The Impact of Climate Change on California Rangelands and Livestock Management

Steven M. Ostoja, Hyeyeong Choe (), James H. Thorne, Pelayo Alvarez, Amber Kerr, Jennifer Balachowski and Julian Reyes
Additional contact information
Steven M. Ostoja: USDA California Climate Hub, 501 Engineering Bikeway, Davis, CA 95616, USA
Hyeyeong Choe: Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Bioresources, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea
James H. Thorne: Department of Environmental Science and Policy, UC Davis, 1 Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA
Pelayo Alvarez: Audubon California, 1901 Harrison Street, Oakland, CA 94612, USA
Amber Kerr: USDA California Climate Hub, 501 Engineering Bikeway, Davis, CA 95616, USA
Jennifer Balachowski: USDA California Climate Hub, 501 Engineering Bikeway, Davis, CA 95616, USA
Julian Reyes: USDA Climate Hub Program, Office of the Chief Economist, Washington, DC 20250, USA

Agriculture, 2023, vol. 13, issue 11, 1-13

Abstract: On a global scale, rangelands occupy approximately half of the world’s land base surface; have a critical role in carbon sequestration and biodiversity; and support a diverse and critical economy, but at the same time, are under threat by many factors, including climate change. California rangelands, which are no exception to these aforementioned characteristics, are also unique socio-ecological systems that provide a broad range of ecosystem services and support a >$3 billion annual cattle ranching industry. However, climate change both directly and indirectly poses significant challenges to the future sustainability of California rangelands and, ultimately, the management of livestock, which has important economic implications for the state’s agricultural economy. In this study, we examined the changes in overall climate exposure and climatic water deficit (CWD), which was used as a physiological plant water stress gauge, to evaluate potential impacts of climate change on various rangeland vegetation types across California. We used two downscaled global climate models, MIROC and CNRM, under the ‘business-as-usual’ emissions scenario of RCP8.5 at a mid-century time horizon of 2040–2069 and known vegetation–climate relationships. Using the models, we predicted climate change effects using metrics and spatial scales that have management relevance and that can support climate-informed decision making for livestock managers. We found that more than 80% of the area of the rangeland vegetation types considered in this study will have higher CWD by 2040–2069. We evaluated these results with beef cattle inventory data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture by county and found that, on average, 71.6% of rangelands in the top 30 counties were projected to be highly climate-stressed. We found that current proactive and reactive ranching practices such as resting pastures, reducing herd size, and rotational grazing may need to be expanded to include additional strategies for coping with declining plant productivity.

Keywords: rangelands; cattle; climate change impacts; climatic water deficit; adaptive ranching (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
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