Monitoring to detect change on rangelands: physical, social and economic /policy drivers

Abstract

Agents that can cause important changes in properties of biological communities are referred to as drivers. Drivers may be classed as physical, social and economic/policy, referring to their origin and mode of action. Physical drivers include environmental (weather, climate) and management (livestock grazing, prescribed burning) factors. Social drivers include attitudes and values of land mangers and the public. Economic/policy drivers refer to factors such as tax laws and environmental policies (including penalties and incentives). These drivers seldom operate independently, at similar scales, or in isolation from other drivers, and subtle interactions may confound both interpretation and response. While it is difficult to identify the impact of a specific driver on a specific biological property at a specific time, it is important to monitor changes in drivers to both predict likely impacts on ecological systems and design effective response tactics and strategies. Risk assessments, adaptive management analyses, or management by hypothesis require understanding linkages between environmental drivers and various management options on ecological properties of managed systems. Though our abilities to generate accurate predictions are currently limited, conceptual models of system response to drivers are improving. Continued incorporation and refinement of understanding and monitoring effects and interactions of different drivers will contribute to improvements in these predictive capacities. It is important to remember we are developing monitoring systems for the future, as well as for today.



Keywords: adaptive management, environmental, long-term monitoring, risk assessment



African Journal of Range & Forage Science 2004, 21(2): 115–121