#$%^&*AU2011236123A120120503.pdf#####ABSTRACT As a result of sustained grazing and overfarming, there has been a gradual degradation of environmental metrics such as vegetation cover, biodiversity, soil quality, carrying capacity, and water quality of rangelands. Past attempts to prevent this degradation have been piecemeal and 5 largely ineffectual, and in some cases the land is now so degraded that pastoral activity and farming (whether cultivation or grazing) is no longer possible, and the land has been abandoned. Further development activities such as mining place further pressures and are increasingly been required to offset their activities. However there is often a wide range of possible management actions but a lack of guidance on what offset activities should be performed as well as suitable assessment tools to 10 evaluate the effect of any offset management activities. In order to improve practices in this area a simulation based method and GIS based software tool is described, to assist in the planning and execution of land management actions for improving the environmental state of area of land. The method allows a user to specify selection criteria for weighting different outcomes and uses a range of computer models (such as ecological, hydrological models, geohydrological, climate models, and 15 fire models) to simulate different land management actions, including groups of actions and any cumulative or interactive effects. This allows quantification of the effect of land management actions to allow selection of what set of actions to be performed based upon the user specified criteria. The outcomes may be quantified in environmental terms such as quantity of improved water, as well as economic terms such as the value of environmental offset credits, labour costs/jobs 20 generate, etc. This method and associated tool can be used by project planners, land owners, or even approval bodies to lead to improved and best practice or optimal land management.100 - 110 Baseline determination 120 Selection of management actions 130 Implementation 140 Quantification 150 Accreditation and registration of tradable environmental commodity Figure 1 200 Visualisation of the 210 baseline state of the state variable of interest 250 Receive set of *---------------- constraints %252 220 User selection of one Computationally select 260 or more possible one or more possible management actions to management actions to be performed be performed 230 Estimate outcome of each selected one or more possible management actions 262 Evaluate set of possible management actions 270 Select set of management actions to be performed Figure 2 1/2
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