An overview of land evaluation

1
An overview of land evaluation land use
planning at FAO
H. George Land and Plant Nutrition Management
Service AGLL - FAO
2
Fundamental issues

• Can land resources meet needs of the population?
• Population growth 3 LDCs
• agriculture vs. other land uses
• land water degradation

Facilitate the sustainable use of land LEF

• How best to use manage available land
  resources?
• Food security rural livelihoods
• environmental impacts sustainability

3
What is land evaluation?
The assessment of land performance when used
for a specified purpose, involving the execution
and interpretation of surveys and studies of
landforms, soils, vegetation, climate and other
aspects of land in order to identify and make a
comparison of promising kinds of land use...
4
Land Evaluation Framework
1976 Framework principles

• Assess land suitability based on
• the requirements of specific land uses
• a comparative analysis of inputs vs. benefits
  multi-disciplinary!
• the physical, economic and social context
• potential environmental impacts sustainability

• local to global scales
• highly populated to undeveloped areas
• qualitative vs. quantitative

5
What is land evaluation?

• Socio-economic conditions !
• NOT land capability
• NOT land valuation

6
Information input to the LU planning process

• What is the spatial distribution of lands with
  different potentials/ constraints?
• What other land uses are appropriate for each
  district?
• - physically possible, socially relevant
• What adverse impacts are associated with each
  Land Use?
• - physical, social, economic
• What inputs or management changes are necessary
  to reach production targets and minimise adverse
  impacts?

7
Land evaluation conceptual steps
Consultations

• Objectives
• Assumptions
• LU options

Interimmatch
Land-use requirements
Landqualities
LUT
Land mapping Unit
Interim SuitabilityAssessment
classification system
Final SuitabilityAssessment

• land improvements
• environmental impacts
• social economic analyses

8
Suitability assessment modelling approach
(From AEZ study in Kenya)
9
Land Evaluation applications
110,000 - 15,000,000
10
AEZ - Bangladesh
11
AEZ - Bangladesh
12
AEZ - Argentina
13
AEZ - Argentina
14
AEZ - Argentina
15
AEZ - Global
16
AEZ - Global
17
Land-use planning Challenges

• Respond to topical issues
• Poverty alleviation Food security
  Sustainability of resources
• UNCCD UNCBD

• Updated approach needed
• Avoid failures of top-down methods
• Create enabling conditions for rural people to
  use LR productively sustainably
• Comprehensive consensus partnership
  participatory
• Address conflicting stakeholder objectives
• Institutional structures

18
What is integrated land-use planning?
a systematic and iterative procedure carried
out in order to create an enabling environment
for sustainable development of land resources
which meet peoples needs and demands. It
assesses the physical, socio-economic,
institutional and legal potentials and
constraints w.r.t. an optimal and sustainable use
of land resources and empowers people to make
decisions about how to allocate those resources

• Decision-support mechanism
• Demand-driven
• Integrates top-down grass-roots participatory
  approaches
• Includes legal institutional aspects needed for
  implementation
• Negotiation process
• Interaction at different levels

19
Link Land evaluation - Land-use planning
match
Landqualities
Land-use requirements
Recommendations relevant land-use options to
evaluate
Suitability assessment
Land-useplanning
Data recommendations
policies plans
20
Integrated Land Use Planning success criteria
Land Evaluation Data Recommendations
Planning process
21
Negotiation Process
22
Appraisal of Land Use options
23
FAO Tools and databases

• Automated AEZ programs (AEZWin) (GAEZ)
• models LGP, irrigation requirements, crop
  biomass, land suitability, land productivity
• ECOCROP plant species - soil and climate
  requirements
• SOTER (Soil and Terrain databases)
• WOCAT
• MCDA software program
• LU data collection and correlation
• Sub-national crop-production statistics
• LUDB
• Agri-LUCS
• LU book

24
Conclusions

• FAOs LE LU tools widely applied with success
  for over 30 years.
• Frameworks which can be adapted to local
  conditions
• Tools periodically enhanced
• Future trend How to better incorporate several
  topical issues/ impacts?
• soil and water degradation bio-diversity carbon
  sequestration climate change sustainability
• multiple-stakeholders gender considerations
• driving forces e.g. markets, food insecurity
• economic and policy issues e.g. globalisation,
  liberalisation