Rangeland Ecology & Management

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Rangeland production : use of models incorporating aggregated knowledge and fuzzy construction
Author
Thomas, D A
Sun, Ximing
Publisher
Journal of Arid Environments
Publication Year
1995
Body

This work reports on a method using fuzzy membership functions to construct an aggregated interaction matrix in which the summation of variables is scaled according to the way rainfall and soil variables affect water availability to plants and hence influence rangeland productivity. Aggregation of the variables gives a comprehensive value which can be used to predict production. The model increases the predicability of production to 81% compared to models using rainfall alone and a multiplicative parametric one which give predictibilities of 61 and 76% respectively. The results showed that (1) the importance of rainfall in determining production was most important at lower rainfalls i.e. <350 mm; (2) soil texture and particularly slope were important through out the rainfall range (149-700 mm) investigated; and (3) soil depth was only important at the higher >350 mm rainfalls. The aggregated interaction matrix gives a measure of land productive capability.

Language
English
Resource Type
Text
Document Type
Journal Issue/Article
Journal Volume
30
Journal Number
4
Journal Pages
479-494
Journal Name
Journal of Arid Environments
Keywords
rangelands
biomass production
fuzzy sets
interaction matrix
models
aggregated knowledge
rainfall
Soil Condition
soil moisture
water use efficiency
plant production
animal production
Africa