Analysis of the land use and grazing management in dairy sheep farms using a GIS methodology.

Aim of this paper was to test a GIS methodology in order to describe the relationship among land use and grazing in dairy sheep farms located in a hilly area of the North-West Tuscany (Livorno, Italy). Three dairy sheep farms were selected as a sample of three different levels of management intensification. A structured questionnaire was designed to collect information on: farm structure, dairy sheep breed, proportion of pasture land and forage crops, grazing management, feeding and reproduction techniques. Farm maps were also acquired in order to correctly set the forage crops and pasture lots. Each lot was coupled with a descriptive function that included the kind of crop or pasture and its use. Lots with the same function were together assembled and rearranged in order to obtain a thematic farm map. The adopted methodology resulted able to put in evidence the relationship between land use and management system in the observed dairy sheep farms, and may be a useful tool in order to control the land evolution due to changes in the dairy sheep management, with special focus on the level of grazing intensification, the proportion of forage crops and pasture, the level of annual stocking rate and grazing pressure on vegetation.