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"Development and Applications of a Multi-purpose Environmental
and Natural Resources Information Base for Food Security and
Sustainable Development in South East Asia"
Background
The renewable natural resources of many Asian countries have
come under severe strain over the past two or three decades and
most indicators point towards a continuation of this trend.
Whilst a large amount of data related to land cover exist in
Asia, most are not consistent over large geographic areas and
therefore cannot be aggregated at regional and/or sub-regional
scale, limiting the possibilities of proper planning, development
and sustainable management of renewable natural resources in Asia.
Aim of the ASIACOVER Project is the preparation of a regional, standardized
land cover map and multi-purpose natural resource database. It is also
designed to support the development of a decision support system for
an integrated approach for environmental monitoring, food security,
and sustainable development in South East Asia (countries participating in
phase I: Cambodia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand,
Vietnam, China Main (Yunnan)). Furthermore, the integration of
bio-physical data with socio-economic information will serve as
a decision aid for environmental sound decision making.
Immediate Objectives
- Establish a regional network of institutions concerned with
land cover mapping, land use planning, natural resource
assessments, food security and environmental monitoring
(in cooperation with UNESCAP).
- Define a set of common standards (land cover classification,
data base structure, map geometry,cartographic standards
socio-economic variables etc.) to be used for the project
implementation.
- Develop a regional Web based GIS Information System and
database at the scale of 1:250000 or better containing
bio-physical and socio-economic data relevant to food
security and sustainable development.
Future activities will focus on the formulation of follow-up
project document (ASIACOVER II) for donor consideration to
prepare land cover maps and digital data bases for those
countries of the Southeast Asia region, for which reliable
and up-to-date information does not exist.
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