Dryland farming is a major export earner for many temperate-zone countries, yet it continues to degrade a country's natural resources. Effects are not restricted to the land - changes in water quality can reduce the potential uses of water and bring about catastrophic changes in both freshwater and coastal ecosystems.

Farming Action: Catchment Reaction provides a comprehensive technical overview of the relationships between dryland farming systems and catchment land and water quality in Australia, and integrates it in a whole system framework. It deals with the issues in terms of people, pointers, processes and prediction as it discusses social aspects of developing and implementing research to improve dryland farming systems in catchment management programs, indicators of catchment health, and the processes which determine the impact of the farming action on the catchment response. It concludes by considering the adequacy of our ability to use this process knowledge in models to predict the effect of dryland farming on catchment condition.