Introductory Chapter: Grasslands Development - Green Ecological Economy and Ecosystem Services Perspectives

1. Introduction

Globally, grasslands known by the names of prairie, savanna, steppe, and pampas in conjunction with rangeland occupy over 70% of the agricultural area of which 68% lies in the developing countries. Grasslands provide a variety of foods and forages while people also rely heavily on them for their source of earning through milk, meat, and wool production. Over time, more than 20% of the world’s native grasslands have been transformed into croplands to carry out intensive farming of cash crops. There are over 1 billion of the world’s poorest people depend on the livestock industry, which relies on native grasslands for animal feed. In this way, grasslands support the production of over one-third of protein requirements worldwide [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10].

In many developed countries of Europe and North America, the native grasslands have been continuously converted into pasturelands for boosting milk production or croplands for cultivating high-yielding grain and cash crops. The extent of grasslands transformation might be realized from the fact that tall-grass prairie spreading across many states of the US has been converted to carry on intensive farming of crops, leaving behind less than 1% of the original prairie. Contrastingly, many developing countries of Africa and Asia have kept on extensively utilizing their native grasslands as a source of cost-effective feed source and watershed.

2. What are grasslands?

Grasslands constitute one of the primary and largest biomasses on earth which dominate all types of natural landscapes on all habitat-able continents of the world except Antarctica. In simplest words, grasslands may be defined as areas whereby the most dominant vegetation are grasses belonging to the family Poaceae, however, other flora such as various types of sedges of Cyperaceae family along with different rushes classified in Juncaceae family can also constitute a minor chunk of local eco-region. Additionally, grasslands being the habitat of biodiversity (flora and fauna) may also contain variable proportions of legumes species belonging to Fabaceae (Leguminosae) and various other herbs. Grasslands have also been described as terrestrial ecosystems, which are dominated by various herbaceous vegetation and different kinds of shrubs whereby plant species biodiversity gets regulated and maintained by factors such as grazing intensity, fire, grazing, and temperatures (scorching and chilling), rainfall intensity and distribution, etc. Furthermore, semi-natural grasslands are formed owing to human activities (mowing and grazing), while environmental growth conditions (temperature, precipitation, relative humidity,) and natural processes such as fire, floods, drought, etc. determine the species pool and genetic diversity of grass species [11].

3. Classification of grasslands

Unimproved grasslands are dominated by unsown plant species and wild vegetation communities and can be either natural (having no planned grazing or mowing, over-seeding, etc.) or semi-natural (natural plant communities such as grasses, sedges, rushes, and herbs that are maintained by anthropogenic activities including grazing and planned biomass harvesting regimes) grasslands.

Another type of major grassland is tropical grasslands that are situated around the equator (between the tropic of Cancer and Capricorn) in the interior of continents. These serve as a point of segregation between rainforests and deserts. These are also known by the name of Savannahs. These witness tropical continental climates and have alternate wet and dry seasons. Examples include hot savannas of sub-Saharan Africa and the northern grasslands of Australia (called rangelands). In contrast, temperate grasslands are found in the north of the tropic of Cancer and south of the Tropic of Capricorn. These grasslands have a cooler climate compared to Savannahs, which is called temperate continental climate. Examples include North American prairies, Eurasian steppes, and Argentine pampas. In addition, tundra grasslands also referred to as polar grasslands are located in higher altitudes in subarctic regions having a very short vegetation growing season. Furthermore, the grassland found above the tree-line at high altitudes is commonly known by the name montane (literal meaning of high altitude) grasslands. The plant species of these grasslands are quite unique in the agro-botanical structure having specific dish-like formation along with the presence of thick waxy surface plant area. A typical example of montane grasslands include Northern Andes. Moreover, xeric grasslands, also called desert grasslands, are located around the desert low lands. Lastly, flooded grasslands tend to have abundant water throughout the year and contain a variety of vegetation that thrives well in water. Numerous types of water birds frequently migrate to flooded grasslands, while a typical example includes the everglades grassland, which is referred to as the world’s largest flooded grassland [12].

4. Why grasslands development needed?

Grasslands development occupies a pivotal position keeping in view the fact that these are located in regions wherein their rainfall is insufficient to effectively support the growth of trees to form a rain trees forest, but not so scarce to form a desert. Thus, it may be inferred that grasslands often serve as a transition zone between deserts and forests. These serve as one of the prime ecosystems and cover over one-third of the terrestrial surface worldwide. Extensively managed grasslands have emerged as one of the most secure habitats to ensure plant biodiversity. The need for their development even becomes more important as grasslands in conjunction with different rangelands contribute significantly to boost livestock productivity through the provision of cost-effective and nutritious forage abundantly and that too throughout the year owing to grasses diversity containing perennial grass species. Another aspect emphasizes the pertinence of grasslands development as grasslands (both natural and semi-natural grasslands) play a vital role in the provision of life-sustaining livelihood to people by providing animal feed. Developing grasslands has become mandatory, keeping in view the rapidly increasing supply needs for animal products owing to skyrocketing human population. In addition, gradually hiking consumption patterns and demand for livestock products (milk, meat, wool, etc.) on per capita basis has made it necessary to increase the conversion of natural grasslands into improved grasslands. It should be kept in mind that competition and land-use patterns are predicted to multiply considerably by 2050, which may be accentuated by the recent scenario of climate change. This scenario increased the intense focus on sustainable food production for ensuring food security through alteration of agricultural sciences research approaches and policymaking at state, regional, and global levels. Grasslands development can be achieved by putting into use the sustainable intensification concept, in terms of increasing the productivity of grasslands in order to supplement the production potential of croplands. However, up till now, the role of improved grasslands through biologically viable improvement and development has been direly neglected and thus compromising the food security of many tropical grassland regions of Africa and Asia [11, 12, 13, 14].

The developed grasslands might be of unprecedented pertinence due to having very high conservation value and the potential to support sustainable food production. The co-development of grasslands adjacent with various types of rangelands, including shrubland and savannas can contribute significantly in ensuring the survival and food security of the surrounding population. Grassland development has to be initiated by keeping in view their local importance in terms of ensuring and maintaining the species biodiversity as well as food production. In addition, these also influence a variety of ecological processes at the local landscape (pollination), regional level (water regulation and recreation activities), and global scales (climate regulation) which necessitate their development in an integrated manner without disruption of prevalent ecosystems. Grasslands provide feed base to grazing livestock for producing high-quality food products, and in return get organic manures, a source of pollination and planting material transportation through natural means along with the provision of leather for human utilization for various purposes. In addition, grassland development can potentially provide vital services and roles such as water catchments, reserves of biodiversity, and fulfilling cultural as well as recreational needs. More importantly, grassland development has the potential to increase their capacity to serve as a carbon sink for alleviating the emissions of greenhouse gases which have contributed heavily to global warming and climate change. Inevitably, grasslands development might invoke plenty of challenges, but those have to be confronted and tackled through target-oriented and collaborative research and policymaking in a coherent manner.

5. Grasslands development strategies and green ecological economy

The sustainable development of grasslands requires the adoption of integrated approaches for ensuring the grasslands improvement, having minimum disruption of local ecological systems and non-significant adverse effects on biodiversity of plant species [1, 3, 15, 16]. Different biologically viable strategies for grasslands development may include fertilizer application keeping in view the optimal combination of chemical fertilizers and organic manures along with planned grazing management. In addition, boosting the use of crop by-products such as green compost application for increasing grasslands soil fertility status, over-seeding of native leguminous plant species and manipulation of stocking rate (animal numbers that can be successfully reared on a specific land area over a certain time period and expressed as animal units per unit land area) might be used as effective strategies for grasslands development. In addition, herbage allowance (grams of herbage dry matter per kg live weight per day per animal unit) adjustment offers one of the feasible solutions to over-grazing and over-utilization of grasslands.

To the best of our knowledge, concrete findings based on empirical results are still lacking for estimating and predicting the utilization efficacy and cost-effectiveness of grasslands development strategies. The situation is even worse for grasslands production systems and the instance of grasslands in sub-Himalayan regions of Jammu and Kashmir can be taken as a gauge study. The scientific evaluation and appropriate management of prevalent grazing systems need reliable and feasible assessment criteria without which grasslands productivity improvement will continue to remain a distant dream. Recently, a bunch of emerging technologies has contributed significantly in acquiring the timely and low-cost quantitative information for understanding the complex soil-pasture-grazing animals' interactions along with animal management with respect to grassland systems capacity and potential under changing climatic scenario. For instance, remote imaging might be useful for estimating the vegetation status in particular inaccessible grassland. In addition, a global positioning system (GPS) can also be put into practice for monitoring natural or man-induced factors like fire and over-seeding requirements due to heavy and uncontrolled grazing in a specific patch(s) of natural or improved grasslands. Moreover, improved diet markers and near-infrared (IR) spectroscopy along with using different modeling techniques may provide concrete and real-time information in order to take knowledge-based decisions regarding productivity constraints of grasslands and grazing animals. Furthermore, using individual electronic identification (EI) of different grazing animals may offer unprecedented opportunities to go for precision management of animal units that is bound to improve the productivity of milch animal, especially large ruminants. However, it must be noted that sustainably better and improved outcomes in terms of grazing animal products, services, and various by-products from natural or improved grasslands, can be feasible depending on devising clear and viable solutions that can be successfully employed in diversified environments and socio-technological circumstances of grasslands managers globally.

6. Grasslands and ecosystem services

In simplest words, ecosystem services are defined as “various outputs, conditions, and processes of natural biological systems which in one way or other, directly or indirectly, benefit humans and significantly enhance their social welfare” [13, 16, 17]. These include a variety of processes by which grasslands produce a bunch of beneficial resources including forage for ruminants, clean water by serving as excellent watershed, ensuring biodiversity by offering favorable habitat to wildlife, etc. Globally, extensively managed grasslands have been recognized for having very high biodiversity that assists in maintaining and promoting a variety of social and cultural norms and values. Cultivated grasslands provide the maximum herbage yields of nutritious green forage for feeding grazing animals and various other benefits as illustrated in Figure 1. However, the range of ecosystem services offered by them is on the lower side compared to permanent grasslands in terms of total biomass production, herbs biodiversity for preparing cosmetics, etc.

Figure 1.

Various types of ecosystem services are offered by cultivated grasslands under changing climate scenarios.

In contrast to cultivated grasslands, permanent ones tend to provide a wider variety of ecosystem services as depicted in Figure 2. These grasslands maintain higher diversity of plant and animal species along with providing abundant herbs for medicine and cosmetics preparation and honey. However, biomass production is significantly lesser than in cultivated or improved grasslands and resultantly grazing ruminant’s productivity is comparatively suboptimal. Lastly, semi-natural grasslands tend to have mixed characteristics of improved and natural grasslands, such as higher species diversity coupled with maximum nutrition biomass production owing to fertile soils.

Figure 2.

Various types of ecosystem services are offered by permanent grasslands under changing climate scenario.

Besides aforestated ecosystem services, grasslands tend to offer many other benefits such as seeds dispersal and preservation of abundant and endangered plant species, flood, and drought mitigate through effective maintenance of micro-climate, recycling of macro and micronutrients in the soil as the plant life cycle goes on and detoxification of different wastes through decomposition [18, 19]. Additionally, grasslands ensure species biodiversity by providing suitable habitats and significantly contribute stability to micro and macro climate by restoring natural processes. Furthermore, these serve as an effective source to keep pests under threshold levels due to higher biodiversity which maintains the predator-prey relationship in a natural way. Moreover, protecting the grasslands soil from different types of erosion (sheet and gully erosion) by maintaining living mulch or cover is one of the vital benefits offered by grasslands, which leads to the provision of clean water through protected watersheds. Lastly, the provision of recreation facilities owing to natural or improved esthetic value along with serving as excellent wetland and furnishing research opportunities (natural grasslands and cultivated lands comparative analyzes) are few of the ecosystem’s services offered by grasslands.

In addition to agricultural-related benefits, grasslands can potentially offer some other benefits as well such as maintaining water supply and regulation of water flow regulation, carbon sequestration, mitigation of climate, and cultural advantages. To conclude, three types of ES can be extracted from grasslands including animals related ES services (nutritious forage production), cultural (recreation purpose), and micro-environment regulating ES services (pollination, biological control of different insect-pest, mitigation of gaseous emissions). There exist multiple synergies and trade-offs among ES services provided by grasslands and prevalent management practices, however appropriate management practices may potentially create more synergies and reduce trade-offs leading to the sustainable improvement of ES services. It is suggested that grasslands ES services and food security research along with policymaking must be given higher priority for boosting ruminant productivity alongside other ES services. A vital approach that integrates grasslands with modern agricultural production systems as well as land-use patterns optimization at the local and regional level can significantly improve livelihoods and food security. However, future research must focus on grasslands capacity to deliver a variety of ES services in relation to agricultural systems in order to develop sustainable, biologically viable, and economically attractive management options and strategies.

7. Conclusions

Different types of grasslands in conjunction with rangelands occupy over 70% of the agricultural area of which 68% lies in the developing countries whereby their rapid conversion to croplands remains unabated. The deterioration of grasslands may compromise the provision of ecosystem services such as food and feed availability, wildlife habitat disruption, decline in species biodiversity, increase in the number of endangered species, and enhancement of greenhouse gaseous emission owing to lesser C-sequestration. Thus, scientific development of grasslands through optimized management practices that integrate agronomic approaches (appropriate fertilization and balanced over-seeding) with planned utilization (through stocking rate and herbage allowance adjustment) and real-time monitoring using the latest techniques (GPS and IR spectroscopy) hold the potential to offer compatible benefits leading to improved productivity and halting grasslands conversion to croplands. The optimized implementation of integrated management approaches can turn grasslands into green ecological economies offering numerous advantages such as improved livelihood through enhanced milk, meat, wool, and honey production, climate mitigation, control of floods and droughts, watershed management, and wildlife conservation.