Kazakhstan, situated in the center of the Euro-Asia continent, is the largest country in Central Asia and the ninth largest country in the world (7.0 million km2). Kazakhstan extends about 3,000 km from the Caspian Sea in the West to the Altai Mountains in the East, and 1,600 km from the Tien-Shan Mountains in the South to the western-Siberian lowland in the North. On the Kazakhstan Plains, the following four main ecoregions exist: steppe (25%), semi desert (25%), desert regions (40%), and mountainous (7%). Rangeland watershed dynamics are modeled using tools such as the Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment (AGWA) model, a GIS-based hydrologic assessment tool that contains the Rangeland Hydrology and Erosion Model (RHEM), and a vegetation type classification system with defined plant growth lifeforms at various resolution levels (i.e., rangeland vegetation types and rangeland plant/soil associations). For detailed analyses of the sustainability of a site, an equivalent corresponding system in congruence with the Ecological Site classification system used by United States Department of Agriculture is required. A vegetation/soil site reconnaissance survey was conducted in the grassland steppe between Almaty and Astana, Kazakhstan in the summer of 2017. A conceptual vegetation classification system for watershed model parameterization was developed using aggregated soil and vegetation associations. This allows for first order evaluation of risk for accelerated soil erosion and sustainability to be defined for broad regions of Kazakhstan. For detailed analysis of risk to sustainability at the ranch to pasture level, specific data from hillslopes of concern are required. Evaluation of this approach will be presented along with required next steps in the process to implement systematic rangeland assessments for Kazakhstan.
Oral presentation and poster titles, abstracts, and authors from the Society for Range Management (SRM) Annual Meetings and Tradeshows, from 2013 forward.