The role of land use planning in semi-arid areas
Worldwide, the semi-arid grazing and cropping regions are being subjected to severe overuse. Australian semi-arid regions have been cleared on a vast scale for marginal cropping. Grazing land has been overused and shows widespread signs of vegetation and soil degradation. Ecological realism on land capability based on objective condition monitoring, is essential to land management if sustainable production is to be achieved. The Land Care Movement can markedly influence this achievement. The margins of semi-arid cropland and the application of ecologically-based animal stocking rates require attention in several States. Drought assistance policy requires amendment to safeguard natural pastures. Lease covenants have a potentially central role to play in land administration.
Resource use planning under climate change: experience from Turkana and Pokot pastoralists of Northwestern Kenya
There is a growing concern over access to dry season grazing pasture and water in the arid and drought prone areas of North-western Kenya, where pastoralist communities are constrained 
by poor access to basic services. This is being exacerbated by the effects of climate variability and climate change which have contributed to depletion of livestock-based livelihoods resulting to reduced mobility of livestock and thus disrupting the process of adjustment that maintains the balance between people, livestock and the environment. This paper present the experiences and lessons learned in resource use planning process amongst the Turkana and Pokot pastoralists with special focus on how to increase sustainable access pasture and water. The experiences documented were implemented within year one of the Drought Mitigation Initiative project. Land use plans and inter-community reciprocal grazing agreements were developed to include land rights and cross-boundary resource use. Constrains to resource use planning in the region were identified to include environmental, socio-economic, institutional and legal. Policy backed resource use planning as enshrined in the Draft National Land Policy is the most suitable approach to govern use of limited resources in the rangelands, and to negotiate over tenure, access and resources stewardship rights.
A study of the dynamics of drought initiation using a global general circulation model
A global circulation model has been used to explore observed relationships between cold sea surface temperature anomalies in the Australian region and drought over the Australian continent. The model employed a comprehensive physics package, was set up for fixed January conditions, and used climatological sea surface temperatures. Two experiments were performed: one involving a large cold sea surface temperature anomaly located north of Australia but extending well into the Pacific and Indian Oceans, together with a much smaller cold anomaly in the tropical Atlantic; the other added a warm anomaly in the tropical eastern Pacific to the previous anomalies. The overall results were very similar in the two experiments. Droughtlike conditions were produced over parts of Australia, southern Africa, South America, and North America. By relating variations in evaporation and precipitation rates to changes in the synoptic meridional velocity distribution, a reasonably coherent understanding of the model's responses to the anomalies was obtained. The dominant response was in the Australian region, with secondary responses being produced over southern Africa and South America. This might indicate some form of synchronous behavior over the continents of the southern hemisphere to such sea surface temperature anomalies. The tropical easterlies were enhanced by the SST anomalies, resulting in a single westerly duct remaining between the two hemispheres. Difference charts of the 200-mbar height field for the anomaly and control experiments revealed a weak wave train that originated in the duct region and propagated to North America, where it apparently caused large changes in the synoptic conditions over North America. Overall the experiments help to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between cold sea surface temperature anomalies and drought in the adjacent Australian region together with a re-inforcement of these effects when an El Nino type warm anomaly is located in the east Pacific. Nevertheless, the need is highlighted for much further research before the requirements for forecasting drought can be assessed.