ABSTRACT
Rangelands are found in a variety of climate and moisture regimes and may include natural grasslands, savannas, shrublands, deserts, tundra, alpine ecosystems, marshes, and meadows. Most rangelands, however, are found in relatively dry climates where potential evapotranspiration is significantly greater than precipitation. For this reason, our discussion of water balance on rangelands will be generalized for dryland conditions. In water-limited rangelands, most of the incoming precipitation returns to the atmosphere via evapotranspiration. Of the other components, runoff will account for most of the remaining. Water moving to groundwater is generally relatively small.
