Cattle Grazing Moderates Greenhouse Gas and Particulate Matter Emissions from California Grassland Wildfires

Abstract

Between 2010 and 2020, an average of 36,037 hectares of grassland burned in wildfires in California each year, emitting greenhouse gasses (GHGs) and particulate matter (PM). These emissions impact climate and human health. Cattle grazing removes herbaceous fuel through the consumption of forage; however, ruminant digestion also emits GHGs. The purpose of this study was to examine the GHG and PM impact of livestock grazing in grasslands that go on to burn. We used Monte Carlo simulation to determine whether forage consumption by livestock led to reductions in grassland wildfire emissions and whether these reductions outweighed the emissions from the digestion of that forage. We estimate that between 2010 and 2020, an average of 11,590 metric tons (MT) of herbaceous fuel were removed by cattle annually from grasslands in California that went on to burn. This resulted in annual wildfire emission reductions ranging between 0.001 and 0.025 million metric tons (MMT) of CO2 equivalents (CO2e) and between 11 and 314 MT of PM2.5; a small fraction of total GHG and PM emissions from wildfires in California. We also evaluated the change in emissions if burned grasslands in California’s Central and North Coast regions—where removing grazing can lead to the encroachment of shrubs into grasslands—were instead shrublands. If the grasslands that burned in these regions in 2020 had instead been shrublands, we estimate that as much as 0.90 MMT more CO2e and 8448 MT more PM2.5 would have been emitted by wildfires, highlighting the long-term implications of livestock grazing.