Livestock systems experience increased losses from heat stress, drought, floods, and climate-sensitive illnesses. Conventional, reactive management is ill-suited to the spatial-temporal complexity of these risks. This paper advocates for data-driven resilience as a unifying framework for climate risk management in livestock by integrating multimodal data (remote sensing, climate re-analyses, veterinary surveillance, supply-chain, and socio-economic indicators) with machine learning, causal inference, and decision optimization to support anticipatory action. We (i) consolidate the state-of-the-art; (ii) propose an open, modular reference architecture for end-to-end climate-risk analytics and early warning; (iii) sketch a transparent indicator taxonomy and composite risk index; and (iv) demonstrate a small, proof-of-concept simulation of how the pipeline triages heat-stress and vector-borne disease risk and optimizes low-cost interventions. For example, satellite data detecting a 15% decrease in forage availability during drought periods is used to predict livestock stress hotspots. The paper also addresses critical issues of governance, equity, and adoption pathways, emphasizing the need for inclusive decision-making and equitable access to data-driven tools. We outline validation protocols and reporting standards to ensure robustness and transparency in risk assessment and intervention planning. The article provides a constructive roadmap for researchers and policymakers to integrate data intelligence into policies and practices for the resilience of climate-smart livestock systems.
Zakir et al. (Tue,) studied this question.