INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS IN AGL

Technical Consultation on Land and Water Resources Information Systems 1 Information technology and decision-support systems in AGL INTRODUCTION Over the last two decades the Land and Water Development Division (AGL) has been at the forefront of the development and application of computer-based systems to analyse data and generate information to support decisions on various land and water issues . Separate soil and land and water systems have been developed. The soil and land systems focus on methodologies and tools for the assessment of land resources potentials at global, regional and national and sub-national levels. The water systems concern irrigation water use and management at field level and water resources assessment at regional and national levels. AGL has been cooperating with various units within FAO and numerous international agencies and national institutions in developing and applying the systems. Initially, in the late seventies and early eighties, the systems were developed for mainframe and mini-computers. From the late eighties they were gradually adapted to microcomputers. At the same time computer tools for managing spatial data, including geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing and global positioning systems (GPS) were introduced. Since the last few years the availability of networked PC workstations, rapid application development environment and multimedia tools have opened an era of completely new possibilities in the development and application of the systems. Table 1 summarises some of the main issues related to sustainable land and water resources management which concern FAO. TABLE 1 Scales of land and water use planning and management Issue Productive crops and animals conservation of soil and water; high levels of soil fertility; low levels of soil and water pollutants; low levels of crop pests and animal diseases. Farm/village (local/level) 1:1,000-1:50,000 Viable production systems; food requirements; economic and social needs satisfied; awareness by farmers. Country (national/ sub1:25,000-1:2,500,000 Judicious development of agro- ecological potential national) and use of irrigation water resources; drought and flood risks; food production and food security; conservation of natural resources and bio-diversity; land degradation; public awareness. Continent/world (regional/ 1;1,000,000-1:5,000,000 Land degradation and desertification; preservation of global) bio-diversity; water sharing; water pollution; population development and food security; climate change and agricultural potential; awareness of regional and global institutions. 1) A range of scales is indicated at any given level of analysis. In practice the actual scale of an application is selected according to the extent of the area and the availability of maps. Level of analysis Field/production unit (site specific) Scale/spatial resolution 1) <1:5,000 BACKGROUND PAPER Service J. Antoine Soil Resources, Management and Conservation Land and Water Development Division, FAO, Rome, Italy 2 Information Technology and Decision-Support Systems in AGL FIGURE 1 Information and Decision-Support Systems in AGL Decisions USERS Problems and Issues DATABASE TOOLS MODEL TOOLS DOCUMENTS PUBLICATIONS DECISION SUPPORT TOOLS LAND AND WATER INFORMATION DATABASE MULTIMEDIA INFORMATION DISSEMINATION Other Units AGL Info Other Units WAICENT Technical Consultation on Land and Water Resources Information Systems 3 AGL LAND AND WATER INFORMATION SYSTEMS Currently AGL systems comprise a set of tools to store and analyse information and generate and disseminate information products for land and water decision. The systems integrate tools of essentially five kinds (Fig. 1): 1) Database tools These include database program shells for the creation of soil, water, climate, crop and land use databases; and sometimes also the databases which have been established using the programs. Increasingly used are Geographic Information Systems (GIS) databases and analytical and visualisation tools for rapid production of information products. GIS utility derives from a capacity for dynamic functionality based on the following three main qualities: the physical computing capacity to manipulate data, including overlay, join, disaggregate; the related capacity to query the data by formulating hypotheses for testing assumptions defining potential relationships and developing theoretical constructs; the capacity to relate two-dimensional and three-dimensional locations of earth features along with dynamic (time) four-dimensional processes. Model tools Models for crop growth and estimation of both potential and actual yields. Crop modelling has proved a valuable and multipurpose tool in land resources management which can assist in the estimation of crop yields and the prediction of crop shortfalls due to environmental risks. Models for water balance, crop water requirements and irrigation requirements. Water modelling is an essential tool of quantitative assessment of water resources for the purpose of planning and managing the efficient use of the resource. Remote sensing techniques to characterize and map land cover, land use patterns and evaluate and monitor soil and water resources. Remote sensing techniques offer a unique way of quickly assessing land use situation and trends and, in particular, detect biophysical degradation of the land due to improper use or mismanagement in implementing land management plans. Remotely sensed data can be integrated with other data layers stored in a GIS to derive various kinds of maps, such as soil moisture condition maps, land degradation maps. Decision support tools Expert systems tools to provide advice on deciding on land and water use and management options, based on available information and knowledge. Multi-Criteria Decision Support (MCDS) to analyse optimal land and water use scenarios. MCDS tools facilitate interactive negotiations on land and water use. This is because feasible real world solutions in interactive negotiations are compromise - 2) a) b) c) 3) a) b) 4 Information Technology and Decision-Support Systems in AGL solutions resulting from trade-offs between various conflicting objectives, in order to find an efficient and acceptable balance between the requirements of the stakeholders in the land and water resources available. 4) Documents and publications AGL has a documentation centre which collects and maintains two kinds of documents: a collection of FAO and non/FAO technical documentation (country information, field documents). This includes monographs (acquired or received through exchange); a map collection containing thousands of local maps which were used in the compilation of the FAO-UNESCO Soil Map of the World, and continuously enriched with new maps. The maps include those published by FAO field projects, maps in technical reports, maps published by national institutions or development agencies. The subjects covered are mainly soils, land use, land suitability, agro-ecology, geology, hydrogeology, topography and administrative units for the developing countries and generalized and other maps for the industrialized countries. - AGL Documentation Centre uses an adaptation of the ISIS software to manage the database of the documentation centre. The Centre has a direct link with FAO’s main Library's databases (FAOBIB and SERIAL) and use of on-line Virtual Library databases (AGRIS, CABI, etc.) for more comprehensive searches; loans; internal circulation of documentation, books, serials; dissemination of information and publications produced by the AGL. 5) Multi-media tools AGL uses INTERNET and INTRANET facilities to disseminate information under the umbrella of the World Agriculture Information Centre (WAICENT). WAICENT is FAO’s Corporate Information Dissemination System. In this way AGL reaches its target audiences more effectively at reduced processing costs in all phases of receiving, treating and disseminating land and water information. AGL takes advantage of the three principal interactive and complementary components which makes up WAICENT:    FAOSTAT, for the storage and dissemination of statistical information, FAOINFO, which covers hypermedia information(viz. text, images, audio and video), and FAOSIS covering specialized information systems. In particular AGL uses the services of the FAOINFO Group of WAICENT to prepare the textual, graphical, statistical, tabular information AGL places on the Web. DESCRIPTION OF MAIN INFORMATION AND DECISION-SUPPORT SYSTEM TOOLS USED BY AGL Technical Consultation on Land and Water Resources Information Systems 5 Corresponding to the three areas of applications mentioned above there are three kinds of systems: 1) land resources assessment systems; 2) water resources assessment systems; 3) irrigation water management systems. Land resources assessment systems Agro-Ecological Zoning (AEZ) System The main system for land resource assessment is FAO’s agro-ecological zoning (AEZ) methodology and supporting software packages for application at global, regional, national and sub-national levels. AEZ uses various databases, models and decision support tools which are described below. When to use AEZ Useful as a tool of assessment of land resources for better planning and management and monitoring of these resources. AEZ can be used in various assessment applications, including:  land resource inventory;  inventory of land utilization types and production systems, including indigenous systems, and their requirements;  potential yield calculation;  land suitability and land productivity evaluation , including forestry and livestock productivity;  mapping agro-climatic zones, problem soil areas, agro-ecological zones, land suitability, quantitative estimates on potential crop areas, yields and production;  land degradation assessment, population supporting capacity assessment and land use optimization modelling. What is AEZ? The AEZ concept involves the representation of land in layers of spatial information and combination of the layers of spatial information using a Geographic Information System (GIS). The combination/overlay of layers produces agro-ecological cells. In this way a land resources database is created which contains information on the AEZ cells. AEZ integrates in the database various kinds of geo-referenced data sets , which can include the following:          topography; administrative boundaries; road/communications; towns and settlements; rivers/water bodies; geology; soil; physiography; landform; 6 Information Technology and Decision-Support Systems in AGL               erosion; rainfall; temperature; moisture regime; watersheds; irrigable areas; land use/land cover and forest reserves; production systems crop requirements; agricultural inputs; crop statistics; markets; prices; population. AEZ models are applied on the database to analyse potentials of land for various kinds of use. The AEZ models include models for the calculation of length of growing period, irrigation requirements, crop biomass, land suitability, land productivity. The flow diagram in Figure 2 shows the linkages between the various components of the FAO AEZ system used in a recent Kenya study. The 26 activities indicated in the boxes represent four groups of compound activities as follows: (1, 2) formulation of LUTs and their ecological requirements; (3-12) compilation of land resource database; (13-19) assessment of land productivity, including cropping patterns, linkage to livestock and forestry production systems and soil conservation; (20-26) analysing optimal land use scenarios. The land suitability and land productivity results are recorded for each AEZ cell or record in the database and constitute an entry point for land use analysis, using decision support tools such as multi-criteria analysis and simulation. Two software packages have been prepared to implement AEZ models: one software package for global and regional application; and another package for more detailed application at country level. PC versions of the programs are available, running on DOS as well as WINDOWS 95 environment. A WINDOWS NT version of the AEZ country study software is currently being developed in collaboration with the International Institute for Applied System Analysis (IIASA). AEZ applications Global and regional The AEZ methodology and models have been applied in developing a global digital AEZ land resources database based on the digitized soil map of the world (DSMW). The database contains information on soil and landform, temperature regime and length of growing period, agro-ecological zones, forest and protected areas, land suitability for about 30 main crops. Technical Consultation on Land and Water Resources Information Systems 7 The database has been used in global land productivity potential studies within the framework of FAO AT2010 study, including estimation of arable land potentials for agricultural expansion by country. It has been used in regional and country studies on land use change, population supporting capacity and land suitability for aquaculture. It has also been used in applications involving integration of bio-physical and socio-economic data such as studies on land carrying capacity and the effects of climate change on agricultural productivity potentials. The database will be used in regional food insecurity and vulnerability mapping (FIVIMS) programme of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS). 8 Information Technology and Decision-Support Systems in AGL FIGURE 2 A Land Resources Information System configuration as applied in a recent Kenya country 1 DESCRIPTION DES TYPES D’UTILISATION DES TERRES 3 BASE DE DONNEES CLIMATIQUES (Stations) 4 Précipitations Températures min. Températures max. Vitesse du vent 6 SCENARIOS CLIMATIQUES 6 8 Sol et terrain Zones forestières Cultures de rente Parcs Tsé-tsé Irrigation 5 7 BASE DE DONNÉES CLIMATIQUES (Grille) Régions admin. Altitude (m) P, T, RI  CO2 et RL 7 2 9 10 CALCUL ETP, LPC ET ZT INVENTAIRE DES RESSOURCES 9 CATALOGUE DES CULTURES, FOURRAGES ET BOIS DE CHAUFFE 12 BASE DE DONNEES: RESSOURCES EN TERRES 12 (Cellules ZAE) (Grille) 11 BASE DE DONNEES: COMPOSITION DE ASSOCIATIONS DE SOLS 13 CALCUL DE LA BIOMASSE ET DES RENDEMENTS 14 BESOINS EDAPHIQUES 16 APPARIEMENT DES REGLES ET GRADATIONS 17 APTITUDE TUT 15 BESOINS CLIMATIQUES 18 PRODUCTIVITE DURABLE DES TERRES 19 BASE DE DONNEES DE LA PRODUCTIVITE DES CELLULES ZAE 21 CATALOGUE SCENARIOS 22 ATTRIBUTION OPTIMALE DES CELLULES 20 SCENARIOS SOCIO-ECONOMIQUES 25 BASE DE DONNEES RESUMEE DES SCENARIOS 23 REDACTION DU RAPPORT, APPLICATION 24 RAPPORT 26 CARTES SIG Technical Consultation on Land and Water Resources Information Systems 9 National The AEZ methodology and software packages have been used in studies which address a wide range of land management issues: improved land use planning (China, Kenya, Mozambique, Grenada, Tanzania), formulation of population policies (Malaysia, Philippines, China), national agricultural development (Kenya, Bangladesh), agricultural research planning and management (Bangladesh and Indonesia), natural resources management (Brazil), technology targeting (Bangladesh) and disaster preparedness (Bangladesh). Availability AEZ is available as FAO Publications in the form of reports in English, French or Spanish and software packages. Contact for technical queries: Jacques.Antoine@FAO.ORG; Freddy.Nachtergaele@fao.org. Multi-Lingual Soil Database (SDBm) When to use SDBm Database tool useful for storage of primary soils information assembled at national level, or data collected in a soil survey at subnational and local level. SDBm data are used in the computerized AEZ land evaluation systems. It is useful to soil scientists, agricultural extension officials and environmental modellers. What is SDBm SDBm is a collection of programs written in CLIPPER 5.2 and C languages incorporated into a menu-based interactive user interface to enter data and manage the database. The coding system used in the database conforms to FAO Guidelines for Soil Profile Description. Data storage is greatly facilitated by the multilingual function which provides “assist menus” in three languages: English, French and Spanish. Options for simple statistical analysis: calculation of weighted averages or dominant values of selected variables by soil unit, depth range and group of soil profiles; graphic presentation of soil analysis data, such as pie chart image of relative percentages of variable groups of attributes in a given soil profile. Read/write facility to communicate with other SDBm databases and exchange data. Examples of SDBm applications Global: SDBm has been used to create a global soil profile database linked with the FAO digitized soil map of the world. National: SDBm is being used by soil and land use planning institutions in various countries, including the Netherlands, Lithuania, China, Kenya, Tanzania, Grenada, Yemen, Namibia, Ghana, Nigeria. 10 Information Technology and Decision-Support Systems in AGL Availability SDBm is available as FAO World Soil Resources Report 81. Contact persons: Jacques.Antoine@fao.org; Wolfgang.Prante@fao.org. Soil And Terrain (SOTER) Database When to use SOTER SOTER is useful to store soil and terrain data at national and global scale in an easily accessible format for thematic mapping and monitoring of changes of soil and terrain resources and for AEZ evaluation of land resources potential for land use planning. It can be used by scientists, planners, decision-makers and policy-makers. What is SOTER SOTER utilizes a Relational DataBase Management System (RDBMS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) to establish a World Soils and Terrain Database, containing digitized map units and their attribute data. SOTER uses a specific methodology and its own system for classification of terrain designed for universal application. SOTER has adopted the recently Revised FAO Soil Legend as a reference classification system for differentiating and characterizing its soil components. The database is supported by a Procedures Manual which translates SOTER's overall objectives into a workable set of arrangements for the selection, standardization, coding and storing of soil and terrain data. The input of soil and terrain data into the SOTER database is contingent upon the availability of sufficiently detailed information collected through previous surveys. Application A current SOTER project envisages to create a separate database for each area for which a land resource inventory is being undertaken. Subsequently the individual databases will be merged into a global database. Through its basic activities the SOTER project also intends to contribute to the establishment of national and regional soil and terrain databases, founded upon the same commonly acceptable principles and procedures, so as to further facilitate the exchange of land resource information and ultimate incorporation into a global database. So far SOTER databases have been established in various countries in all the regions of the world, including Uruguay, Costa Rica, Kenya, Brazil. Availability ISRIC Secretariat: Soil@isric.nl. Contact person in FAO: Freddy.Nachtergaele@fao.org. Technical Consultation on Land and Water Resources Information Systems 11 Digitized Soil Map Of The World (DSMW) What is DSMW The Digital Soil Map of the World (DSMW) is FAO’s global soil database based on the paper FAO/UNESCO Soil Map of the World (scale 1:5,000,000), which consists of ten map sheets: Africa, North America, Central America, Europe, Central and Northeast Asia, Far East, Southeast Asia, and Oceania. DSMW contains two types of files: map files and derived soil properties files. The map files are available in three GIS formats: one vector format (ARC/INFO Export) and two raster (scale 5 x 5 arc-minute) formats: ERDAS and IDRISI. The Derived Soil Properties files consist of interpretation programs and related data files. The programs are written in QuickBASIC and can be read using DOS or OS/2 operating system. Programs are included that interpret the maps in terms of agronomic and environmental parameters (e.g. pH, organic carbon content, C/N ratio, clay mineralogy, soil depth, soil and terrain suitability for specific crop production, soil moisture storage capacity and soil drainage class). The programs produce analyses of soil inventories, problem soils and fertility capability classification. Included are maps of soil units classified according to the World Soil Reference Base and topsoil distribution, which can used in teaching soil science. The database includes information on soil moisture storage capacity, soil drainage class and effective soil depth, useful for environmental studies. Soils and Terrain Database for East Africa This is a database program for storage, display, interpretation and analyses of the soil maps of 10 East-African countries (Burundi, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda) at scale 1:1,000,000. The database contains information on soil database (based on the revised FAO Soil Legend) and terrain as well as data layers on vegetation and geology. The program provides a query facility which enables easy access to the database for data entry, display of thematic maps and data browsing. Availability The databases are currently installed on the computers of FAO's Geographic Information System Unit. This Unit stores large quantities of data from a variety of sources and of different types. DSMW is published as CD-ROM (version 3.5, November 1995). Contact person: Freddy.Nachtergaele@fao.org. FAO/ITC Land Use Database When to use the database To store information on land use for various purposes: assessing land production potentials, monitor land use changes and human impacts on the land, soil degradation and many other damaging effects at various scales. 12 Information Technology and Decision-Support Systems in AGL What is the FAO/ITC Land Use Database The FAO/ITC land use database is a PC program which stores information on individual land uses and production systems in terms of activities, inputs, benefits on the physical, social and economic environment. The program comprises 1) a data entry module containing collected land use data, defined land use classes, plus program settings and options for data entry and storage; 2) a query module which searches for land use data and classes on the basis of userdefined criteria 3) a glossary with numerous terms used to describe operations, inputs and land use types and classes. These are available in the form of multiple-choice lists, from which the user selects. Application The program is being tested in various field projects. Availability International Institute for Aerospace Survey and Earth Sciences (ITC) PO Box 6, 7500 AA Enschede, The Netherlands. ECOCROP 1 (Crop Environmental Requirements Database) When to use ECOCROP 1 Ecocrop 1 can be used to identify suitable crop or tree species for a specified environment or for a defined use and to create a library of crop environmental requirements. What is ECOCROP 1 Ecocrop 1 is a database which provides the optimum and minimum- maximum ranges of crop environmental requirements for various species. The information has proven useful to gardeners, farmers, students, agricultural development and extension staff and land-use planners. The database contains information on 1700 species, which can be used to facilitate the comparison of 12-20 different environmental requirements across different groups of species, or across species of different use. The database includes arable crops, grasses, trees and some other plant species with special uses. The database in Ecocrop 1 primarily holds information about the climate and soil requirements of plant species but the program also provides a range of other information, such as a brief description of the species, common names in different language, possible yields etc. It has text information about land use planning and about environmental factors and their influence on each other and on plant growth The present size of the database makes it one of the biggest data-collections on crop environmental requirements available. The database program is menu-driven with drop down menus and it has an on-line user manual and a range of help-keys. The program has a digitised climate zone map, a data entry and comments form that can be e-mailed back to FAO. It can produce output files in all commonly used formats and has many other features. Technical Consultation on Land and Water Resources Information Systems 13 Ecocrop 1 runs on computers using MS-DOS ver. 2.1 or later operation system, with 640 K of Ram and at least 6 Mb of hard disk space. ECOCROP 1 Application examples The program has been distributed in about 700 copies to Research Institutes, Universities, Land Use Planning Offices, Government offices, Field projects, NGO’s, private bodies, etc. It has been used in various applications, including identification of species suitable for sand dune stabilization and erosion control , land rehabilitation, reforestation and as cash crops. Availability Ecocrop 1 is available on the Internet at: “http://193.43.36.6/ecocrop.html”. It can be downloaded via FTP server. It is also available as a set of two diskettes with an information folder, from FAO Distribution and Sales Section, Publications-sales@FAO.ORG. Contact for technical requests: Per.Diemer@FAO.ORG or Wolfgang.Prante@FAO.ORG. ECOCROP 2 (Crop Environmental Response Database) When to use ECOCROP 2 Ecocrop 2 can be applied to obtain environmental response information for 20 crops of global importance, information for crop modelling including the facility to graph the responses and organize and compare crop response information. The user can enter own data and use the software to graph the responses on the screen and to provides statistical out-put for crop modelling. What is ECOCROP 2 Ecocrop 2 is a database program which holds information on a number of varieties for 20 crops of world-wide importance. Each crop file contains on average 200-220 separate crop environmental response studies or data sets extracted from 40-50 sources. On selecting certain environmental or management factors and crop responses of interest, such as yield, biomass production or photosynthesis rate, the information contained in the database can be illustrated on the screen in the form of response curves or it can be written out in statistical form for use as crop model input. The crop files follow the DSSAT format, and are therefore widely applicable. ECOCROP 2 application examples ECOCROP2 is being distributed for field testing. Availability The database will be made downloadable via FTP server and made available on CD from Distribution and Sales Section, FAO. Contact for technical requests: Per.Diemer@FAO.ORG and Wolfgang.Prante@FAO.ORG. 14 Information Technology and Decision-Support Systems in AGL World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT) When to use WOCAT WOCAT is tool which aims at promoting improved decision making on land management and transfer of appropriate technology through collection, analysis, presentation and dissemination of knowledge on soil and water conservation (SWC) world-wide. In particular, WOCAT can be used to identify options for overcoming land degradation problems. What is WOCAT WOCAT is a world-wide program, launched in 1992 by the World Association of Soil and Water Conservation (WASWC) and organized as a consortium of several institutions (members/donors), including: FAO, ISRIC, Deutsche Gesellschat fuer Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), Observatoire du Sahara et du Sahel (OSS), and others; coordinated by Centre for Development and Environment (CDE), University of Bern, Switzerland. WOCAT uses a standardized framework for the evaluation of SWC by the means of questionnaires. The program organizes regional SWC workshops for data collection and exchange of experience, creates openly accessible databases, analyzes and exchanges collected information, produces and disseminates outputs (books, reports, maps, database, decision support system, etc.) for the promotion of sustainable land use. The inventory of the soil and water conservation technologies shows characteristics of the socio-economic and bio-physical environment for each technology and lists pros and cons of the technology under investigation. Furthermore, WOCAT provides an analysis of the technology by using evaluation criteria as replicability, durability, adaptability, adoption/acceptance, etc. The inventory of soil and water conservation approaches offers ways for the implementation of technologies on the ground by reviewing and analyzing areas of intervention, land tenure, target groups, involvement of land users, incentives, training needs etc. This allows to elaborate on pros and cons of possible approaches. At the core of the system is the WOCAT database which helps to identify the solutions by providing the user with an inventory of soil and water conservation technologies and an inventory of respective approaches. A user-friendly query system allows to easily narrow down the possible options and to trace appropriate solutions. Once that possible options are identified, WOCAT gives a comprehensive description of the respective technologies and approaches. The WOCAT database will allow linkages with ECOCROP, Soil and AEZ data, and land use information. WOCAT application examples a) Data collection in East and Southern Africa The preliminary results of the regional WOCAT data collection show that soil and water technologies are applied primarily on cropland in semi-humid to semi-arid environments on small-scale farms with individual land use rights and are rarely reported on grazing land (19%) and forest/woodland (5%). Technologies focus mainly on structural measures, often in Technical Consultation on Land and Water Resources Information Systems 15 combination with vegetative measures (e.g. grass on banks). There are important knowledge gaps for costs, benefits and impacts of the reported technologies. Technologies are mainly project-implemented, with few traditional/indigenous approaches but currently a shift from topdown approaches to bottom-up, participatory approaches can be observed. b) National WOCAT inventory in Thailand In a national WOCAT workshop 22 soil and water conservation technologies and 14 approaches were identified and described. The data collected is now being analyzed for constructing an expert system for soil and water conservation in Thailand. The expected outputs compromise a handbook and expert system on adaptable conservation technologies, an overview report of successful approaches in sustainable soil management and a map on achievements in soil and water conservation. Availability Contact address: WOCAT Secretariat/CDE, Hallerstrasse 12, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland, Tel. +41.31.631.88.22, Fax. +41.31.631.85.44, e-mail: wocat@giub.unibe.ch; Internet: http://www.giub.unibe.ch/cde/projects/wocat.htm. Database Tool for Integrated Plant Nutrition Systems (DTIPNS) Use of DTIPNS To provide researchers, extension officers and development workers in the area of plant nutrition management with numerical data and other relevant information on plant nutrient management practices, plant nutrient inputs, losses, uptakes and response to plant nutrients under a range of conditions for selected countries. This information will allow the derivation of nutrient balance sheets and the economic and agronomic evaluation of alternative plant nutrient management practices, and so assist decision-making on balanced, environmentally friendly plant nutrition practices at the farm level. What is DTIPNS? FAO-IPNS database is a runtime version of Microsoft Access database which contains data collected at the national and local level on the following variables: 1. 2. 3. 4. Nutrient content of mineral, organic and biological sources of plant nutrients (including micronutrients). Nutrient losses due to erosion and run-off, leaching, crop uptake, volatilization and denitrification. Response curves to one or more nutrient sources under a range of conditions. Descriptions of major crop rotations and plant nutrition practices of farmers in selected countries under a range of conditions. Application  A number of decision-support models have been developed using data collected from onstation research conducted in developed countries. The data collected in the IPNS database provide plant nutrient response data from on-farm research conducted in developing 16 Information Technology and Decision-Support Systems in AGL countries. The database therefore provides useful information for developing models which are relevant to developing countries.  Assessment environmental impact of plant nutrition practices on plant nutrient balance of the major nutrients.   Estimation and assessment of risk associated with the application of alternative plant nutrition practices. The database has been recently developed and is currently being tested. Availability Contact: Lystra.FletcherPaul@fao.org. ALES expert system When to use ALES To carry out land evaluations according to the method presented in the FAO Framework for Land Evaluation (FAO, 1976). Such evaluations are location-specific, usually require many data, involve numerous repetitive calculations or references to tables and are tedious if many possibilities are to be compared. ALES is a useful tool that provides an automated procedure of evaluation to replace manual procedures which are time-consuming and error prone. What is ALES ALES is a PC computer program shell which evaluators can use to build their own expert systems taking into account local conditions. ALES provides a reasoning mechanism and constrains the evaluator the evaluator to express inferences using the mechanism. ALES is not by itself an expert system, and does not contain knowledge about land and land use. It is a framework within which evaluators can express their own, local knowledge. ALES can also be thought as a model of expert judgement, that is the codification in a constrained form of the inferences already present in the mind of and expert. ALES has six components: 1) a framework for a knowledge base describing proposed land uses, in both physical and economic terms; 2) a framework for a database describing the land areas being evaluated; 3) an inference mechanism to relate these two, thereby computing the physical and economic suitability of a set of map or land units for a set of proposed land uses; 4) an explanation facility that enables model builders to understand and fine tune their models; 5) a consultation mode that enables the user to query the system and 6) a report generator. ALES is a highly interactive program. ALES a dBase interface and can linked with GIS systems such as ARC/INFO and IDRISI. Technical Consultation on Land and Water Resources Information Systems 17 Application examples ALES has been used in numerous land evaluations world wide. It has been used by FAO field projects in Mozambique, Kenya, Malawi, Botswana, Oman, Yemen, Grenada, Ecuador and Chile. Availability ALES Project - Department of Soil, Crop, and Atmospheric Sciences (SCAS) 1015 Bradfield Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-1901 USA Fax: +1 (607) 255-8615 Internet e-mail: ales@cornell.edu; WWW at http://wwwscas.cit.cornell.edu/landecal/ales/ ales.htm. Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) techniques, using the Aspiration-Led Decision Support (ALDS) approach When to use MCDA/ARLDS In “real world" situations, when solutions to problems are reached as compromise solutions, resulting from trade-offs between various conflicting objectives of the stakeholders through negotiations to reach a consensus. In such situations the approach is not to maximize all the objectives, but to optimize, that is, to find an acceptable balance between the requirements of the stakeholders. Different kinds of objectives can be included, expressing not only economic values of products but also addressing goals which can not always be expressed in monetary terms such as biodiversity, people's preferences, equity, or minimizing risk and uncertainty. The factors of a solution are not fixed valued, but are variable or fuzzy within certain ranges determined by resources availability and socio-economical realities. Usually models have to be run a great number of times in order to identify a "best" (or even acceptable) solution; and many options need to be examined to generate the information and knowledge required for these decisions and to quantify and display the trade-offs that must be made between conflicting objectives. What is MCDA/ARLDS It is a recent DSS tool developed at IIASA (Makowski, 1994a, 1994c) based on one of the most successful MCDA methods called the aspiration-reservation led decision support (ARLDS). From the user's point of view, the critical step of MCDA is generating a part of the Pareto-optimal solution set. Efficient, or Pareto-optimal, solutions are those for which an improvement in the value of one criterion cannot be attained without worsening the value of at least one other criterion. Generating the entire Pareto-set is practically impossible and -even if done - would result in a vast amount of useless information. The MCDA/ARLDS method facilitates generation of Pareto-solutions (having properties implicitly defined by aspirations set by the decision maker (DM) and then provide tools for analysing these solutions and generating another set of Pareto-optimal solutions based on these results. Since aspirations are usually not attainable, the DM uses an interactive tool in order to adjust both aspiration and reservation levels until a solution is found which best meets the DM expectations. 18 Information Technology and Decision-Support Systems in AGL FIGURE 3 Structure of the MCDA/ARLDS Software AEZ Model Generator Data File AEZ core model Graphical User Interface User Criteria Aspirations Reservations LGP results Multicriteria Problem Generator LP problem HPDM The ALDS is implemented with a software package which was constructed from several modular tools designed according to the principle of re-usability. The functional structure of the DSS software is illustrated in Figure 3. These tools include the following:  a user interface which handles the interactive specification of aspiration and reservation levels, as well as the changing of criterion's status. More advanced users can also specify preferences in terms of fuzzy sets;  a data interchange tool for handling data that define a mixed integer programming (MIP) or linear programming (LP) problem;  a problem-specific model generator for generating the core model in the form of a mathematical programming problem;  a modular tool for the generation and interactive modification of a multiple criteria problem. The resulting MIP problem is based on the core model and the aspiration and reservation levels specified by the user (Makowski, 1994 c);  a modular LP solver based on Interior Point method (Gondzia and Makowshi, 1995). The package is oriented towards an interactive mode of operation in which a sequence of problems is solved under varying conditions (e.g. different objective functions, reference points, values of constraints and bounds). It offers also many options useful for diagnostic and verification of a problem being solved. Technical Consultation on Land and Water Resources Information Systems 19 Land and water application examples a) Making land use choices in Kenya districts The main issue here was to analyse potential population supporting capacity of a district under various land use scenarios, considering simultaneously several objectives such as maximizing revenues from crop and livestock production, maximizing district self-reliance in agricultural production, minimizing costs of production and environmental damages from erosion. Population supporting capacity, as defined here, relates the maximum potential of soil and climatic resources to produce food energy and protein, at a given level of technology. b) Regional water quality management: the Nitra River case The scope of the problem is a river basin or a large region composed of several basins where untreated and inadequately treated municipal and industrial wastewater emissions should be reduced in order to improve ambient water quality. At each discharge, one technology to be selected out of a set of possible technologies can be implemented in order to meet the desired water quality goals in the region. The approach is to specify ambient water quality goals and to look for a regional low cost policy, using multi-criteria optimizartion methods. The problem is handled in one step with the interactive incorporation of decision makers’ preferences. In both situations the approach is to optimize on the basis of the various objective functions of the different actors and analysis of the extent to which the different optimization runs lead to similar land use patterns or water treatment technologies; to develop and apply interactive methods to maximize the extent of consensus in a land use pattern or a technology. The information produced in this process can then form a common basis and tool for arriving at a negotiated solution for any remaining differences. Availability MCDA/ARLDS is available as documented software package at IIASA. Contact for technical queries: marek @iiasa.ac.at; Jacques.Antoine@FAO.ORG. Water Resources assessment systems Aquastat Database When to use Aquastat Aquastat mainly provides users interested in global or regional perspectives systematically organized and reliable information on water resources and water use existing in the countries for use in studies and analysis and action programmes on sustainable use of water, such as irrigation potential studies and land productivity assessments and for monitoring water resources. What is Aquastat The AQUASTAT programme has been launched in order to provide basic information on water resources and their use, in particular for agriculture and rural development. 20 Information Technology and Decision-Support Systems in AGL AQUASTAT is essentially a database on water availability and use in agriculture and rural development, which produces country profiles on water resources development, with emphasis on irrigation and drainage. In 1993 a pilot phase was implemented, in which data collection and processing were carried out for a selected number of countries. This made it possible to assess the availability of the information, and to finalize the structure of the database. Full implementation started in 1994 through national and regional surveys and analysis. Country analysis With the help of national or international consultants, the survey is being developed and carried out as follows: 1. Country-based reviews of literature and existing information. The main sources of information are:      2. 3. 4. national water resources and irrigation master plans; national yearbooks, statistics and reports; reports from FAO and other projects; international surveys; results from national and international research centre surveys. Data collection through a detailed questionnaire. Standardization of the information available, Data processing and critical analysis of the information, selection of the most reliable information with the assistance of data processing software developed specifically for the survey. Preparation of country profiles and submission to national authorities responsible for water resources and irrigation for further comments. 5. Regional analysis With the help of international consultants, preparation of regional and continental tables, maps and analyses, and cross-checking of the information wherever possible. Data The main quantified variables gathered in the AQUASTAT database are:        renewable water resources (groundwater and surface water); wastewater production and treatment; non-conventional water sources; water withdrawal by sector; irrigation potential; irrigated areas, water control and irrigation techniques; origin of irrigation water; Technical Consultation on Land and Water Resources Information Systems 21        types of management for fully or partially controlled irrigation schemes; number of beneficiaries; cost of irrigation and drainage development and operation and maintenance; irrigated and rainfed crops and yields; drained areas and drainage technologies; areas salinized by irrigation and flood protected areas; population affected by water-borne and water-related diseases. Additional information on irrigation development, institutional environment and trends in water resources management is also presented for each country. One of the strengths of the AQUASTAT programme is that a bibliographical reference is attached to each figure. The country profile The country profile describes the situation regarding water resources and use in the country, and especially the irrigation and drainage subsectors. Its aim is to emphasize the particularities of each country, as well as the problems encountered in rural water management and irrigation. It also summarizes the trends of irrigation in the countries, as described in the available literature. It was a deliberate choice to attempt standardizing the country profiles as much as possible. Standardized tables are used for all country profiles. Application As at November 1997, the Aquastat survey has been completed for the countries of Africa, the Near East and the Former Soviet Union. For each region, a publication has been prepared and is available (Former Soviet union in press). Next surveys will consider Asia and Latin America. Availability Country profiles, regional summaries, tables and maps are all available on Internet at the following address: http://www.fao.org/waicent/faoinfo/agricult/agl/aglw/aquastat/aquastat. htm. For the regions already surveyed, quantitative data can also be retrieved from a data storage software available with AGL. FAO Contact: JeanMarc.Faures@fao.org. Irrigation water management systems Climatic Database (CLIMWAT) When to use CLIMWAT CLIMWAT is a multi-purpose climatic data base which was developed primarily for use in providing climate data inputs for the calculation of crop water requirements , irrigation supply 22 Information Technology and Decision-Support Systems in AGL and irrigation scheduling for various crops in combination with the program CROPWAT (see below). CLIMWAT is also useful in providing climatic data to AEZ land resources assessments. What is CLIMWAT The CLIMWAT data base has been originally compiled by the Agrometeorological Group of the FAO Research and Technology Development Division (SDR)and has been converted into a format suitable for use by CROPWAT. The CLIMWAT data base includes data from a total of 3262 meteorological stations from 144 countries divided into five continents and is contained on five diskettes arranged according to continent and country : Diskette 1: Diskette 2: Diskette 3: Diskette 4: Diskette 5: Asia and the Pacific Sub-Saharan Africa Near East and North Africa Europe South America, Caribbean and Central America Programs are included to facilitate management of the database , including the selection of suitable climatic stations from the concerned countries. The climatological data included are maximum and minimum temperature, mean daily relative humidity, sunshine hours, wind speed, precipitation and calculated values for reference evapotranspiration and effective rainfall. The reference evapotranspiration has been calculated for all stations according the Penman Monteith method , as recommended by the FAO Expert Consultation held in Rome, May 1990. Various procedures to set up the system and to address the selected climatic stations are available to assist the user of CLIMWAT in the use of the data base and the CROPWAT program, including examples to show how the various data can be addressed and used for planning and management of irrigated and rainfed agriculture. Application examples CLIMWAT has been applied in numerous irrigation management projects in various countries. Availability The CLIMWAT program is a new element of the CROPWAT irrigation management program which has been published earlier as No 46 in the Irrigation and Drainage Series CLIMWAT is available as FAO Irrigation and drainage paper No. 49. (Manual and diskettes). Technical Consultation on Land and Water Resources Information Systems 23 CROPWAT - a computer program for irrigation planning and management When to use CROPWAT The program is meant as a practical tool to help both the Irrigation Engineer and Irrigation Agronomist to carry out standard calculations for design and management of irrigation schemes. It can further help in the development of recommendations for improved irrigation practices and the planning of irrigation schedules under varying water supply conditions. What is CROPWAT CROPWAT is a computer program for IBM-PC or compatibles. Its main functions are: To calculate: Reference evapotranspiration Crop water requirements Irrigation requirements Scheme water supply Irrigation schedules under various management conditions Rainfed production and drought effects To develop: To evaluate Calculation of crop water requirements and irrigation requirements is done from climatic and crop data, while the development of irrigation schedules is based on the soilwater-balance for different irrigation management conditions. Scheme water supply is calculated for various cropping patterns. The program will run on any IBM-PC type of computer and is available in English ,French or Spanish. Procedures for calculation of the crop water requirements and irrigation requirements are based on methodologies presented in FAO Irrigation and Drainage Papers No. 24 "Crop water requirements" and No. 33 "Yield response to water". Concepts and calculation procedures for the irrigation schedules will be presented in a FAO publication on irrigation scheduling, presently in preparation. CROPWAT version 5.7 is an update of earlier versions and includes a revised method for estimating reference crop evapotranspiration, adopting the approach of PenmanMonteith as recommended by the FAO Expert Consultation held in May 1990 in Rome. CROPWAT can be linked receives input of climatic data. directly to the CLIMWAT database from which it CROPWAT has a documentation in two parts which provides users with directions in the installation and the use of the CROPWAT program and guidance in the application in irrigation planning and management with detailed examples on data collection and analysis. Special attention is given to demonstration of the various applications of the Scheduling Program in: Indicative Irrigation Scheduling; Evaluation of Irrigation Practices; Rainfed Production and Supplementary Irrigation; Deficit Irrigation 24 Information Technology and Decision-Support Systems in AGL Application of CROPWAT CROPWAT has been distributed to a large number of users and has been applied in irrigation management projects in many countries. Availability CROPWAT is available as FAO irrigation and drainage paper No 46 in English, French or Spanish. Contact for technical queries: Martin.Smith@FAO.ORG. SIMIS - Scheme Irrigation Management Information System When to use SIMIS When managing irrigation systems a tool is needed which facilitates the management tasks of irrigation systems. SIMIS can de used to provide timely and complete information for decisions with regard to the day-to-day management activities including water deliveries and other major issues such as accounting, crop production, control of maintenance, water fees and other relevant tasks. What is SIMIS SIMIS is a modular system of programs containing 19 different and independent "modules". The first module is addressed to identify the characteristic of the project where all the subsequent information will be stored. SIMIS can store information for one or several projects as needed. This is a useful feature for large projects which can be subdivided into smaller units and corresponding information entered separately so that information can be processed faster and more clearly. The following seven modules are utilized to store "basic" data of the irrigation system such as: Climate, Soils, Crops, Physical Infrastructure, Land Tenure, Project Staff and Machinery (for O&M tasks). This information is shared by another seven modules that are management tools covering the main aspects of managing an irrigation system and they include: Agricultural activities (crop production, area planted, production costs, crop prices and others). Crop water requirement (for all crops grown in the project). Seasonal irrigation planning (allowing matching of supply and demand). Irrigation scheduling (under different methods: fixed rotation, on demand, rational, soil moisture balance). Water Consumption (control of water used by every farm). Accounting/O&M activities (control of costs). Water fees (determination of fees under different hypotheses and preparation of bills for every farmer, control of payments. The last four modules are for setting the work environment and include: output setting, password, re-indexing and reconfiguration of files when required. SIMIS has the following useful characteristics: Technical Consultation on Land and Water Resources Information Systems 25 Adaptability: The program has been developed in DBase IV to facilitate the transfer of information already collected in this Database system and others that are compatible with it. Furthermore the system has been developed to suit many situations but when local adaptation of terminology may be found indispensable the screens for entry of data and the reports generated can be easily modified. Modularity: The Project Management modules are independent - although they share the same basic information - and therefore concerned staff may select to use the modules that are relevant to them leaving aside those that may be relevant to other people or systems. In case of need new modules can be added to care for a specific local application. Simplicity of use: Users do not need to know database systems. SIMIS operates on the basis of simple menus and descriptive screens for the entry of data. Multilingual: All the texts of the program are stored in separate databases permitting their translation with only minor changes in the program. At present the English and Spanish versions are available and the French is being prepared. Data safety: Accidental or intentional loss of valuable data can represent a heavy economic damage and lost of confidence in the system. To minimize this problem SIMIS permits the access of authorized users through a system of passwords with different degree of access to the information. Applications The program has been first distributed to a few institutions under restricted conditions which include the sponsoring of a training course for interested professionals and testing and verification of the system in a pilot area. Distribution of the program has started now that the testing phase has been completed. System requirements SIMIS installation requires 15 Mbytes of the hard disk and to run the applications it is convenient to have another 10 Mbytes free. A 386 PC running at 25 or 33 MHz is the minimum configuration A first version of the software was completed at the end of 1993 and the system is now under testing in several countries. FURTHER INFORMATION Contact address: FAO - Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla 00100 Rome, ITALY Internet: HTTP://WWW.FAO.ORG/WAICENT/Agricul.htm On distribution and sales FAO - Publications Division - Distribution and Sales Section 26 Information Technology and Decision-Support Systems in AGL Viale delle Terme Di Caracalla, 00100 ROME, ITALY Fax: ++39 6 5225 3152/ ++39 6 5225 5155/ ++39 6 578 2610. E-mail: Publications-Sales@FAO.org The FAO Publications Catalogue can be accessed on Internet at gopher: //gopher.fao.org/ or http://www.fao.org . The following Internet pages can also be consulted for more detailed information on AGL systems: - land , land resources, land use (planning): http://www.fao.org/waicent/FaoInfo/Agricult/AGL/agls/aglshome.htm - water (resources), irrigation: http://www.fao.org/waicent/FaoInfo/Agricult/AGL/aglw/aglw.htm - sustainable development, natural resources: http://www.fao.org/waicent/Faoinfo/SustDev/EIdirect/EIhomepg.htm http://www.fao.org/waicent/Faoinfo/Agricult/AGL/agls“Soil Resources” FUTURE PERSPECTIVES Demand for land and water information for improved decision making in land and water at all levels is increasing due to the increasing pressure on use of the limited land and water resources worldwide. To address sustainable food production and food security and sustainable use of natural resources issues, systems are needed which can be used not only to asses but also to monitor land and water use. The challenge to AGL is to put in place the systems needed to generate and disseminate quickly and economically the information products, including images, maps, tabular and textual reports for the elaboration of various kinds of information useful for land and water decision at the various levels and the infrastructure and organization required to make the systems operational and viable. To meet this challenge AGL needs to organize information systems and improved decision support systems based on existing systems and tools and available and prospective information technologies. AGL has spent considerable efforts and resources in providing a variety of information and support services to promote the use of the individual systems and transfer skills and technology to member countries through field projects, pilot studies and training programmes. However, some of the systems were not always adopted by the relevant users and organisations to the degree expected. Information products are under-utilised or sometimes not used at all. A number of reasons can be indicated, including: slow pace and relatively high costs of implementation; lack of appropriate hardware and software; lack of appropriate, accessible data; inappropriate models and deficient decision support tools; lack of user-friendliness; lack of awareness of the usefulness and benefits of the systems; lack of user access to information products; inappropriate solutions; lack of continuity and sustainability due to lack of financial support. Technical Consultation on Land and Water Resources Information Systems 27 The systems themselves are independent land or water systems with separate, disjoint sub-systems which were designed and implemented without consideration to compatibility. The global databases have many deficiencies: lack of data and poor data quality. Many of these constraints appear again and again in implementations of similar systems world wide. However some of the issues are more acute in developing countries, fuelled by the inappropriateness of sophisticated and delicate hard and software in these countries. The advent desktop GIS workstations, PC -networks, rapid application development environments and multimedia tools, in particular the Internet, now provides developers with potential solutions to the above problems. In this light a number of systems are being created, at a fraction of the cost and in a fraction of the time. More success is already evident with desk top management packages being utilized by increasing number of organizations and interest has been generated in many more similar products and GIS based tools. This a created a tendency to proliferate systems without consideration to aspect of sustainability in terms of maintenance and cost at a time of reduced manpower and financial resources. It is evident that demand for land and water information and knowledge at all levels is increasing rapidly everywhere in the world. Also the need for synthetic knowledge is increasing. An appropriate strategy and appropriate information systems are required to generate and disseminate the various types of land and water information products more efficiently. It is proposed here as a possible solution to link systems under a common umbrella or framework and arrange them in toolboxes (Fig. 4). Systems and tools could be redesigned to integrate the needs and level of skills of various users. For instance GIS-based programs and mapping-based programs can be combined or linked to cover the requirements of two kinds of users: 1) users analysing and generating information who need the capability of a full GIS to analyse multiple data layers, geo-referenced in specific co-ordinate systems allowing them to determine location on Earth and a field’s position relative to all other fields in the farm, commune, district, province or country; 2) many end users of information who only need to map data and layer data for visualization, and perform descriptive statistics on one layer at a time; for these users mapping packages are sufficient . Mapping is only a subset of the functionality of a GIS system. Whereas a GIS uses coordinate systems and enables analysis on multiple data elements and variables, enabling the user to create new layer from information in existing layers a mapping based system is for display purposes only, it will display a picture of which the location is not known. Additional modules to integrate real-time GPS navigation capability and to import remotely sensed imagery for display and analysis can be incorporated in the GIS/map systems to enhance the capability and broaden the scope of use of the integrated systems. Systems designed for site-specific agriculture will play a increasingly significant role in addressing land productivity at field level for food production for instance. There will be important developments in light of the increasing acreage worldwide requiring dryland management practices. The challenge still remains to tackle these aspects in the context of FAO’s future food security programme . With these new technologies and tools in a toolbox it is theoretically feasible to develop and implement effective rapid GIS for land and water management area for instance in a very short, intensive manner. The success of the concept 28 Information Technology and Decision-Support Systems in AGL relies on integrating recent advances in information technology: rapid application development environment; rapid data creation and capture via remote sensing and Global Positioning System; desktop environment: software and hardware with an effective and motivated team, consisting of local researchers and managers; GIS/RS and Information technology experts, scientists i.e. land and water resources planners and managers; extension workers. If this kind of integration can be achieved the basis of an effective GIS base management system could be developed in a matter of months, instead of years. This would include: standard procedure for the development of GIS databases and systems including user needs assessment, data requirements analysis, etc., critical databases; initial land and water resources management tools; GIS and multi-media skills and capacity developed in local staff; and supporting software and hardware technology. It is important to demonstrate that by focusing on a dedicated team of people and through the use of modern day technology at field level the process can be speeded up, to a level where real progress and benefits could be seen within the first months. The rapid implementation concept of a GIS based information systems is needed to overcome the issues impeding the uptake of GIS in land and water : lack of awareness about the potential of GIS and RS and to some extent the cost issue. FIGURE 4 Flow Diagram of a possible Land and Water Resources Information System Toolbox Data Collection and screening DATA INPUT Map preparation GIS IMAGE PROCESSING MODEL BASE Interface SPATIAL & TABULAR DATABASE Interface DATABASE MANAGEMENT DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM OUTPUT Interface ANALYSIS OUTPUT OUTPUT OUTPUT Technical Consultation on Land and Water Resources Information Systems 29 30 Information Technology and Decision-Support Systems in AGL BIBLIOGRAPHY Brinkman R. 1994. Recent Developments in Land Use Planning, with special reference to FAO, pp 1122. In Fresco et al 1994. FAO, 1976. A Framework for Land Evaluation. Soils Bulletin 32. Rome. FAO, 1978. Report on the Agro-Ecological Zones Project (1978-1981), Vol.1: Methodology and Results for Africa. World Soils Resources Report 48/1. Rome, 1981. FAO, 1986. Yield Response to Water. Irrigation and Drainage Paper 33. Rome FAO, 1991. Agro-Ecological land resources assessment for agricultural development planning: A case study of Kenya. World Soils Resources Reports 71/1-9. Rome, 1991. FAO, 1992. CROPWAT A Computer Program for Irrigation Planning and Management. Irrigation and Drainage Paper 46. Rome FAO, 1993. Global and National Soils and Terrain Digital Databases (SOTER) Procedures Manual. World Soil Resources Report 74. Rome. FAO, 1993. CLIMWAT for CROPWAT A Climatic Database for Irrigation Planning and Management. Irrigation and Drainage Paper 49. Rome FAO, 1995. Planning for Sustainable Use of Land Resources: Towards a New Approach. Land and Water Bulletin 2. FAO, Rome ,60 pp. FAO, 1995: Irrigation in Africa in Figures. Water report No 7. Rome. FAO ,1996. User’s Manual of SIMIS (Version 2.0). Provisional Text. Rome. FAO, 1997: Irrigation in the Near East in Figures. Water report No 9. Rome. FAO (in press): Irrigation in the Former Soviet Union in Figures. FAO/AT2010, 1995. World Agriculture: Towards 2010, An FAO Study. Edited by N. Alexandratos. Published by FAO and J.Wiley & Sons, 1995. Fischer G et al., 1996. Multiple Criteria Land Use Analysis. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) Working Paper WP-96-006. Makowski, M.1994. Methodology and a modular tool for multiple criteria analysis of LP models, Working Paper WP-94-102, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria, 1994b. Rossiter, D.G. 1988. ALES: a microcomputer program to assist in land evaluation. Proc. International Workshop on Land Qualities in Space and Time, Wageningen, the Netherlands, 22-26 August 1988. Pudoc, Wageningen.