Liu, Le , Chen, Yunming , Peng, Shouzhang , Han, Qinggong , Wu, Yang
2026-06-01 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF AGRONOMY 2026 177(卷), null(期), (null页)
Grassland ecosystems are facing degradation due to climate change and unsustainable grazing practices. However, current strategies have failed to address the soil erosion risk under future climate scenarios. Therefore, we proposed a grassland utilization framework based on the Biome-BGCMuSo model to formulate sustainable grazing strategies under soil conservation (SC) constraints. This framework quantifies the trade-offs between grassland utilization and SC under different grazing and climate scenarios to identify optimal strategies that maintain soil erosion within an acceptable threshold. Applied to a representative region in China, the results showed that from 2001 to 2100, under natural conditions (without grazing), SC exhibited a heterogenous spatial pattern, being high in the south and low in the north. Compared with the current period (2001-2020), in the future period (2081-2100), SC was projected to increase with a declining trend in soil erosion intensity, primarily influenced by precipitation. We recommend an annual grazing intensity ranging from 0.99 to 3.24 livestock units & sdot;hm-2 for most subregions. However, for Subregion 1 (the arid region of the north), grazing every 2-3 years is sustainable under low- and medium-emissions scenarios. This study provides a transferable framework for simultaneously achieving sustainable grassland utilization and soil protection under climate change. Our findings provide guidance for formulating sustainable grazing strategies for degraded grasslands worldwide.