Preface

A Subregional Workshop on Land and Water Resources Information Systems (LWRIS) in the Caribbean was held in Bridgetown, Barbados, 2 - 4 October 2000. The meeting was part of the first Annual Technical Meeting of the Caribbean Land and Water Resources Network (CLAWRENET). This meeting was held in collaboration with the Caribbean Agricultural and Research Development Institute (CARDI), the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), the International Service for National Agricultural Research (ISNAR) and the Brace Centre for Water Resources Management of Mc Gill University. The purpose of the meeting was to launch the network and to promote the use of land and water resources information systems in the assessment, mapping and monitoring of land and water resources in the Caribbean. The workshop was attended by 38 participants, including 15 from Caribbean countries and seven resource persons from Costa Rica, Malaysia, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and the United States of America. The resource persons contributed by sharing their experiences from their respective countries and organizations and assisted in the preparation of the plan of action to promote future reporting and exchange of information in the region. Each country reported on the progress in preparing its national report on the state of Land, Water and Plant nutrition resources, using the FAO guidelines. It was proposed that each country should be responsible for updating as and when new information becomes available. The Technical Officer in the Subregional Office will send annual reminders to the Regional Coordinator of the network, and the coordinator in turn will contact all countries at the end of each year to solicit any new information. It was suggested that CARDI through its PROCICARIBE Secretariat should serve as the coordinating unit with the various countries on LWRIS activities and that FAO should provide technical support, training and funding, where necessary and possible, to ensure the preparation of the reports.

Acknowledgements

These proceedings were compiled by Ms. Lystra Fletcher-Paul and Mr. Jacques Antoine and edited by Mr. Robert Brinkman. Thanks are offered to the persons who made valuable contributions to the workshop, particularly Misses Aurora Devers-Noguera and Kathleen Gittens of CARDI and Messrs. Mike Broten and Sachimine Masui.

Acronyms

AEZ	Agro-ecological Zoning
AGL	Land and Water Development Division, FAO
APT	Agricultural Planning Tools
ALES	Automated Land Evaluation System
BARC	Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council
CARDI	Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute
CARICOM	Caribbean Community
CATIE	Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center
CDB	Caribbean Development Bank
CDE	Centre for Development and Environment, University of Bern
CFRAMP CARICOM	Fisheries Resource Assessment and Management Programme
CLAWRENET	Caribbean Land and Water Resources Network
COAG	Committee on Agriculture, FAO
CPACC	Caribbean Planning for Adaptation to Global Climate Change
CSIC	Superior Council of Scientific Research, Spain
CTA	Agricultural Technical Centre (E.U.; Wageningen)
DEM	Digital Elevation Model
DLD	Department of Land Development, Min. Agric. and Cooperation, Thailand
EU	European Union
FAO	Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
GDP	Gross Domestic Product
GIS	Geographic Information System
ICLARM	International Center for Living Aquatic Resources Management, Philippines
IIASA	International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Vienna, Austria
IICA	Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture
IPGRI	International Plant Genetic Resources Institute, Rome
ISNAR	International Service for National Agricultural Research, The Hague
ISRIC	International Soil Reference and Information Centre, Wageningen
LRI	Land Resource Inventory
LRIS	Land Resource Information Systems
LWRIS	Land and Water Resources Information Systems
MAFF	Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries
MCDS	Multi-Criteria Decision Support
MCMA	Multi-Criteria Model Analysis
OECS	Organization of Eastern Caribbean States
OSS	Observatoire du Sahara et du Sahel
PROCICARIBE	Agricultural Science and Technology System of the Caribbean
RELMA	Regional Land Management Unit, Kenya
SARD	Sustainable Agricultural and Rural Development
SDBM	Multilingual Soil Database Programme Suite
SLAC	FAO Subregional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean
SNAP	Soil Nutrition and Agricultural Productivity
SOTER	Soils and Terrain Database
SWC	Soil and Water Conservation
TAC	Technical Advisory Committee of the Consultation Group for International Agricultural Research
UNDP	United Nations Development Programme
UNESCO	United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
UWI The	University of the West Indies
WAICENT	World Agricultural Information Centre, FAO
WOCAT	World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies