The quality and availability of land and water resources, together with socio-economic conditions and institutional factors, are essential to assure sustainable food security. GAEZ provides a framework for establishing a spatial inventory of land resources. Global environmental datasets provide the spatial characteristics required for land productivity assessments concerning location-specific agro-ecological conditions. The land resources inventory contains spatial layers of climate, land cover, soil, elevation and terrain slopes, protected areas and areas of high biodiversity value, administrative units, watersheds, population and livestock distribution.

Theme 1: Land and Water Resources provides selected layers of the GAEZ v4 land resources database organized in several sub-themes of (1) Agro-ecological Zones, (2) Land Cover, (3) Soil Resources, (4) Soil Suitability, (5) Terrain Resources, (6) Exclusion Areas, (7) Water Resources, and (8) Selected Socio-economic Data.

Results of this theme are presented in a regular raster format of 5 arc-minute (about 9 x 9 km at the equator) grid cells. Selected maps related to AEZ classification, soil suitability, terrain slopes and land cover are provided at 30 arc-second (0.9 x 0.9 km) resolution. The GAEZ v4 update includes 2010 baseline data comprising land cover, a harmonized global soil database and terrain data, protected areas and areas of high biodiversity value.

Climatic conditions are based on a time series of historical data of 1961-2010 and a selection of future climate simulations (30-year average of years 2011-2040, 2041-2070, and 2070-2099) using recent IPCC AR5 Earth System Model (ESM) outputs for four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs).

GAEZ methodology development, data base compilation, production of results and establishing the Data Portal were accomplished in close technical collaboration and with inputs of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA).

For further details, please refer to the GAEZ v4 Model Documentation.