands, land managers often use adaptive management – strategic planning and goal setting, resource monitoring, and frequent evaluation of management success – in spatially-explicit efforts to learn from implementing management practices and make adjustments when needed. Adaptive management should explicitly involve stakeholders, provide management flexibility for a suite of ecosystem goods and services, and be tightly link science-informed monitoring to decision-making benchmarks for effective adaptive management feedback loops. Short-term monitoring procedures should be designed to be simple, quick, and based on internally consistent methods that are focused on locations where change is happening, or uncertainty is high. In contrast, long-term monitoring procedures should emphasize consistent methodology across years that provides broader ecosystem context for multiple ecosystem services (e.g., watershed protection and grassland bird habitat). Fundamental to adaptive management success in achieving specific outcomes are the planning processes including identifying and prioritizing outcomes, and the efficiency and timing of information feedback from monitoring that influences the ability to be nimble and make rapid decisions when benchmarks are attained that result in management actions.