Print PageRangelands in the Southern Great Plains (SGP)are of enormous importance, to agricultural production ,ecosystem services, and to the social fabric of much of rural America. At the same time, these landscapes have and continue to undergo a transformation as a result of a number of change drivers including woody plant encroachment, agricultural conversion and abandonment, water scarcity, and changing demographics. Relatively new drivers of change including an altered atmosphere leading to changing temperature and rainfall regimes further complicate and accelerate the pace of change.The SGP in particular have been radically altered by woody encroachment. In Texas, with the exception of the High Plains, one could argue that there are no longer any grasslands. Grasslands in the Rio Grande Plains have converted to subtropical shrublands, savannas in the Edwards Plateau have converted to oak juniper woodlands. Farther to the north in the Rolling Plains, mesquite and juniper now dominate what formerly were grasslands. Most of these conversions began 100–150 years ago and are basically now completed. In contrast, woody plant encroachment in the grasslands of Oklahoma and Kansas is an emerging issue. This variability creates a gradient of woody dominance from the southern reaches of Texas to the center of the Great Plains.
Results/Conclusions
Managing these landscape so that they remain resilient in light of multiple global change drivers will be a challenge which will require development of an integrated research, extension and education program. The focus of such a program should be on (1) developing methods of optimizing rangeland productivity, ecosystem services, and carbon sequestration under changing climatic conditions; (2) to build and effectively disseminate –through extension and education activities – a knowledge base on the socioeconomic implications of rangeland management practices including the potential for carbon sequestration; (3) to enhance understanding of the combined effects of human uses, land fragmentation, and woody plant encroachment on rangeland ecosystems under climate change; and 4) provide dialogue on the science of climate change to bridge ideological differences among various stakeholder groups.
A successful integrated progam would then be able to address complex environmental challenges such as (1) identifying the vulnerability of rangelands to potential climate change (2) determining how to sustain economic return from rangelands in the face of a changing landscape (3) how to prevent large scale rangeland degradation in the event of a prolonged and serious drought and (4) how to optimize carbon storage and sequestration on rangelands.
