沙漠研究 24-1, 187-189 (2014)
Ἃ₍◊✲ 24-1, 187 -189 (2014)
Journal of Arid Land Studies
Journal of Arid Land Studies－ DT11 Refereed Paper －㸫DT11 Refereed Paper㸫

Grazing Behavior of Livestock in Settled and Nomadic Herders Households
in Mongolian Plateau
SURIGA1), Miki HASHIMOTO2), Buho HOSHINO*3), Sumiya GANZORIG3),
SAIXIALT4), YONG-HAI1), Karina MANAYEVA1) and Tsedendamba PUREVSUREN1)
Abstract: In this study, we investigated the effects of settled grazing in Inner Mongolia and traditional nomadic grazing in Mongolia
on grazing behavior of livestock using GPS satellite tracking. In summer of 2011 and 2012, we fitted GPS loggers to sheep and goatsto quantify the behavior of livestock in Inner Mongolia and in Mongolia. We discovered that the mean grazing velocity (km/h) ofsheep in Inner Mongolia was 0.65 ± 0.07 (km/h) and in Mongolia was 0.54 ± 0.30 (km/h). The result indicated a higher grazing
velocity and longer moving distance of sheep in Inner Mongolia than that in Mongolia. However, the grazing area of the sheep inInner Mongolia was smaller than that in Mongolia. The grazing area in Inner Mongolia was 214.88 ± 149.73 (ha/day) and 246.03 ±197.36 (ha/day) in Mongolia. This may be a result of limited area due to the presence of fences in Inner Mongolia. We also
calculated vegetation volume (height (cm) × coverage (%)) of each plant species. The vegetation survey showed that the mean
volume of palatable species in Inner Mongolia was 87.5 ± 174.9 and 106.1 ± 202.6 in Mongolia. Therefore livestock have to spend
more time grazing, increasing their step rate and moving longer distances. These results indicate that fencing associated with thesettlement system of Inner Mongolia has created a new hot spot of land degradation and a new source of Asian dust storm outbreaks.
Key Words: Grazing velocity, Inner Mongolia, Mongolia, Sheep

1. Introduction
The Mongolian plateau is one of the largest remaining
grassland ecosystems in the world and has provided stable feed
resources for livestock for a long time. In recent times,
however, rapid land degradation and desertification havedisturbed pasture areas of the Mongolian plateau, resulting
from various factors, such as climatic variation and humanimpacts. The herders in Mongolian plateau have lived anomadic lifestyle. They live in gers (tent-type movablehouse) and move seasonally with their livestock herds. This
lifestyle continues in Mongolia. However, in Inner Mongolia,
the land sharing was carried out according to the establishmentof People’s Commune in 1958. From 1978, the livestock andland have been distributed from People’s Commune to eachfamily by the introduction of Household-responsibility system.
These policy changes resulted in the end of thousands of years
of nomadic life and the introduction of new methods for themanagement of pastures through the construction of and use offences.
This has led to the settlement of nomads throughout Inner
Mongolia. The emergence of fences has restricted movementof nomadic people and livestock and has forced them to graze
the same pastures year around. This has led to heavy tread

intensity and heavy grazing intensity around the settled house.
With the increasing number of livestock, the crowded pasturesare quickly overgrazed and degraded in these fenced areas. In
recent years, the human impact, including fences andovergrazing, is the main reason for acceleration of naturalprocesses associated with land degradation and desertificationin settlements of Inner Mongolia (Hoshino et al., 2009). As
result, the fencing in settlements of Inner Mongolia was a new
hot spot of land degradation and also a new source of Asian
dust storm outbreak. A large amount of dust is blown acrossthe sea into Japan, and further across the Pacific Ocean. Suchdust movement is having a negative impact across the globe.
The purpose of this research is to observe the effects ofsettled grazing in Inner Mongolia, as compared to traditional
nomadic grazing in Mongolia, on grazing behavior of livestockusing GPS satellite tracking.

2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Study area
The study area was located in Abag banner, Xilingol steppe,
Inner Mongolia, China. The latitude was 43°04’-45°26’N
and the longitude was 113°27’-116°11’E. The mean annual
temperature is approximately 3°C and annual precipitation
approximately 230 mm, (increasing from northwest to㸦Received, September 14th, 2013; Accepted, January 13th, 2014㸧

* Corresponding Author: aosier@rakuno.ac..jp582 Midorimachi Bunnkyodai, Ebetsu, Hokkaido, Japan, 069-8501

tel: 81+11+388-4913

fax: 81+11+388-4913

1) Graduate School of Dairy Science, Rakuno Gakuen University, Japan

3) Department of Environmental and Symbiotic Science, Rakuno Gakuen University Japan

2) ESRI Japan Corporation

4) Institute of Geographic, Inner Mongolian Normal University, China

188

Fig. 1. Fixing the GPS data logger onto the sheep using a hand-madebelt (a) sheep group; (b) picture of sheep fitted with GPS datalogger; (c) GPS instrument.

southeast). We selected two sites in Mongolia. One waslocated in Kharkhorin, N46.87°, E102.21°. The mean annualtemperature is approximately -0.25°C and annual precipitation
was approximately 250 mm. The other site was located inChoir N46.36°, E108.36°. The mean annual temperature isapproximately 1.87°C and annual precipitation isapproximately 150 mm.
2.2. Methods
Sheep from each of the groups were fitted with GPS
loggers using hand-made belts, in summer of 2011 and 2012
(Fig. 1). Information regarding the livestock positioning wascollected every 10 seconds and location signal was stored during
grazing. In the evening after grazing, the data including 1) date2) time 3) travel distance 4) speed 5) location (latitude/longitude),were downloaded to a computer.
Data recorded on velocity to the GPS logger were used to
calculate the grazing velocity (km/h) of sheep. The 82%
value of the histogram of velocity data of GPS signal point
acquired served as the threshold value. The average rate of
speed up to this threshold velocity is considered as grazing
velocity (km/h) (Mitsumura, 1988). The grazing area by law
was determined from the outermost point of the livestock
traveling using Hawth’s Analysis Tools (Saeki, 2006).
According to the grazing route of sheep, we set 1 m × 1 m
quadrants along a transect from the house with the distance of
100 m, 200 m and 400 m, and recorded the vegetation
coverage, height, species and soil moisture.
The satellite data were supplied by Landsat TM images
taken in August 09, 2011 for Inner Mongolia and July 16, 2011
for Mongolia, and used to calculate NDVI (normalized
difference vegetation index) by ENVI (ITT) software forprocessing and analyzing geospatial imagery. The NDVI
maps were used to do the unsupervised classification (ClusterAnalysis) by MultiSpec.

3. Results and Discussion
3.1. Daily traveling of sheep
The daily tracking of sheep groups in Inner Mongolia andFig. 2. Traveling routs of sheep on Landsat NDVI (a) Traveling routsof sheep in Site1 of Inner Mongolia, 2011; (b) Traveling routsof sheep in Site1 of Mongolia, 2011.

Mongolia are shown in Figure 2. The movement oflivestock is a function of seeking water and grass. While inMongolia the livestock have no fences to restrict them and canmove freely in search of more lush and palatable plants fromger to even the most distant places. This is not the case in
Inner Mongolia. Lush, green grass inside fences attracted
sheep as they grazed inside and along the fence. However,the presence of fences restricted the further movement of sheepoutside the fenced area. In other words, the pasture isenclosed by fencing and sheep cannot move out, thus limiting
them to grazing the same pasture during the entire grazing
period.
Existence of fences has restricted livestock
movement and contributed to quick overgrazing and theacceleration of land degradation.
The result of the unsupervised classification also showed
the same trend. We compared the same size area abounding
the house (ger) both in Inner Mongolia and Mongolia. It wasvery clear that heavy degradation was occurring around thehouse in the settlement of Inner Mongolia caused by overusing(Fig. 2).
3.2. Grazing velocity (km/h) of sheep in Inner Mongolia
and Mongolia
The grazing velocity and grazing area of livestock in Inner
Mongolia and Mongolia are shown in Table 1. The meangrazing velocity (km/h) of sheep in Inner Mongolia was 0.65 ±0.07 (km/h) and in Mongolia was 0.54 ± 0.30 (km/h). In189

Table 1. Grazing velocity and grazing area of livestock in Inner
Mongolia and Mongolia.
Mean grazing velocity(km/h)

Mean grazing area(ha)Inner Mongolia Site1

0.61±0.30

286.65±231.30

Inner Mongolia Site2

0.73±0.20

121.48±56.70

Inner Mongolia Site3

0.60±0.20

236.52±61.90

Inner Mongolia Mean

0.65±0.07

214.88±149.73

Mongolia Site1

0.37±0.40

145.70±127.00

Mongolia Site2

0.96±0.10

261.90±34.00

Mongolia Site3

0.52±0.40

129.90±102.00

Mongolia Site4

0.17±0.10

141.50±1.70

Mongolia Site5

0.69±0.30

549.80±164.00

Mongolia Mean

0.54±0.30

246.03±197.36

past studies livestock showed higher grazing velocity in theheavily grazed area (Hepworth et al., 1991; Lazo and Soriguer,
1993; Orr et al., 2004). This is because of the reduced
quantity of the preferred species in the heavily grazed area.
Within the heavily grazed area, animals spent more of theirgrazing time searching for edible green leaves among theunpalatable plants, which effectively increased step rate.
The grazing area in Inner Mongolia was 214.88 ± 149.73(ha/day) and 246.03 ± 197.36 (ha/day) in Mongolia. This
may result from the limited area because of the fences in InnerMongolia.
3.3. Vegetation survey
Volume (height (cm) × coverage (%)) of all plant species
was higher in Inner Mongolia compared with Mongolia. But
the mean volume of palatable species in Inner Mongolia was
87.5 ± 174.9 and 106.1 ± 202.6 in Mongolia. This agreed
with the past studies with the heavily grazed area showing
lower percentage cover of grass and palatable plants (e.g. S.
grandis) and higher cover of forbs and rhizomatous plant
species than the lightly grazed area (Yoshihara et al., 2009).

4. Conclusion
Our results suggest that there were differences between
settled grazing in Inner Mongolia and traditional nomadic
grazing in Mongolia regarding grazing behavior. The declineof quantity of preferred species in Inner Mongolia required
high searching efforts by sheep to select acceptable plants.
Additionally, the grazing behavior of sheep was also affectedby the presence of fences. This contributed to crowded
pastures that are quickly overgrazed. Finally, the use of thesefences in settlements of Inner Mongolia is contributing to thedevelopment of a new hot spot of land degradation.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific

Research (B) (No.) 24340111 (Project leader: Prof. Kenji Kai)
from Nagoya University. And was supported by Grant-in-Aidfor Scientific Research (S) (No.) 21221011 (Project leader:Prof. Y. Shimada) from JSPS of Ministry of Education, Culture,Sports, Science and Technology.

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