Rational landscape decision making: the use of meso-scale climatic analysis to promote sustainable land management

Planning for sustainable land management and the development of land classification systems has become a very complex process with the increasing sophistication of GIS techniques. This has resulted in the emphasis moving to detailed micro-scale description and planning, with a loss of perception of the physical processes and hierarchy of constraints that control local activities. We have developed a meso-scale climate-landscape classification technique which would enable policy makers to develop simplified guidelines for rural activities and to help landholders identify appropriate sustainable land uses. It would also provide a simplified tool for assessment of the effectiveness of a protected areas network. We propose that unless the basic physical possibilities and limitations of the environment are properly understood it is not possible to have sustainable land management, nor stay within the carrying capacity of the local environment.