Get reliable rangeland science

Grazing is a major land use in Australia's rangelands. The safe' livestock carrying capacity (LCC) required to maintain resource condition is strongly dependent on climate. We reviewed: the approaches for quantifying LCC; current trends in climate and their effect on components of the grazing system; implications of the best estimates' of climate change projections for LCC; the agreement and disagreement between the current trends and projections; and the adequacy of current models of forage production in simulating the impact of climate change. We report the results of a sensitivity study of climate change impacts on forage production across the rangelands, and we discuss the more general issues facing grazing enterprises associated with climate change, such as known uncertainties' and adaptation responses (e.g. use of climate risk assessment).