AGRO-ECOLOGICAL ZONING

Guidelines

FAO Soils Bulletin 73 Soil Resources, Management and Conservation Service FAO Land and Water Development Division

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Rome, 1996

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CONTENTS

Foreword

LIST OF FIGURES

LIST OF TABLES

LIST OF BOXES

ABBREVIATIONS

Chapter 1 - Introduction

Chapter 2 - Concepts and definitions

ZONE DEFINITION

Growing period

Thermal regime

Soil mapping unit

Land resource inventory

Land utilization types and crop adaptability

LAND SUITABILITY EVALUATION: POTENTIAL YIELDS AND MATCHING

Chapter 3 - AEZ procedures

COMPOUND ACTIVITY 1: INVENTORY OF LAND USE TYPES

Selection of Land Utilization Types

Compile crop climatic adaptability inventory

Compile crop edaphic adaptability inventory

COMPOUND ACTIVITY 2: COMPILE LAND RESOURCES INVENTORY

Analyse length of growing period

Define thermal zones

Compile climatic resources inventory

Compile soil resources inventory

What are the required input data?

The mapping unit composition table

Compile present land use inventory

COMPOUND ACTIVITY 3: ASSESS LAND SUITABILITY

Stage 1: Agro-climatic suitability and agronomically attainable yields

Stage 2: Assessment of agro-edaphic suitability based on soil constraints

Match crops to thermal zones

Match crops to growing period zones

Potential net biomass and yield

Agro-climatic constraints

Account for year-by-year variability in LGP

Classify agro-climatic suitability

Compare crop requirements with soil conditions

Results

Advanced applications

ADVANCED APPLICATION 1: POTENTIAL LAND PRODUCTIVITY

ADVANCED APPLICATION 2: ESTIMATION OF POTENTIAL RAINFED ARABLE LAND

ADVANCED APPLICATION 3: SPATIAL RESOURCE ALLOCATION: OPTIMIZING LAND USE

Chapter 4 - Software tools and geographic information systems

Chapter 5 - Ecological- economic zoning

Glossary

REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING