The Rangelands Decision Support Tool (RDST) is a product of the SERVIR program, a collaborative effort between NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and USAID (US Agency for International Development). Initially developed between 2016 and 2023 by the SERVIR Eastern and Southern Africa (SERVIR E&SA) hub at the Regional Center for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD), the current iteration of RDST represents a refined version, spearheaded by the SERVIR Science Coordination Office at NASA and the International Centre For Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Kenya, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Additional contributions came from the SERVIR Applied Sciences Team (AST) led by Julius Anchang at New Mexico State University. SERVIR's overarching mission is to enhance environmental management and build resilience to climate change.

Despite the abundance of online data pertaining to vegetation conditions, the RDST serves a unique purpose: offering users a centralized platform for aggregating and synthesizing information to generate maps crucial for decision-making within rangeland ecosystems at sub-regional levels. Leveraging indicators such as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) at dekadal, monthly, and seasonal intervals, the tool provides current values, anomalies, and deviations from long-term averages. Users can delineate boundaries at county or conservancy levels, selecting a greenness index and integrating it with baseline data on vegetation productivity, including degradation indices. These maps can then be layered with ancillary datasets such as invasive species distributions, surface water maps, rivers, roads, and administrative boundaries, offering flexibility for customized analysis or applications, downloadable in various formats.

The information generated by the tool serves as a crucial decision-making resource for rangeland managers, influencing the development of optimal grazing plans, livestock movement strategies, conflict resolution, and the implementation of conservation measures aimed at rehabilitating degraded lands. Moreover, it facilitates the management of scarce water resources and the mitigation of invasive species proliferation. Furthermore, these generated maps find utility in reporting and monitoring county drought statuses or pasture conditions, providing valuable insights for informed action and sustainable land management practices.