SD : Environment : Specials : GIS : Background: FAO and natural resources databases

1. Background: FAO and natural resources databases

More than any other agency within the United Nations system, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) deals continually with issues of development and management of renewable natural resources. Soil, water, climate, plants, animals, people - and the ways in which they interact - are at the heart of the FAO mandate to assist developing countries to increase food production and to provide food security. FAO is a source of global, regional and subregional information on land-use planning and management, and provides technical assistance in these areas to member countries.

Meeting these responsibilities requires the collection, analysis and dissemination of massive amounts of different kinds of information: about soils, rainfall, vegetation and land uses; locations of towns, highways, railroads and waterways; figures on population, income, health and nutrition, just to name a few.

In general, information in GIS maps are of two types:

attribute data (e.g. statistics or text such as slope, soil type, vegetative cover type, etc.) contained in tables
spatial information, contained in the lines, points or polygons on maps.

The resource planner's problem is how to compare and combine selected information from different maps, in order to evaluate a given geographic location or to assess the status of one particular area in relation to other areas (for example, which of two areas would be more suitable for a given crop).

The figure below illustrates the spatial and the attribute information found in GIS maps, in this case of the Bay of Bengal. The attribute information consists of two items: length-of-growing-period (LGP) zones (in days), and the major climates. The spatial information is contained in the boundaries of the LGP zones and the major climates are designated by different colours/shades on the map. For every polygon (closed area) on the map, there is one record (row) in the attribute database table. What makes GIS different from other kinds of computer mapping systems is that these two kinds of information are always linked and processed jointly in GIS.

Computer technology has long made it possible to manipulate and analyse statistical information. But only recently has technology been developed that can convert maps into a computer-usable digital format and allow the simultaneous manipulation of both the geographic spatial data and related attribute data. This makes it possible for the resource planner to rapidly produce a combination of maps and tables that answer such questions as:

What is the present and potential fuelwood production within X kilometer of Town A?
Where should a given food-processing facility be located?
What raw materials or markets are found within 300 km of the site? What and where are the available transport and power systems?
What will be the effect on farm income in zone H if the amount of land devoted to growing crop 1 is reduced by 20 percent over the next biennium?
What are the locations and sizes of zones within a certain administrative unit that satisfy a given set of conditions, such as:

soil type A or B;
amount of rainfall between C and D mm;
summer temperature between X and Y degrees;
population density and income distribution at E and F respectively; and
distance to roads less than G km?

As pressures on land and water resources continue to mount, the ability to accurately assess resource conditions and trends becomes daily more essential. A Geographic Information System (GIS) is a powerful information tool at the disposal of decision-makers.


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