land evaluation and land use planning

Land evaluation is formally defined as 'the assessment of land performance when used for a specified purpose, involving the execution and interpretation of surveys and studies of land forms, soils, vegetation, climate and other aspects of land in order to identify and make a comparison of promising kinds of land use in terms applicable to the objectives of the evaluation' (FAO, 1976.

Conceptually, land evaluation requires matching of the ecological and management requirements of relevant kinds of land use with land qualities , whilst taking local economic and social conditions into account. Land evaluation provides practical answers to such questions as "What other uses of land are physically possible and economically and socially relevant?", "What inputs are necessary to bring about a desired level of production?", and "What are the current land uses and what are the consequences if current management practices stay the same?"

Depending on the questions that need to be answered, land evaluation can be carried out at different scales (e.g. local, national regional and even global) and with different levels of quantification (i.e. qualitative vs quantitative). Studies at the national scale may be useful in setting national priorities for development, whereas those targeted at the local level are useful for selecting specific projects for implementation. Land evaluation is applicable both in areas where there is strong competition between existing land uses in highly populated zones as well as in zones that are largely undeveloped

Land evaluation is often carried out in response to recognition of a need for changes in the way in which land is currently being used. The information and recommendations from land evaluation represent only one of multiple inputs into the land use planning process (discussed in a later section of this paper), which often follows land evaluation. In turn, the land use planning process can serve to screen preliminary land use options that should be considered for land evaluation. The two processes are therefore interlinked

Land evaluation should be distinguished from land valuation (i.e. estimation of the monetary or "market" value of land for the purpose for which it is currently used, e.g. farming). It should also be distinguished from 'land capability' as used, for example, within the context of the Canada Land Inventory or the USDA land classification system. For these systems, capability is based primarily on an assessment of soil conditions to support common cultivated crops and pasture plants. The FAO land-evaluation approach, on the other hand, additionally takes into account specific crops and aspects related to land-management and socio-economic setting. The approach has been applied extensively in projects backstopped by FAO in various countries in different parts of the world for over thirty years