Published in recent Nature Sustainability, the study shows that weather information must be paired with practical "risk-smoothing" measures, such as supplementary livestock feed, drought insurance, targeted financial support or improved market access, so farmers at risk of losing livestock can act before drought strikes.
By combining improved access to climate information with supported risk-smoothing, livestock farmers can avoid environmental trade-offs that occur when either is used in isolation.
Lead author Dr. Matt Clark, a research associate in sustainability science with the Thriving Oceans Research Hub in the University of Sydney's School of Geosciences, said climate variability was becoming an "inequity multiplier."
Modernized herding practice, Eastern Cape, South Africa. Credit: Will McCarry. Conservation International
Across southern Africa, millions of pastoralists depend on cattle, sheep and goats grazing vast rangelands stretching across Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Livestock are far more than a source of income; they are a family's savings, food security and cultural identity, often passed down through generations.
As climate change brings more variability between good seasons and severe drought, those communities face increasingly difficult decisions. Wealthier livestock owners can often sell animals before drought, preserve their savings and rebuild their herds when conditions improve. Poorer pastoralists are frequently forced to keep their animals on increasingly stressed landscapes, risking devastating livestock losses that can trap families in poverty.
Applying detailed modeling alongside work with nongovernmental organizations in the field, the researchers found that climate forecasts can become substantially more effective when combined with support that enables households to respond before drought takes hold.
The study suggests this combination of climate information and risk-smoothing can improve livelihoods, reduce inequality and protect rangelands at the same time, overcoming trade-offs that have long challenged climate adaptation programs.
While developed for southern African pastoral systems, Clark said the framework could also help livestock producers in other climate-vulnerable grazing lands, including in Australia.
The researchers developed a model representing pastoral communities across seven southern African countries, drawing on projected rainfall patterns from European climate models together with empirical data on livestock, vegetation and community wealth.
The first simulation represented a business-as-usual future, showing that increasing rainfall variability reduced household wealth, increased livestock losses, degraded grasslands and widened inequality.
The second tested adaptation strategies. Access to forecasts alone delivered only modest benefits because many households lacked the financial capacity to respond, while risk-smoothing measures on their own could force environmental trade-offs.
The third simulation examined how adaptation could spread between neighboring communities. Based on conservation programs such as Conservation International's Herding for Health initiative, it showed that when practical support accompanied climate information, communities learned from one another and adoption became self-reinforcing, providing a pathway for climate adaptation at scale.
The research was conducted through an international collaboration involving the University of Sydney, Imperial College London, Conservation South Africa, the South African Environmental Observation Network, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the University of California Merced and the Santa Fe Institute.
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