Global Agro-Ecological Zones (GAEZ)

Global Agroecological Zones  (GAEZ) is both a methodology for assessing global land resources and a spatial database.  The methodology has been jointly developed over the past 30 years by FAO and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and is explained in the Model Documentation. The spatial database contains, with a total of 226,225 data layers at resolutions varying between 30 arc-seconds and 5 arc-minutes, several terabytes of data and can be accessed through the GAEZ Data Portal, which is an interactive facility for free data access. The facility also allows visualization of data and provides the user with various analysis outputs and download options. The spatial database  covers the following five thematic areas: (i) land and water resources, with a total of 42 data layers in sub-themes: soil resources, water resources, terrain resources, land cover, protected areas, and selected socio-economic and demographic data,  (ii) agro-climatic resources, with a total of 1,185 data layers in sub-themes: thermal regimes, moisture regimes, growing periods, (iii) suitability and potential yields for up to 280 crops/land utilization types under alternative input and management levels for historical, current and future climate conditions, with a total  of 224,665 data layers in sub-themes: agro-climatic yield, climate yield constraints, crop calendar, agro-ecological suitability and productivity; (iv) downscaled actual yields and production of main crop commodities , with a total of 213 data layers, and (v) yield and production gaps, in terms of ratios and differences between actual yield and production and potentials for main crops, with a total of 120 data layers. The agro-climatic resource, crop suitability and potential yield themes are available for the baseline period 1961-1990, individual historical years and future climate projections based on various GCMs and IPCC AR4 SRES emission scenarios.