The Australian pastoral industry may be on the brink of a new era in management thanks to the advent of 'precision pastoralism' – the use of smart technology to monitor vast areas of land and their water, livestock and vegetation.

However, developing technologies that are easy for pastoral land managers to use is still a major challenge, Desert Knowledge Co-operative Research Centre (DKCRC) business manager Dr Craig James will tell the International Rangelands Conference in China this week.

"It's about providing pastoral land managers with much better information about what is occurring, both in time and space, over very large areas – so they can take more profitable and sustainable decisions," Dr James says.

"This sort of information has been available to scientists and to governments for quite a few years now – but it is only just starting to appear in the sort of commercial packages that are of practical value for managing large-scale grazing enterprises."

Using satellites and other forms of remote sensing the rangeland manager can see far more of a large property at a glance than is possible from a vehicle, aircraft or horseback.

This can provide early advice on where feed is abundant – and where it is running low, providing for much better decisions about stocking rates, stock movements and when to market.

It helps in managing the landscape better by avoiding overgrazing.

"You can use them to see what's happening in the back paddock or places you visit infrequently," Dr James said.

"You can see what the effect of rain has been across a huge area.

"You can compare your vegetation over time and gain a better insight into how quickly it recovers from heavy grazing under different conditions.

"These technologies do not to replace skill, experience and other monitoring techniques, but compliment them with more timely and better quality background information."