Global Agro-Ecological Zones (GAEZ) CD-ROM FAO/IISA 2000

[The summary was adapted from the GAEZ Web site] The Global Agro-ecological Zoning (GAEZ) website and CD-ROM was produced by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) with the collaboration of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). The data were based on an application of the Agro-ecological Zones (AEZ) methodology. The AEZ methodology follows an environmental approach; it provides a standardized framework for the characterization of climate, soil and terrain conditions relevant to agricultural production. Crop modeling and environmental matching procedures are used to identify crop-specific limitations of prevailing climate, soil and terrain resources, under assumed levels of inputs and management conditions. This part of the AEZ methodology provides maximum potential and agronomically attainable crop yields for basic land resources units (usually grid-cells in the recent digital databases). The AEZ computations were completed for a range of climatic conditions, including a reference climate (average of period 1961-1990), individual historical years of 1960 to 1996, and scenarios of future climate based on the published outputs of various global climate models. Hence, the AEZ results consistently quantify impacts on land productivity of historical climate variability as well as of potential future climate change. The data on the web site consist of tables, figures, animations, graphics, and data sets of soil, climate, and agricultural conditions that affect land and agricultural productivity. The data can be downloaded from the web site: "http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/GAEZ/index.htm"