AEZ - Agro-ecological Zoning System

Global Agro-ecological Zoning

Global Agro-ecological Assessment for Agriculture in the 21 Century

Land Suitability Maps for Rainfed Cropping

AEZ Keywords

Agro-ecological Zoning (AEZ): The division of an area of land into smaller units, which have similar characteristics related to land suitability, potential production and environmental impact.

Agro-ecological zone. A land resource mapping unit, defined in terms of climate, landform and soils, and/or land cover, and having a specific range of potentials and constraints for land use.

Agro-ecological cell (AEC). An area or point with a unique combination of land, soil, and climatic characteristics. The AEC is the basic processing unit for physical analysis in an AEZ study.

Ecologic-economic zoning. A kind of zoning which integrates physical land resources elements with socio-economic factors and a wider range of land uses in zone definitions

AEZ publications

	Agro-ecological land resources assessment for agricultural development planning. A case study of Kenya. Making land use choices for district planning
	Agro-ecological assessments for national planning: the example of Kenya. FAO Soil Bulletin 67. Rome 1993 Request this publication ...
	Agro-ecological Zoning Guidelines FAO Soil Bulletin 73. Rome 1996 (published in English, French and Spanish)
	AEZWIN An interactive multiple-criteria analysis tool for land resources appraisal. FAO World Soil Resources Report 87
	CD-ROM: Global Agro-ecological Zones FAO Land and Water Digital Media Series # 11
	CD-ROM: AEZWIN An interactive multiple-criteria analysis tool for land resources appraisal. FAO Land and Water Digital Media Series # 15
	Global Agro-ecological Assessment for Agriculture in the 21st Century: Methodology and Results (March 2002). IIASA Research Reports RR-02-02 Request this publication ...
	CD-ROM: Global Agro-ecological Assessment for Agriculture in the 21st Century FAO Land and Water Digital Media Series # 21 More ...

Projects

Bangladesh: Utilization of Agroecological Zones Database and Installation of GIS for Agricultural Developement:

As a result of long-term FAO technical assistance and UNDP financial support to Bangladesh a well-equipped multi-scale land resources information system (LRIS) has been put in place at the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC), Dhaka. The Bangladesh LRIS system is one of the most advanced in Asia. It provides a range of tools for decision support in Agriculture, including extended national, district and thana digitized agro-ecological zone (AEZ) databases on soil /land type, climate, hydrology, crops, land use and crop suitability and computerized procedures for land productivity assessment and mapping, demographic and socio-economic information. Trained manpower to operate the system and multi-media tools and Internet facilities for the dissemination of information are in place.

The BARC system is under the guidance of an AEZ/GIS Network acting as a steering body. It provides services to the Ministry of Agriculture and other ministries, national research institutes, Universities, International Organizations such as World Food Programme and the World Bank, and NGOs. Information from the system has been used in various programmes. This includes: strategic planning for the production of 25 million MT of food grain by the year 2002; mapping extent and severity of flood damages and areas for disaster relief operations; preparing action plans for cereal production in post flood agricultural rehabilitation programmes; mapping economically depressed area for assistance to the Vulnerable Group Feeding (VGF) programme of the government; area delineation for deepwater rice research at the Bangladesh Rice research Institute; extrapolation of farming system technologies for the whole country based on agro-ecoregion; mapping of areas suitable for various forest species; delineation of seasonally saline areas for Coastal Zone Management.

Latin America Regional Project: “Agricultural Land and Water Information for Sustainable Agricultural Development” (1996-2001)

FAO through the Regional Project, “Agricultural Land and Water Information for Sustainable Agricultural Development”,has implemented Land Resources Information Systems (LRIS) based on its Agroecological Zoning methodology. Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay participated in the project.

The main objective is to promote sustainable land use scenarios in the region in order to help agricultural planners develop environmentally and economically sound procedures and policies.

Using maps combining biophysical and socio-economic factors stored in GIS databases, users of the LRIS can generate various land use scenarios and choose those best suited to the needs of their region or country. Optimum land use scenarios are defined as being economically, socially, technologically and environmentally viable. Once possible scenarios have been generated, inputs from planners, farmers and other stakeholders are crucial in determining which scenario should be used.

Each country, through its participating institution - usually the Ministry of Agriculture ­­- is responsible for disseminating and promoting the use of the scenarios in land use decisions.

In Bolivia, results from the LRIS were taken into consideration in preparing the 2001-2002 municipal land management plan and in the municipal development plan of Arbieto.

FAO emphasized training as an important component of the project. Every participating institution now has trained staff who know how to use and develop the systems.

A CD-ROM with all the project results have been published by the FAO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean.
More information can also be obtained on the Web (in Spanish) at http://www.rlc.fao.org/proyecto/gcp/rla/126/jpn/