Major distribution shifts are projected for key rangeland grasses under a high-emission scenario in East Africa at the end of the 21st century

Grassland landscapes are important ecosystems in East Africa, providing habitat and grazing grounds for wildlife and livestock and supporting pastoralism, an essential part of the agricultural sector. Since future grassland availability directly affects the future mobility needs of pastoralists and wildlife, we aim to model changes in the distribution of key grassland species under climate change. Here we combine a global and regional climate model with a machine learning-based species distribution model to understand the impact of regional climate change on different key grass species. The application of a dynamical downscaling step allows us to capture the fine-scale effects of the region’s complex climate, its variability and future changes. We show that the co-occurrence of the analysed grass species is reduced in large parts of eastern Africa, and particularly in the Turkana region, under the high-emission RCP8.5 scenario for the last 30 years of the 21st century. Our results suggest that future climate change will alter the natural resource base, with potentially negative impacts on pastoralism and wildlife in East Africa.