Latest advancements on PyAEZ, an innovative free and open-source application for land evaluation

The Agro-Ecological Zoning (AEZ) methodology, developed by FAO and the International Institute for Ap- plied Systems Analysis (IIASA), is a well-established modelling system for land evaluation to support sus- tainable land-use planning, stimulate agricultural investments, monitor the status of agricultural resources, and assess the impacts of climate change on agriculture.

The AEZ framework was initially established in response to an assessment of the ability of the world's nat- ural resources to provide the needs of its growing population – a fundamental issue for the international community. The framework principles and outputs contribute directly to several United Nations Sustaina- ble Development Goals (SDGs) including SDG-1, 2, 12, 14, 15, and 17. Implementing an AEZ framework at a national scale is a complex task due to the numerous skills, data, and tools required to effectively deliver outputs that can reach the decision-making process on land use planning.

PyAEZ is a Python package consisted of many algorithms related to Agro-ecological zoning (AEZ) frame- work. It was developed by the Geo-informatics Centre (GIC) of Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) Thailand in collaboration with the regional initiative “Capacity building for Agro-Ecological Zone (AEZ) mapping and model-ling to project climate suitability of crops and land uses” under the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (FAO-RAP) and the Strengthening Agro-climatic Monitoring and Information System (SAMIS) project in Lao PDR, to strengthen the in-country capacities to undertake AEZ analysis using local data and a free and open-source tool. PyAEZ is of particular interest to national and international organizations deal- ing with different aspects of agriculture production and sustainability, land and water resources, food se- curity, agricultural development, or climate variability and climate change. National and sub-national appli- cations of PyAEZ may provide important information to support land use planning and can assess alter- native cropping options to enhance the utilization of land resources.

In November 2022, PyAEZ v2.0.0 was released, featuring significant updates. Professionals were given a 4- day training session to familiarize themselves with the new version, which aimed to assist in policy and planning activities related to land-use planning and management. Recently, the latest version, PyAEZ v2.1, was made available on GitHub. Additionally, FAO has integrated six sample Python Notebooks into ArcGIS Online and the GAEZ Data Portal to facilitate AEZ analysis.

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