Monitoring the Rangelands
Development of rangeland monitoring
Regular observations, or monitoring, are an integral part of management. Information about how rangelands respond to the pressures placed on them is required to inform management decisions. Monitoring information is also needed to analyse previous decisions and outcomes.
All rangeland states and the Northern Territory have rangeland monitoring and condition assessment programs.
Rangelands monitoring systems established in Australia over the last 30 years were initially based on methods developed in the United States of America. Systems generally involved point source data collection on the pastoral estate focusing on pasture response under the grazing of domestic stock. Such systems did not extend across State and Northern Territory borders and were limited to individual jurisdictions in which varying methodologies and rationales developed. The information generated did not always reflect the needs of decisions makers, or the scales and timeframes within which decisions needed to be made. Decisions did not take account of the multiple values of rangelands relating to production, biodiversity, society, economics and culture.
Existing Monitoring Activities
Link to State pages for information on existing Rangelands monitoring in each State:
CSIRO's Plant Industries and Wildlife and Ecology divisions are involved in research in Rangelands.
Tropical Savannas Management CRC do much research in the northern parts of Australia.
Photographic sequences
The Rangelands Information System Photographic Sequences is a tool which allows the user to view a photographic record of particular areas in the Rangelands. In conjunction with the still photographs some regions have related contextual information wich can be downloaded. The current list of bioregions on the photographic sequences page that make up all regions for which photographic sequence information is currently available.
Further Information
- Rangelands-Tracking Changes summary report (PDF 11.5 MB)
- The Australian Rangelands Information System Operational Manual Version 1.0 (by A. Holm, November 2000). (PDF - 190 KB) The full manual is available only in hard copy from the Audit Office.
- Rangelands Projects and Documents page
- Link to Map maker to make a map using this information.
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