Regional forage production assessment in arid and semi - arid rangelands a step towards social - ecological analysis

Many of the complex issues worldwide regarding environmental management and sustainable develo-pment require integrating the social and natural sciences. Nevertheless, while theoretical discussions have been increasingly developed, operative issues are still major barriers to integrated social-ecological analysis. The aim of this paper was to assess regional forage production in semi-arid rangelands as a key feature in social-ecological analysis, by using human organizational units [i.e. counties]. We used these state-administrative units to explore demographic and farming indicators in order to address socio-productive implications of different regional forage production dynamics. We studied the forage spatial and temporal dynamics in two different large ecological regions: Monte and Patagonia, under a single administrative unit [i.e. province]. Since forage production estimations in arid rangelands are not trivial, we tested two different methods. We found that inter-annual variability in forage production explained the main differences between regions. At a regional level, zones with higher temporal variability in forage production registered less rural residents and farm numbers, but inverse situations were registered at sub-regional scales. We found a non-linear relationship between forage production variability and rural population density. We proposed differentiated policy recommendations regarding rangeland management and animal husbandry, considering both the social and ecological contexts.