Fig 1.
Flow chart for the distribution of utilized pasture.
(1), (2), and (3) are the inputs to the distribution model. Polygon data is at the district level, point data is at the settlement level (there are 7,234 settlements in Kazakhstan), and raster data is resolved to 500 meters. Nutritive requirements and grazing characteristics are derived from literature and defined differently for the three farm types.
Fig 2.
Map of annual available grazing supply (MJ/m2) derived in this study.
Based on total NPP measured by Eisfelder et al. [47]. The land-cover classification used for masking is from Klein et al. [11], and the protected area mask is from Kamp et al. [56]. Low available NPP for foraging on croplands can easily be seen in the northcentral. White areas are unavailable for grazing.
Fig 3.
Livestock density (head/km2) at the district level for the three farm types in Kazakhstan for the year 2015 [31].
Livestock in Kazakhstan are not distributed evenly across space, nor across the three farm types.
Table 1.
Summary of parameters used.
Fig 4.
Energy balance for Kazakh grazing livestock in 2015.
The darker bottom portion of each bar is the fodder supply, and the lighter top portion is the remaining demand that must be acquired from grazing. The total demand is represented by the full bar height. Fractions above each bar show the grazing gap (grazing demand divided by total demand). Nutritive demand information is from KazAgroInnovation [66] and supply statistics from KazStat [31].
Fig 5.
Grazing demand (in Terajoules, TJ) in 2015 disaggregated to settlements (all farm types combined).
Fig 6.
Grazing extent by all livestock under varying off-take rates.
The image is a superimposition of the eleven model runs. The map of each individual off-take rate includes the area of all higher off-take rates.
Fig 7.
Area required by grazing livestock depending on the percent of biomass off-take.
Fig 8.
Maximum grazing distances of the variable off-take rate map.
Box shows 50% of settlements (with median), whiskers are ½ inter-quartile range. AE: agricultural enterprises, PF: private farms, HH: households.
Fig 9.
Distribution of grazing intensity in Kazakhstan for the year 2015.
Off-take rate is the percent of total available biomass that is consumed. I.e. on croplands, it is the percentage consumed of the biomass that remained after harvest. Major rivers are shown in blue with names.
Table 2.
Pasture use, production, and productivity of meat and milk in 2015.
Fig 10.
Production expansion scenarios.
Additional beef and milk production under scenarios of business-as-usual (BAU, based on 2015 levels) and the maximum sustainable (30%) off-take rate, considering unutilized lands within 10 km of a settlement as well as within 20 km of a settlement. Based on 2015 productivity levels of agricultural enterprises (Table 2). The dotted line shows beef and dairy production in 2015.