Foreword

The collaboration between the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) goes back more than twenty years, when FAO started a joint project on Land Resources for the Populations of the Future, completed in 1984. Since then, a number of collaborative programmes were undertaken to underpin perspective studies that allowed prediction and estimates on how agriculture would develop towards the 21st century, and where problems were most likely to develop for achieving food security, particularly in developing countries. Those estimates, which are currently being revisited and extended in FAO's study "Agriculture towards 2015/30", have proved to be quite accurate, widely quoted and appreciated.

Originating from an internationally accepted Framework for Land Evaluation, the Agro-ecological Zones (AEZ) methodology enables rational land management options to be formulated on the basis of an inventory of land resources and evaluation of biophysical limitations and potentials. The recent enhanced availability of digital global databases of climatic parameters, topography, soil and terrain, land cover, and population distribution has now enabled revisions and improvements in AEZ calculation procedures. Also, these data have facilitated expansion of AEZ crop suitability and land productivity assessments to temperate and boreal environments, resulting in a global coverage for assessments of agricultural potentials.

A major challenge facing any scientific analysis of complex societal issues is the communication of research results in a way that provides policy makers and the public with helpful and reliable insights. The IIASA Land Use Project has developed, in cooperation with FAO, a CD-ROM application to take advantage of the new ways of communication offered by the electronic media. The hyperlinked document presents the methodology and global data sets applied in the assessment and demonstrates the regional potentials and limitations of land and biological resources. It also discusses various agricultural issues related to regional food security and sustainable resource development.

The CD-ROM begins to address several key resource questions: Will there be sufficient land for agricultural production to meet food and fiber demands of future populations? Where are shortages of agricultural land, and where there is room for agricultural expansion? What contribution can be expected from irrigation? Is land under forest ecosystems potentially good agricultural land? What are the main physical constraints to agricultural production? Will global warming affect agricultural potentials?

It is hoped that the massive amount of analyzed information gathered and presented here, will contribute significantly to a sound use of scarce land resources, and to enhanced food security for all.