Introduction
Over
the past 50 years of international technical assistance,
significant funds have been targeted towards research on
problem-focused, field-scale, commodity constraints. The
justification, however, for this and similar projects with
an ecoregional perspective, is that demand-driven, "bottom-up"
development means stakeholders, especially those only marginally
connected with agriculture, will talk about all problems,
not just problems related to basic commodities and livestock
(Rhoades, 1998).
Members
of rural communities are often eager to assess the future
of their environments for a number of reasons that provoke
a prevailing sense of venerability fueled by knowledge that
neighboring villages are "doing better" and therefore
"why can't we"; or from fear neighbors are "doing
poorly" and "maybe we're next". Such reasons
include stagnating yields, but also include deteriorating
natural resources, declining markets, political and governance
changes, dwindling employment opportunities, and endemic
emigration. However, temporal and spatial interdependencies,
which characterize many of their goals and problems, also
contribute to a confusing range of temporal and spatial
perspectives among stakeholders.
Our
experiences as participants in planning workshops conducted
in Colombia, Honduras, and Nicaragua led us to conclude
that this confusing range of temporal and spatial perspectives
among stakeholders has hindered progress toward goals of
more productive, sustainable, and healthy rural environments.
The symptoms have been a lack of clear objectives, a lack
of precision in defining physical areas of interest, and
a failure to quantify variables, all of which are indispensable
for arriving at negotiated agreements for community action
as well as reproducing results achieved.
An
accepted premise of this Project is that natural resource
management (NRM) goals and economic solutions related to
agriculture often transcend field or farm boundaries, necessitating
some form of collective action among landscape users; and
that multiple goals can only be understood and negotiated,
and problems corrected, through analyses and negotiations
that explicitly consider multiple, transboundary effects.
This
study focused on a "data-rich environment", which
we defined in the original proposal as "locations where
there exist socioeconomic data for the village administrative
boundary or better, where satellite imagery and air photographs
are available for multiple dates and seasons, where biophysical
data such as soil type, elevation, slope, and climate exist,
and where a number of sources are available of well-sampled
household and farm data. Obviously such data will exist
at different map scales and accuracy." It was determined
to conduct a case study of one of Latin America's most impoverished
nations - Honduras.
The
CIAT scientists, William Bell, Ron Knapp and Grégoire
Leclerc, presented a draft research proposal to a newly
created funding consortium: The Trust Fund for Methodological
Support to Ecoregional Programs. The principal investigators
designed a project that would be synergistic with the CIAT
project "Community-based Management of Watershed Resources"
operating in Colombia, Honduras, and Nicaragua, and with
the CIAT Land Management Project and GIS Unit, which focuses
on land management using information technology, geographic
information systems (GIS), and spatial analysis.
One
justification for this Project, as it was developed jointly
by CIAT and the Trust Fund, was to provide a contrast with
another Trust Fund Project submitted by the International
Potato Center (CIP). The contrast was conceived of in relation
to a need to resolve methodological problems that might
arbitrarily limit the range of "outside" information
valuable for ecoregional research and development. This
could result in narrowly conceived perceptions of development
opportunities based on homogenous, historical thinking.
This situation was recognized by no less an authority than
a Task Force of the Consultative Group on International
Agricultural Research (CGIAR), which concluded that there
existed "an abysmal lack of data to validate conventional
wisdom" (CGIAR, 1997).
Over
the course of reporting and publishing results, it has become
apparent that confusion surrounds the phrase "data-rich
environment" that underlay an important raison d' être
of this Project. "Data-rich" was never meant to
suggest that data, in their original form and known to exist
from national population and agricultural censuses, soils,
and climate studies or even ad hoc farm surveys carried
out by technical assistance organizations, were of sufficient
resolution, quality, or general accessibility to be valuable
ingredients for ecoregional studies. "Data-rich"
has never meant "information-rich". Given that,
the first objective of this Project was to assess the quality
of potentially available data, the vast majority of which
had remained "outside" the scrutiny of commodity-focused
agriculturists. The potential value of these non-traditional
data, however, has not gone unnoticed. Veldkamp and Fresco
(1995), Verburg et al. (1999), De Koning et al. (1999),
and Andriesse et al. (1994), among others, have all expressed
warnings that multiple-scale ecoregional analyses that exclude
demographic and socioeconomic variables do so at their own
risk. This is not to say that biophysical data are any less
important. On the contrary, strong arguments have been made
that link the human condition of large populations of rural
poor to "geographical capital" (Ravallion, 1996).
This geographical capital incorporates biophysical variables
such as topography, soils, and climate that are linked to
cropping alternatives, market access, and so on, to development
potential.
Objectives
The
logical framework (Figure 1) and work breakdown structure
state the Project's objective/purpose as being "To
develop and document principles and procedures for building
a scale-consistent database and for performing multi-scale
characterizations of agro-ecosystems". This was to
be accomplished by delivering four outputs.
Output
1: Quality controlled, multi-scale spatial databases
for Honduras with associated methodology and training workbooks.
Output
2: Multi-scale characterization of Honduran agro-ecosystems
for targeting problems, priority areas, and beneficiaries.
Output
3: Institutional capacity to supervise and guide change
using multi-scale spatial analysis.
Output
4: Administration, management, and monitoring of the
Project.
In
the view of Project personnel, the Project objectives, its
purpose, and outputs remained unaltered over the course
of the Project (see Figure 1 Project logframe). It is important
to note that some that are acquainted with the Project believe
there was a change in Project strategy and conceptual design
over its course. During the Project's course, specific activities
were given greater or lesser emphasis as we gained knowledge
and reassessed their contributions towards the Project outputs
and final purpose.
Project
outputs and products integrate easily into the Fund's Guidelines
for Submitting Proposals as seen in Figure 2 of the "Generalized
five-point scheme for ecoregional programs into which methodological
research projects should fit". (This is taken from
Figure 22, page 150, ISNAR [1998]). Also shown in red are
Project achievements associated with each point.
Program
strategies
Activities
conducted as part of this Trust Fund Project were influenced
by CIAT's approach to global activities for NRM. In general,
CIAT, like its sister International Agricultural Research
Centers (IARCs), tends to balance strategic and applied
research activities based upon the extent to which alternative
"suppliers" exist, and on donor interest. What
this meant in terms of the research strategy for this Trust
Fund Project was that we made efforts to forge partnerships
throughout the life of the Project ranging from local Honduran
government organizations, such as the General Directorate
for Statistics and Census (DGEC), responsible for some of
the original data sets, to advanced research organizations,
such as The Royal Agricultural College (UK) and University
of Florida (USA), responsible for decision support and dynamic
modeling applications. Where there was no obvious and available
alternative source to carry out a specific activity, Project
personnel were responsible. Examples of this ranged from
weeks of on-site ground truthing of remote-sensed imagery
to programming application tools, such as the "Accessibility
Wizard", which was developed in conjunction with the
CIAT Indicators Project.
The
Role of Institutional Partners
Building
partnerships has been essential to this Project. Reciprocity
has been a keystone. Since the beginning, the Project has
made available all data sets that the Government of Honduras
permitted it to release to other interested researchers.
Examples of this use of the data sets range from the work
of a Ph.D. candidate from Wageningen Agricultural University,
to a World Bank Project, to the work of numerous nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) that used the database for planning
responses to Hurricane Mitch, to an Inter-American Development
Bank (IDB) project prioritizing watersheds countrywide.
This will be elaborated on in the section "Dissemination,
use of outputs, and impact".
Partnerships
have been developed in three ways. The first phase of the
Project has involved close collaboration with advanced research
institutions to acquire the most up-to-date knowledge and
skills. The Project was designed in collaboration with Drs.
Barry Dent and Louise Fresco, and this was expected to continue.
At the time, Dr. Dent was a Professor at the University
of Edinburgh and a leading scientist in modeling socioeconomic
ecoregional variables; and Dr. Fresco (with Dr. Veldkamp)
had just finished work on the CLUE model for across-scale
analysis of land use. Although both Drs. Fresco and Dent
left their respective university positions, it was possible
to develop other collaboration, which more than met the
requirements of the Project for advanced research collaboration.
We have formal research agreements with Dr. Barry Dent of
the Royal Agricultural College (RAC), and with Dr. Jim Jones
of the University of Florida (UFL). The RAC collaboration
is based on work by various staff, while the UFL collaboration
is primarily through a Dutch postdoctoral student, Dr. J.C.
Luijten. Collaboration has also occurred with Wageningen
Agricultural University through visiting scientist interactions
by Kasper Kok and Andy Nelson. Dr. Kok has had total access
to all the Honduran data, has been using the Accessibility
Wizard outputs, and in return has improved the quality of
the data significantly and has produced an exhaustive study
of land use change in Honduras, and a calibrated model.
The ITDEA was initially developed in close collaboration
with the Agricultural Engineering Department of the University
of Georgia.
The
second way in which partnerships were implemented was in
the process of building spatial databases. The Project owes
a tremendous debt to the Government of Honduras and specifically
to the DGEC. They believed in the Project and made data
available to us that have never before been made available
to anyone outside the government. Various other governmental
organizations (GOs) have supplied road maps, topographic
maps, and soils information, to mention only three types
of information. Honduran government analysts have visited
CIAT for training and participated in the training activities
for use of the databases. This Project worked with the Red
Nacional de Sistemas de Información Geográfica
(RENASIG) network of GIS analysts (Honduras) to run one
workshop; and with the Universidad Nacional Agraria (UNA)
to conduct another workshop in Nicaragua. When Hurricane
Mitch struck Honduras in October 1998, the Project worked
in collaboration with a large body of GOs and NGOs to generate
data of immediate use.
The
third way in which partnerships were created was through
formal capacity building. Partners in capacity building
contributed to the in-country costs of workshops (travel,
per diems, and staff time) and range from the donor community
(Canadian and Danish), to Honduran Ministry representatives
(Health, Agricultural, and Planning), to NGOs, and local
political leaders. CIAT's "Community-based Management
of Watersheds" Project guide has been an important
platform for interaction with stakeholders, testing, and
dissemination.
Finally,
the Project synthesis and review workshop held in Costa
Rica in July 2000 has contributed to establishing bases
for new partnerships in ecoregional research, and to the
design of future ecoregional research funding opportunities.
Project
Design
It
was stated that an accepted premise of this Project is that
NRM goals and economic solutions related to agriculture
often transcend field or farm boundaries, necessitating
some form of collective action among landscape users. Another
accepted premise is that multiple goals that arise can only
be understood and problems corrected through analyses and
negotiations that explicitly consider multiple, transboundary
effects. This was the rationale for proceeding with a case
study of Honduras, one of the region's most impoverished
nations. This Trust Fund Project developed, among other
outputs, extensive and unique data sets, unique multiple-scale,
spatial analysis computer applications, and a forum-based
procedural framework for analysis and negotiating diverse
interests among stakeholders. With these data sets, tools,
and methods now available, opportunities exist to formally
test the premise under a variety of circumstances. For example,
we have debated amongst ourselves at what point diversity
among stakeholders might become so complex that meaningful
collective action becomes unattainable. Project tools can
now be used to design case studies to examine these situations.
The
Project Proposal submitted to the Trust Fund did not explicitly
specify hypotheses to be tested in a rigorous, academic
sense. However, given that the Project purpose was to "develop
principles and procedures for building a scale-consistent
database and for performing multi-scale characterization",
we hope it is clear that the implicit hypothesis was that
choice of spatial scale and landscape for analysis will
bias results and interpretations. This statement has implications
ranging from diverse stakeholders trying to communicate
their respective positions in matters of resource management,
to researchers who believe "extension" and "up-scaling"
research results are a simple matter of "GIS analysis"
of available maps of aggregated thematic variables. Any
development project that proposes "up-scaling using
GIS" should be examined very carefully for the details!
Noteworthy
research acclaimed by the Trust Fund Project External Review
Panel resulted in methods (a geographically weighted regression,
and self-organizing mapping techniques) and user application
"tools" (Accessibility Wizard and Spatial Data
Exploration Toolbox) that specifically addressed quantitative,
multi-cross-scale spatial analysis. The function of other
Project activities and achievements, however, is not dynamic,
spatial, cross-scale analysis per se. Rather, those products
focus on a class of related issues that are best characterized
as "transboundary, on-site/off-site" issues. These
are of practical importance when negotiating actual or potential
conflicts of interest in resource use, such as would be
carried out during an ITDEA planning exercise. An example
is scenario analyses using the Spatial Water Budget Model
(SWBM). Finally, the Project delivered outputs that in and
of themselves have no dynamic multi-cross-scale properties,
for example, GIS coverages published in the Mitch Atlas
CD-ROM. The role of these outputs was to demonstrate that
data are worthless unless they are used, and the more they
are used the more valuable they become. The tremendous costs
and efforts involved in collecting ecoregional data, such
as census and survey data, amount to nothing if they are
not accessible for analysis and synthesis. The CD-ROM has
played a superlative role for this Project as a tool for
motivating acceptance and adoption of the advanced information
technology methods developed by this Project.
Opinion
varies as to what degree Project focus, strategy, and conceptual
design changed over its life. During the Project's course,
specific activities were given greater or lesser emphasis
as we gained knowledge and reassessed their contributions
towards Project outputs and final purpose. The best measure
of this can be found in comparing the Gantt Chart included
in the original Project proposal with final results shown
in the Gantt Chart in this report (Figure 1).
For
example, it is clear from the original proposal that Outputs
1 (Database development) and Output 2 (Multi-scale characterization)
were weighted much more than Output 3 (Institutional capacity)
in terms of time and effort. We feel this balance was appropriate
given the general lack of ecoregional research experience
of national agricultural research systems (NARS), and emphasis
on advanced information technology in this Trust Fund Project.
Within
a specific output, for example Output 2, we did make adjustments
over the life of the Project relative to the original Gantt
chart. Management decisions were governed primarily on perceived
trade-offs between pre-engineered, finished analyses (such
as the CD-ROM data sets and case studies) versus flexible
data sets, tools and methods that can support ad hoc decision
making, but at the same time require significant investment
in knowledge, time, and resources to use.
Basically,
our "design strategy" followed logic such as the
following. An activity (2.8) that examined trade-offs between
2-D and 3-D landscape representations was important in that
it convinced us of the added value of the expense of digital
terrain models (DTMs) versus scanning simpler, available
flat maps. That activity caused us to emphasize the remote
sensing activity (2.6), which helped us in two ways. One
was to "validate/evaluate" agricultural census
data. And second, it helped us with Activity 2.5, which
called for a comprehensive "transport" map (which
we later chose to call "accessibility" mapping).
The
"transport map" was meant to be a pre-engineered,
hardwired product (which has been done), but experience
developing the "map" led us to an interesting
(partial) solution to the "modifiable areal unit problem"
(MAUP) (which is at the root of the bias in choice of spatial
scale). That persuaded us of the greater importance of Activity
2.9, which resulted in the design of the Accessibility Wizard,
and later, the more generic set of methods within the Spatial
Data Explorer, which helps to generate user-defined, meaningful
spatial systems ("health-sheds", "school-sheds",
"biodiversity-sheds") and has been acclaimed by
the external review panel. The development of flexible tools
and methods that can support ad hoc decision making led
us to formulate a forum-based procedural framework, ITDEA,
that incorporates the methods for analysis and negotiating
diverse interests among stakeholders. In our opinion, added
value increased with each subsequent activity, but perhaps
gave some an impression of change of emphasis and focus.
Who
are the intended users and beneficiaries of the outputs
from this Trust Fund Project? This question is answered
in detail below under "Dissemination, Use of Outputs,
and Impacts", but it should be clear that collective
action connotes multiple stakeholders with diverse responsibilities,
interests, and spatial perspectives. Depending upon issues,
stakeholder action groups might include Agency for International
Development (AID) Institutions, local farmer cooperatives,
and organizations in between.
Our
research strategy was also influenced by our sense that
multiple-stakeholder decisions involving land and resource
management will almost always involve degrees of subjectivity
and "deal making". This belief led us to limit
the development of products that might be considered "optimizing"
or "prescriptive". We adopted the axiom that an
approximate solution to the correct question is worth a
great deal more than a precise solution to the wrong question.
This position influences how we interpret methods of "scenario
analysis". We believe productive, long term, resource
use planning using "scenario analysis" must include
plausible futures that go beyond current process simulation
modeling capabilities. Methods developed by this Project
(specifically the SWBM and ITDEA) include provisions for
scenarios driven by a wide range of subjective system drivers.
In
summary, this Trust Fund Project was designed to be synergistic
with ongoing CGIAR and CIAT ecoregional projects and global
initiatives. Project outputs and achievements fit smoothly
into the "Generalized five-point scheme for ecoregional
programs" outlined in the Fund's Guidelines for Submitting
Proposals. We focused on methodological and procedural bottlenecks
limiting collective action by diverse sets of stakeholders
working towards development goals. These "diverse sets
of stakeholders" are the beneficiaries of our work.
The majority of research activities can best be described
as "projective", "exploratory", and
to a lesser extent "predictive". Our strategy
was to develop methodologies that were less prescriptive
and exclusive and more inclusive and exploratory.
Program
activities
Output
1: Quality controlled, multi-scale spatial databases
for Honduras with associated methodology and training workbooks.
The
initial identification of sources and gathering of data
sets (Activities 1.1 and 1.2) was tedious and a test of
patience. Several meetings were held between Government
of Honduras officials during which agreement was reached
on the protocols for access and dissemination of census
data. CIAT was then given access to digital copies of raw
national population and agricultural census data. Digital
topographic data were purchased from various sources. Published
demographic and geographic data were obtained. Satellite
imagery was purchased and processed, and weeks of on-the-ground
validation of land use interpretation were carried out.
As
data sets were collected and created, GIS analysis began
validating data points through comparison studies, that
is, from different sources and through different procedures
(Activities 1.3 and 1.4). Finally, a CD-ROM of ecoregional
variables for national coverages was released in agreement
with the Government of Honduras (Activity 1.5).
To
date, the Project has produced 50 copies of edited GIS data
coverages as a CD-ROM entitled "Atlas de Honduras"
and 2000 copies of a second version, "Atlas de Honduras:
Datos Mitch" (or the "Mitch Atlas").
In
addition to the data released on CD-ROM, a "shadow"
database exists that the Government of Honduras has not
yet decided to generally release to third parties. In collaboration
with the DGEC we obtained access, for research purposes,
to the 1988 Population and Housing Census and 1993 Agricultural
Census at unit level (individual, household, or farm depending
on the census), and loaded the entire data set in an Oracle
database.
The
1988 Honduras Population and Housing Census is the most
recent and complete data set about every single person and
household in the country. It gives a panorama of the composition
of the Honduran society and of the life conditions of its
inhabitants in 1988. It contains answers that the 4,255,105
individuals gave to questions related to education level,
profession or vocation, family composition, age, mortality,
migration, housing type and construction materials, ownership
type, water supply, assets, etc. In total, there are 42
variables for 891,298 households, and 49 for each individual,
in addition to 9 variables related to administrative localization
of the household.
The
1993 Honduras Agricultural Census is also the most recent
data set to cover virtually every farm in Honduras (317,187
to be precise)-161 variables covering land ownership, agricultural
production, technology, and labor, as well as 6 variables
about the farmer, and 8 variables related to administrative
localization of the farm. Many people state that agricultural
censuses are error-prone, because farmers will avoid giving,
to government officials, detailed information that would
give the government a chance to invade their privacy.
The
census results are compiled at municipal level, in tables
distributed within several thick books. This tradition is
likely to change soon, because most developed Latin American
countries can provide municipal-level census data on line
or on CD-ROM. With funding from the World Bank, CIAT is
currently implementing a project in six Central American
countries to help the governments develop digital data products
for public distribution.
Confidentiality
was partially ensured by omitting the names and addresses
of the individuals. The resulting database for Honduras,
the second poorest country in Latin America after Haiti,
reaches a level of detail superior to what can currently
be obtained for most developed countries. To our knowledge,
this is the first successful attempt by a development project
to build such a database for a developing country. We have
created demonstration data sets of statistical and calculated
ecoregional variables in hopes that we can demonstrate compelling
reasons why they should be released to at least selected
third parties, but most assuredly to local communities and
stakeholders in need of information to guide development
decisions. Early in 1999, Corporación Hondureña
de Desarrollo Forestal (COHDEFOR) made available digital
data from topographic map sheets at 1:50,000 scale to CIAT.
This includes all the information present on the map, that
is, house type, road types, contour lines, rivers, etc.
We corrected and assembled all sheets into seamless coverages,
and produced a digital elevation model (DEM) at a resolution
of 50 m, by far the highest resolution, countrywide, ever
achieved.
In
addition to baseline data, the Project has built demonstration
databases of statistical and calculated ecoregional variables
that, in our estimation, are critical for guiding ecoregional
development, but are not traditionally released to third
parties. This achievement specifically addresses shortcomings
in some current ecoregional work where projects have arbitrarily
limited the range of information from "outside"
sources. This is a survival strategy; it simplifies a confusing,
ambiguous, and uncertain world. But it also leads to a narrowly
conceived perception of development opportunities based
on a homogenous internal mental environment. The shadow
database has been fully documented and is accessible through
CIAT Intranet (Activity 1.1-1.5).
CIAT
scientists have contacted organizations responsible for
carrying-out censuses in all Central American countries
and sponsored a workshop to study ways in which to add value
to the exercise of carrying out government-sponsored censuses
(see http://www.procig.org/)
(Activity 1.6).
Output
2: Multi-scale characterization of Honduran agro-ecosystems
for targeting problems, priority areas, and beneficiaries.
The
Project that was accepted for funding included both Drs.
Dent and Fresco as important collaborators for outsource
research. However, before the starting date of the Project,
both Drs. Fresco and Dent left their respective university
positions resulting in the reassignment of responsibilities.
Specifically, a post-doctoral position at Edinburgh under
Dr. Dent was to have researched theoretical aspects and
design of tools to process socioeconomic data at multiple
scales. After some discussion, this research activity was
transferred to CIAT and carried out in collaboration between
Dr. S. Openshaw of the University of Leeds (UK) and A. Nelson
(CIAT).
Dr.
M. Langford, of the University of Leicester (UK) was a visiting
scientist to CIAT and collaborated with Dr. W. Bell and
Ph.D. candidate, J. Cox, on methodological problems related
to information extracted from remote-sensed images of land
use under conditions of low thematic accuracy (Activity
2.3). J. Cox and G. Leclerc produced the high-resolution
land use maps for 1985 and 1993 included in the Honduras
Atlas. The Ph.D. thesis is in process of completion (Julie
Cox, personal communication, 1999).
Some
explanation of the course of development of the Accessibility
Wizard was given above (see Project Strategies) and will
be presented in more detail below (under Outputs). A. Nelson
and A. Farrow developed a user-friendly ArcView extension,
based of the programs originally based on Arc Info GRID.
It later evolved into the Accessibility Wizard. A comprehensive
manual and tutorial accompany the tool. Applications have
been presented at various events (e.g., World Transport
Expo, April 1999, Washington DC).
Citations
of census data from developing countries can be found in
many publications including those of IARCs. One of our first
activities was to assess what population and agricultural
censuses really describe. For this case study we quantified
relationships between data extracted from remote-sensed
images and data available from the 1993 Honduran agricultural
census. Detailed ground-truth studies were carried out in
the region of and surrounding the Tascalapa watershed in
the Department of Yoro resulting in maps of supervised classification
of land use. Studies were carried out that compared and
contrasted several sampling resolutions of the remote images
as well as comparisons and contrasts between census data
and data derived from the imagery, and technical information
and results have been published. Among our discoveries was
that the census reported on no more than 35% of the total
geographical area of the Department of Yoro. These results
are not meant to raise questions about the veracity of either
census data or the usefulness of remote imagery. Clearly,
in this case, census data characterize some subsystem in
an agro-ecological hierarchy-a subsystem pre-conceived by
limited historical perceptions and of methodologies employed
(Activity 2.6).
A
study on the accuracy of DEMs generated by interpolation
from contours at different scales (Activity 2.7) was completed
in 1997 (Byne, 1997) and reported in the second Project
Progress Report. As reported above, this activity convinced
us of the added value of the expense of DTMs versus scanning
simpler, available flat maps. This activity caused us to
emphasize the remote sensing activity (2.6).
The
significance of spatial structure in hillside agro-ecosystems
(Activity 2.9) has been analyzed through case studies of
labor productivity and natural resources in Honduras. Results
were presented in the Final Review Workshop in Costa Rica,
July 2000.
A
research partnership was developed involving a Dutch Ph.D.
student working under Dr. J. Jones at the University of
Florida (Luyten, 1999). Mr. Luyten developed the SWBM as
an ArcView extension, which is accompanied by a comprehensive
user's manual. The application of the tool focused on a
case study of effects of land use changes on the important
ecoregional resource, water, for domestic, agricultural
and industrial users (Activity 2.10), in the Tascalapa watershed.
The shadow database was the main source of data for this
research. Applications of the tool have been presented at
various conferences (e.g., Systems Analysis in Agricultural
Development [SAAD]-III, November 1999, Lima, Peru). This
achievement is presented in detail below under Dissemination,
Use of Outputs, and Impacts.
Output
3: Institutional capacity to supervise and guide change
using multi-scale spatial analysis.
The
development of ITDEA (Activity 3.5) was not originally designed
into the Project. Preliminary decision support system (DSS)
design had been done in collaboration with the University
of Georgia Agricultural Engineering Department. The need
for this work was recognized during the review workshop
organized by ISNAR and held in The Hague on April 20-22,
1998.
The
ISNAR workshop made Activity 3.2 redundant so assigned funds
were redirected to the final review workshop (Activity 3.3).
An important product of the ISNAR workshop was the call
to articulate how the "ecoregional process" might
be implemented and how the "methodologies" being
developed supported the process. The result was that the
Project focused two in-country workshops (Activity 3.1)
on this new activity. The two workshops were held in Honduras
and Nicaragua during development and testing of ITDEA. Participants
represented a range of institutions from the international
donor community (International Development Research Center
[IDRC], Danish International Development Agency [DANIDA]
and FAO), to government agencies (Ministries of Agriculture,
Health, and Transportation), to universities (e.g., UNA),
to NGOs (World Neighbors, Cooperative for American Remittances
Everywhere [CARE]), to local village government representatives.
The result has been the first version of a participant's
manual for managing forums for analysis and negotiation
of diverse stakeholders' goals (Nath et al., 1999).
A
third workshop was held at the University of Georgia, 22-23
April 1999, during which all research partners met and reviewed
progress on ITDEA. The University of Georgia collaborated
on elements of the "Goal-driven, multiple-stakeholder
planning forum tool" (Activity 3.3).
Following
discussions with Dr. Dent and his new colleagues at the
RAC, it was agreed that RAC would work on practical tools
for disseminating knowledge and products developed by the
Project (Activity 3.6), activities originally planned for
CIAT. However, comments made over time by the ISAC, research
partners, reviewers of publications, and others familiar
and not so familiar with the Project addressed an issue
that had ramifications related to dissemination and institutional
capacity to accept Project outputs. It was determined that
the Project could perform an important service by designing
an informative, simple, interactive tutorial that illustrated
the ecoregional process, together with key knowledge and
products developed by the Project. In fact, this was considered
a priority above potential traditional workbooks teaching
technical tasks. This activity has been carried out by the
RAC - CIAT partnership. A Web page has been set up so that
all Project scientists could run the tutorial and send feedback
as it was developed (http://www.royagcol.ac.uk/ciat-interface/).
The
realization of the Project's final synthesis and review
workshop (Activity 3.4) was approved in March 2000 and we
immediately began designing the workshop and inviting potential
participants. Of the 51 people invited, 25 participants
attended apart from Project reviewers and Project scientists.
After considering various options, we chose to team with
ISNAR in Costa Rica to realize the workshop. In May 2000,
an agreement was signed with ISNAR, whose Costa Rica office
is providing support for the organization. We established
contacts with Charles Hall, from the State University of
New York, for a joint production of a book compiling:
-
Material
presented at the workshop and
- Tools
developed by the project.
Note
that in August 1999, we asked for an 8-month extension period
to the Project (January 1997-December 1999) to develop case
studies, realize the final workshop, and tie up loose ends.
The extension was approved in March 2000, causing some uncertainty
for the management of the Project. The leaving of Project
leader, Ron Knapp, at the end of January complicated this
situation.
Outputs
The
Project numbers among its contributions nine major achievements
related to the planned outputs as follows:
Output
1: Quality controlled, multi-scale spatial databases
for Honduras with associated methodology and training workbooks.
The
main achievements were:
(1)
A publicly available, user-friendly digital atlas on CD-ROM
of maps of ecoregional variables for Honduras, the Honduras
Atlas. The unique databases developed by the Project played
an important role in the post Hurricane Mitch reconstruction
efforts and have been recognized by the international press.
The
Project has produced 50 copies of edited GIS data coverages
as a CD-ROM entitled "Atlas de Honduras" and 2000
copies of a second version, "Atlas de Honduras: Datos
Mitch" (or the "Mitch Atlas").
The
CD-ROM opens with a friendly, menu-driven interface to a
large collection of coverages including FAO and Simmons
soils, geology, rivers, watersheds at several levels, roads,
contour lines, slope, hypsometry, climate (monthly rainfall,
minimum and maximum temperature), recommended land use,
land use capacity, forestry, high-resolution land use for
1986 and 1994, mangroves, wetlands, and ecofloristic zones.
They also include Olson ecosystems, protected areas, population
and density for 1986 and 1988, education, poverty, annual
and permanent crops by area and production, farming systems,
the 1988 Population and Housing Census, and 1993 Agricultural
Census at unit level (individual, household, or farm depending
on the census). We constructed a friendly, menu-driven interface
where users can select and combine coverages, query the
databases, and apply some advanced GIS functions such as
spatial joins or buffers. A tutorial is included in the
distribution CD-ROM.
(2)
A "shadow" database consisting of unit-level census
data and large-scale information, readily available on CIAT
servers.
The
1988 Population and Housing Census and 1993 Agricultural
Census at unit level (individual, household, or farm depending
on the census) constitute the main component of the shadow
database. This census database for Honduras, the second
poorest country of Latin America, reaches a level of detail
superior to what can be obtained currently for developed
countries. It is accessible either through ArcView or through
a custom interface via ODBC or JDBC.
Another
component of the shadow database consists of seamless countrywide
digital data from 1:50,000 topographic map sheets made available
to CIAT. This includes all the information present on the
map, that is, house type, road types, contour lines, rivers,
and a DEM at a resolution of 50 m.
In
addition to countrywide baseline data at 1:50,000, the shadow
database consists of statistical and calculated ecoregional
variables that, in our estimation, are critical for guiding
ecoregional development, but are not traditionally released
to third parties. This output specifically addresses shortcomings
in some current ecoregional work where projects have arbitrarily
limited the range of information from "outside"
sources. This is a survival strategy; it simplifies a confusing,
ambiguous, and uncertain world. But it also leads to a narrowly
conceived perception of development opportunities based
on a homogenous internal mental environment.
Output
2: Multi-scale characterization of Honduran agro-ecosystems
for targeting problems, priority areas, and beneficiaries.
The
main activities and achievements related to this output
are development of:
(3)
The Spatial Data Exploration Toolbox, which includes flexible-scale,
spatial data-screening computer applications and procedures
to systematically "screen" samples of population
statistics, for example, for high-risk health factors. Our
case studies using the Honduras databases have been able
to screen dozens of socioeconomic ecoregional variables
(from community to regional levels), and "map"
clusters of communities for most efficiently targeting development
assistance.
This
output specifically addresses a problem that was brought
to our attention in the popular book, "How to Lie with
Statistics" (Huff, 1954). A more recent book, "How
to Lie with Maps" (Monmonier, 1991) is as relevant,
and hopefully will become just as well known. The underlying
issue is simply that manipulating the statistical sample
can legitimize nearly any point of view. These tools offer
protection against the unchallenged use of biased statistics,
scenarios, and maps.
From
the literature it would seem that the scale issue is not
well understood nor thoroughly researched. When this Project
was initially funded in 1997, few if any recognized texts
or papers dealt with the issues of complexity and scale,
and those that did were not spatially explicit. Over the
last 4 years, books such as "Ecological Scale"
(Peterson and Parker, 1998) and "Scale in Remote Sensing
and GIS" (Quattrochi and Goodchild, 1997) have appeared,
but even in books such as these, the predominant theme seems
to involve defining scale and talking about scale, rather
than actually doing anything about it.
The
Project aims to contribute to a series of techniques and
tools that allow spatial data sets to be constructed and
de-constructed in a generalized yet context sensitive manner.
The outputs from such techniques can be explored and described
through various user-defined levels, thus revealing spatial
patterns and processes that are arguably more useful than
raw data or standard representations. Potentially, complex
hypotheses and models can be developed based on the improved
understanding that such mapping techniques provide. Additionally,
the opportunity to re-express the data at different levels-levels
appropriate to different decision makers-enables conflicts
to be rapidly highlighted and the effects of a decision
at one level to be visualized at other levels of organization.
This is an essential step to address what Rhoades (1998)
calls "scale wars" in project planning and execution,
when each actor tries to get activities tied to the level
with which he is comfortable and have comparative advantage.
The
identification of appropriate scales for analysis and prediction
is a challenging problem. Although the factors producing
scale-dependent patterns may not be clearly understood,
we have been able to create accurate and reliable descriptions
of scale-dependent patterns and processes to design data
sampling procedures and test the accuracy and reliability
of methods of prediction. There is clearly some way to go
before scale effects can be fully understood and accommodated,
but this research has aimed to be the "next step"
in that vital process.
The
Spatial Data Exploration Toolbox includes tools to productively
manipulate statistical samples in an exploratory "screening"
of populations. Figure 3 illustrates an analysis resulting
from the unique ability to delineate spatial "hotspots"
at different scales using the Geographic Analysis Machine,
one of the tools from the University of Leeds that is part
of the Data Exploration Toolbox. The figures are composite
images of several analyses across scale, highlighting the
problem areas in small communities (small spots) through
to regions (larger patches).
Probably
the greatest methodological challenge this Project has tried
to address has been known for over 50 years, and amongst
geographers is called the MAUP. Symptoms of the problem
are that the choice of both spatial scale and region of
analysis will bias results and interpretation. There is
no known cure. What is surprising is that so many books,
papers, and projects dedicated to issues of multi- and across-scale
analysis fail to address the issue and, in most cases, fail
to acknowledge its existence. This Project has gone beyond
researching effects of the MAUP; rather we have adapted
available procedures to use the problem to advantage, by
investigating alternative spatial representations of key
variables, and by allowing census data to be re-expressed
at new ecoregional levels (Output 4).
(4)
The Accessibility Wizard, a computer application that evaluates
and maps "accessibility" and allows the definition
of a new, flexible, ecoregional areal unit - the econoshed.
"Accessibility"
is arguably the single most important ecoregional factor
driving land use change and development in general. It is
surprising, therefore, that initial work on multi-scale
analysis by the research team that developed the CLUE model
that inspired this Project, did not include "accessibility"
or even mention it as a potential driver for land use change.
We are in agreement with Geertman and van Eck (1995) who
said, "The concept of accessibility is used as a means
in rural development policy, an indicator of rural deprivation,
and as a variable in location analysis".
Deichmann
(1997), in his report on software development for assessing
accessibility, describes four "accessibility indicators"
that the development community is using for assessing "service
provision", for example, in the health sector. Although
this use is undeniably important, the Project wished to
explore other uses for which the methodology would be valuable.
To mention a few examples:
-
How
are concepts and measures of accessibility affected by
levels of analysis?
-
At
community landscape levels, are there practical thresholds
to potential productivity of individual "fields"
solely as a result of their geographical location; and
can they be mapped?
-
How
can accessibility concepts and algorithms be applied to
watercourse conservation and management?
The
analytical model is a cost-distance, spatial, cell-based
approach that defines the ease each cell (i.e., location)
can be accessed from other locations, in this case villages,
by generating something called a friction or cost surface.
Figure
4 shows accessibility maps (in terms of travel time) that
are a variation on the theme "potential accessibility
indicator". Combining data for roads before October
1998 and 3730 villages (called aldeas in Honduras) created
the map in Figure 4a. Villages represent a set of sources
and targets. From this basic network, least-cost transport
routes were calculated taking into consideration geographical
factors impeding movement, such as slope and land cover.
It is important to keep in mind that this map represents
only one of several possible stakeholder perspectives of
the concept of accessibility. Our goal was to create a tool
flexible enough to incorporate a wide range of perspectives
and indicators.
In
October 1998, Hurricane Mitch devastated Honduras. Virtually
overnight, the accessibility map shown in Figure 4a was
made obsolete. An updated map (Figure 4b) was developed
within hours of the hurricane and made available to and
used by relief agencies to help target disaster relief.
This use of the Accessibility Analysis Wizard and the ecoregional
database on CD-ROM may have been serendipitous, but it is
a powerful example supporting our initial hypothesis-that
narrowly conceived perceptions of development opportunities
arbitrarily limit the range of valuable "outside"
information. Recognition of this achievement is reported
under "Dissemination, Use of Outputs, and Impacts"
below.
Generating alternative ecoregions - the Econoshed.
Modern
agricultural location theory stems from the seminal contributions
of David Ricardo and Johan Heinrich von Thunen nearly 200
years ago. Today most of the spatial variation in agricultural
land use depends on only two factors:
-
Differences in physical features (e.g., soil fertility,
climate, and topography) and
-
Differences
in relative location (e.g., transportation costs to markets).
Mulligan (1997) points out that "Even after the suggestion
of McCarty and Lindberg (1966) some 30 years ago, few
serious attempts have been made to synthesize these two
complementary approaches to agricultural location theory".
We
propose that the concept of accessibility, based on the
spatial structure of markets, transport networks, and topography,
could provide a common framework in which to attempt such
a synthesis. Surfaces of accessibility define "catchment"
areas for each market. These catchments ("econosheds")
are a new set of user-defined areal units ideal for describing
ecoregions, and as such are a powerful extension to the
Von Thunen model. Figure 5 illustrates one possible set
of these new ecoregions that are neither political units
nor watersheds.
(5)
A Spatial Water Budget Model (SWBM), a scenario-building
tool to support local decision making on water security
issues.
The
SWBM is intended to support local decision making and for
teaching local stakeholders about basic functions of multiple-community
watershed components, such as relationships between land
and water resources, effects of land use and demographic
changes on future water accessibility, and upstream-downstream
relationships (Output 2).
The
SWBM addresses a classic NRM issue - water security - and
is meant to facilitate scenario analysis during multi-stakeholder
planning forums. As mentioned above under "Program
Strategies", the SWBM is not an application to simulate
or characterize dynamic, spatial, multi-cross-scale, system
drivers. Rather, it is used to articulate a subset of issues
known as "on-site/off-site" relationships. The
SWBM has restricted "scales" of use, meaning that
model driving variables are "pre-engineered" and
may not simulate processes important at highly detailed
spatial and temporal scales.
The
SWBM has been developed using hillside watersheds in Latin
America and the Caribbean of up to about 50,000 ha and for
which limited biophysical data are available. Before the
SWBM was developed, a thorough evaluation of many available
water-based simulation models was made including AGNPS,
ANSWERS93, SWRRB, SWAT, PRMS, ARC/INFO GRID, ARCVIEW Spatial
Analyst, BASINS, and OWLS. None met all our criteria. In
general, they are too complex, too data demanding, or incapable
of simulating and manipulating stream flows or simulating
flow control structures, for example, dams. The SWBM fills
the gap between the current needs and resources of rural
communities throughout developing countries, and data demands
of established, more complex, multi-faceted models designed
for resources and applications in developed countries. The
model is not designed for engineering specific hydrological
projects or for describing the movement of water and soil
based on detailed physical processes. This simulation model
was developed around the belief that an approximate answer
to the right question is worth a great deal more than a
precise answer to the wrong question.
Point
1 of the generalized five-point scheme for ecoregional programs
outlined in the Fund's Guidelines for Submitting Proposals
is "problem definition and delineation of the ecoregion
(or resource management domain)" (Figure 2). There
are, of course, popular methods for delineating ecoregions.
One example is the use of watersheds as an organizing unit
for focusing ecoregional resource management. This is a
logical line of research for a project focusing on integrating
data across geographic scales because "watersheds"
are naturally organized into biophysical, and in some cases
socioeconomic, hierarchical ecosystems. Few will deny the
role water plays in all ecosystems, but especially those
incorporating agricultural-based rural communities. As related
above, however, a major achievement of the Project was the
refinement of procedures to define a new ecoregional analysis
unit, the econoshed, which represents accessibility domains
and as such is subjected to the definition of poles of interaction,
access routes, topography, and land use.
Point
3 of the generalized five-point scheme for ecoregional programs
outlined in the Fund's Guidelines for Submitting Proposals
calls for "dynamic representation(s) of ecoregional
processes that permit evaluation of alternative land use
options and management". A case study demonstrating
the value of the SWBM was carried out for a benchmark watershed,
Tascalapa, in Central Honduras. Results are being made available
on the Worldwide Web as part of the Project's tutorial.
Based
on the results, one can make statements such as, "In
the second half of April, about 20% of the residents in
the watershed have to walk more than 1 km to access any
stream, and 30% have to walk over 5 km before they reach
a point where stream flow is greater than 50l/s" (Figure
4). Not surprisingly, the poorest families and those settling
the "frontier" of the watershed are often those
without piped water and therefore may rely on stream water
for domestic needs. The analysis also has implications for
gender studies.
Based
on the above analysis, decision makers could, for example,
set goals for minimum flows at the watershed outlet during
the driest seasons so that all farm families have access
to water within a set distance from their homes. Such flow
requirements have further implications: Are complexes of
small dams and reservoirs necessary? What are acceptable
targets for water extraction and what governance mechanisms
are required.
A
second type of analysis (Figure 5) carried out with the
SWBM demonstrates the effects of different land use patterns
on water yields. Current land use varies significantly between
zones within the watershed, which in turn affects relative
water yields and temporal variability. Using the SWBM, scenario
analyses were carried out describing the effects of plausible
development paths on future water yields and patterns. Yet
another analysis looked at equity issues, that is, which
zones in the watershed were net suppliers or net consumers
of accessible water.
Output
3: Institutional capacity to supervise and guide change
using multi-scale spatial analysis.
The
main achievements under this output were:
(6)
The Intelligent Team Decision Assistant (ITDEA), a goal-driven,
multiple-stakeholder planning forum tool, that guides stakeholders
through a process. ITDEA takes generic concerns and develops
them into concrete statements of values and goals in a way
that allows all stakeholders to see their significance enabling
them to negotiate collective action within a collaborative
environment. The method was specifically tailored to facilitate
the ecoregional process outlined in the proceedings of the
ISNAR workshop held in The Hague in April 1998.An interactive,
computer-assisted tutorial, which "walks" users
through the "ecoregional process", has been designed
to demonstrate how the key concepts addressed by the Project
can work together harmoniously.
ITDEA:
A Goal Driven Multiple Stakeholder Planning Forum Tool
This
output addresses shortcomings in ecoregional projects that
are built from an initial problem-oriented analysis. A most
obvious deficiency is that these ecoregional research and
development projects will invariably overlook prevention
of future risks to currently desirable, non-problematic
conditions. Classic examples are the sudden collapse of
the health of common-pool resources such as water for domestic,
agricultural, and industrial needs. This methodology focuses
on the future. It is specifically tailored to facilitate
the ecoregional "process" outlined in the Fund's
Guidelines for Submitting Proposals (Figure 2). It asks
stakeholders to think about how their world could be different,
and it presupposes that "breakthrough" thinking
greatly benefits from outside participation in the form
of collective action.
This
activity can trace its beginning to work carried out at
CIAT starting in 1992. Six tasks were identified as crucial
for the success of consortia in managing development projects
that require collective action (Knapp et al., 1999). The
Forum Tool (Figure 8), now called ITDEA (Intelligent Team
Decision Assistant) includes the following nine-steps:
-
Statement of the core issue.
-
Stakeholder identification. This phase involves a detailed
identification of all stakeholders with interests in the
issue and examination of their actual/potential stake.
-
Goal formulation
-
Development
and evaluation of indicators.
-
Goal-gap
analysis. Identification of factors that are uncontrollable
facilitates reaching goals or raise obstacles.
-
Generation
of decision alternatives.
-
Evaluation of alternatives.
-
Agreement
on the decision.
-
Implementation
and monitoring
An
interactive, computer-assisted tutorial that "walks"
users through the "Ecoregional Process".
The collaborators from RAC plan to follow up work initiated
by this Trust Fund Project by developing a user-friendly,
decision-support software application. Any DSS is complex
in its use. The assumptions underlying models may be opaque
at best. The way a user works through a hierarchy of choices
and decisions can be anything but intuitive. The output
of a query can seem illogical without explanation. At the
same time, it can be distracting to the point of uselessness
to have explanatory messages, prompt boxes, or confirmation
requests popping up every time you use an information system
in real working situations. To overcome this, a tutorial
on using the DSS is being developed alongside the DSS itself.
This tutorial mimics the DSS and is designed to look like
the full working system. However, the processing is simulated,
the range of localities and scenarios are restricted, and
the output is pre-formed. Each stage is accompanied by text
that explains what is happening at that stage, what the
consequences of any choices will be, and the significance
of the output generated. There are also feedback forms to
allow the users to communicate directly with the development
team so that they can modify the tutorial in line with user
comment. Depending on CIAT research priorities and funding,
the tutorial will ultimately be packaged with the full DSS
so that it can give context-sensitive tuition at any stage
of use of the DSS itself. During this phase of the Project,
it is being developed before the full DSS, as a proof of
concept for potential users of Project outputs. In light
of this proof, the DSS would be refined, the working interface
designed, and then the tutorial and the DSS integrated.
The tutorial (in construction phase) can be accessed at
http://www.royagcol.ac.uk/ciat-interface/.
Figure 6 outlines the architecture of the tutorial.
(7)
The Project review and synthesis workshop, "Scale effects
in decision making for ecoregional development", is
a major achievement that will result in an integrated view
of the ecoregional process and on the role of information
technology by a multidisciplinary panel of international
and regional experts. The individual contributions as well
as the result of the roundtable discussions will be assembled
in a book that we hope will represent the state-of-the-art
on the subject. We are confident that we can generate a
primer that a major publisher would be interested in producing.
The
Project review and synthesis workshop was a critical component
of this Project. The workshop went beyond the scope of this
particular Project. Participants included regional and international
partners as well as experts working on related research,
with one thing in common: the need to work across scales,
with multiple stakeholders, and with information technology.
The role we expected from the outside presenters was to
present their work so that together we might assess our
capacity to contribute to humanitarian development efforts
through an ecoregional perspective, which is to say: to
comment on the quality of the science and research management
achieved by this Project and to call to our attention any
potentially bad habits or pitfalls that might jeopardize
our future efforts and those of our colleagues involved
in other ecoregional projects.
The
3-day workshop took place in San Jose, Costa Rica, 4-6 July
2000. The official language was English. During the first
2 days, the "experts" presented their work in
30-minute talks to establish the research environment for
cross-scale applications. The morning of the third day focused
on tools, where participants had opportunities to experiment
with software tools developed by the Project. A dinner marked
the closure of the workshop. The outline of the upcoming
book will be announced. During and after the workshop, Project
personnel worked with the Project External Review Team to
facilitate the review process.
Project
researchers presented the following case study analyses:
-
Analysis of Market Potential: This case study focused
on results of Achievement 4 related above. Economic catchments
- econosheds - can be defined by market-potential surfaces
in much the same way the accessibility analyses are carried
out.
-
Mortality
Rates: Are some people at higher risk than others? If
so, why? Many factors can influence infant and child mortality
rates. By performing a cross-scale analysis we highlight
the critical regions of high mortality, and relate the
problem to distinct scale-dependent factors. By defining
the critical issues at various levels, we gain a more
comprehensive understanding of the problem; we can detect
other areas potentially at risk, and can present the relevant
issues to the relevant actors.
-
Labor
Productivity and Natural Resources in Honduras: Is there
a strong relationship between soil, climate, germplasm,
pests, and labor productivity in an ecoregion? We analyzed
the village-level Honduras census database together with
biophysical variables, such as climate and soils, and
accessibility data computed with the accessibility tool.
Simple econometric methods were applied for the country
as a whole (which is how it is done classically) then
repeated at different spatial scales. We analyzed the
gains and tradeoffs in using a cross-scale approach.
-
¨
Water Management Scenarios. This presentation described
the consequences of alternative plausible futures on water
accessibility for a benchmark Honduran watershed using
the SWBM.
(8)
A Web page and CD-ROM of all Project documents.
Dissemination, Use of outputs,
and Impacts
In
October 1998, Hurricane Mitch struck Honduras, changing
forever its geography as well as demographics. Additional
"post-Mitch" analyses were immediately carried
out by the Project and interested partners. The result was
a second version of the CD-ROM, the "Mitch Atlas",
with 2000 copies produced in collaboration with the United
States Geological Survey (USGS) and the Environmental Systems
Research Institute (ESRI). To quote from The Economist (November
1998), "Originally, the idea was to use this information
for agricultural and environmental planning. Instead, it
may now play a key role in restoring the country's agricultural
capacity, after the huge damage caused by the hurricane".
The Mitch Atlas is unrestricted for distribution, and 200
municipalities and a similar number of Honduran organizations
now have copies. We are planning to evaluate the impact
of the Mitch Atlas before the end of the year.
With
specific reference to the Project's work on assessing accessibility,
an electronic news release by the World Bank in January
1999 quotes a World Bank consultant with the Environmentally
and Socially Sustainable Development Network, "You
can use these (CIAT) maps to see which areas have dramatically
decreased accessibility as a result of natural disaster
and where the need for investment in infrastructure is the
biggest".
Several
hurricane relief projects requested and were given access
to data that were critical for targeting relief efforts.
One such project was the "Seeds of Hope" (SOH),
funded by the United States Agency for International Development
(USAID) and the Canadian International Development Agency
(CIDA). The SOH targeted and supplied rural areas with seeds
for farmers in a country that had lost virtually its entire
harvest.
The
availability of a census database whose precision and use
goes beyond the traditional municipality level and predefined
summaries, a concept widely promoted through this Project,
has become a milestone for the future of land administration
planning projects in Honduras. The Honduran Environment
Ministry (SERNA) has recently produced close to 100 indicators
at village level, in collaboration with the DGEC. CIAT has
also produced municipal-level atlases with census data aggregated
at village level that the Yorito and Sulaco municipalities
are using.
Dissemination
of procedures for managing forums to build partnerships
and catalyze collective action (a "goal-driven, multiple-stakeholder
planning forum tool", renamed "ITDEA"), has
been carried out through two workshops, one each in Honduras
and Nicaragua, and introductory presentations at other workshops
(Buga, Colombia, October 1999; African Highland Initiative
Workshop, March 2000, Kampala, Uganda; SAAD III, November
1999, Lima, Peru). Release of a workbook detailing procedures,
with explanations and exercises, will facilitate future
dissemination. Although we recommend following all nine
steps of the forum process, workshop participants have told
us they would prefer to incorporate the steps "piecemeal".
The step "Stakeholder Identification" has been
of particular interest. We see no problems with this step-wise
adoption. Planned future dissemination of this Project output
will occur in three ways: (1) through mass distribution
of a short flier that describes this and nine other related
ecoregional-oriented training guides developed by CIAT,
(2) the future publication of the guide of the full forum
process, and (3) in-country training workshops.
Three
other outputs described above under "Outputs"
have been completed. These include (1) the flexible-scale,
data-screening procedures for targeting stakeholders and
development opportunities, (2) the SWBM, and (3) the interactive,
computer-assisted tutorial. An operations manual for the
SWBM is written and ready for publication. It is a co-publication
by CIAT, the University of Florida, and the International
Consortium for Agricultural Systems Application (ICASA).
Plans are under way to apply the SWBM in another region
of Honduras, the 6700 ha Namasigue watershed. This watershed
in southern Honduras is a benchmark watershed for a USAID/Texas
A&M project. As case studies using SWBM are carried
out and results published, its reputation as an ecoregional
planning tool will grow. We should anticipate comments referring
to SWBM analyses, such as that quoted above about the accessibility
analyses and attributed to World Bank consultant, Lisa Segnestam.
Dissemination
of the flexible-scale, data-screening procedures for targeting
stakeholders and development opportunities may take more
time. A draft manual of the Accessibility Wizard is ready
for review. However, manuals for the Spatial Data Exploration
Toolbox are scheduled for writing in July - September 2000.
The user group for this output is made up of computer-competent
technical analysts including, but not exclusively, census
department analysts. This is because of issues of confidentiality
of data. The series of case studies for Honduras developed
during the extension period will serve as entry points to
decision makers at the regional level and beyond.
With
regard to the eighth achievement related above in "Outputs",
the final Project review workshop, a major editor is publishing
selected workshop/symposium research papers in book form.
This will undoubtedly facilitate dissemination of Project
outputs. Citations of these papers will be one way of tracking
the impact of Project outputs. On the other hand, all technical
reports and support documents produced by the Project, now
compiled on a CD-ROM, will be made available in HTML and
PDF format on the CIAT Web site (Achievement 9).
Ideas
and tools produced by the Project have started to percolate
to other CIAT projects and other CGIAR centers. The accessibility
concept is now part of the work at CIAT's Pucallpa and Puerto
Lopez study sites (for land use planning and agro-enterprises
development), and is a determinant variable for bioeconomic
models developed for the Jalapa pilot watershed in Honduras;
these models also rely extensively on the ecoregional database
developed by this Project. The guiding principles of ITDEA
have evolved into a low-tech application that has been successfully
tested with remote communities in the Colombian Orinoco
savannas (Beaulieu et al., 2000). In addition, the entire
Plan de Ordenamiento Territorial of Puerto Lopez municipality
is being introduced into the ITDEA, in close collaboration
with the mayor, as a basis for validating the methodology,
but also to structure and monitor the execution of the plan
in the next 9 years. Highly detailed census data have been
added to the extensive GIS database of the Pucallpa study
site and agriculture intensification can now be contrasted
with deforestation trends (Glenn Hyman, personal communication,
2000). Finally, the International Plant Genetic Resources
Institute (IPGRI) is using the spatial data exploration
toolbox to compute ecological diversity or to relate biodiversity
to landforms.
We
believe that we have contributed to a critical issue in
ecoregional research, that is, the definition of the ecoregions.
The accessibility tool allows computing a new user-defined
ecoregion, the econoshed, which balances the socioeconomic
and biophysical conditions in a powerful and flexible way.
We expect to receive feedback from other ecoregional programs
on the robustness and viability of this innovative concept.
As
can be appreciated from the above discussion, beneficiaries
of outputs from this Trust Fund Project have already included
researchers in advanced educational institutions (both direct
Project collaborators and non-Project researchers), analysts
in Honduran ministries, decision makers in international
relief and aid agencies, and NGOs. We have introduced ecoregional
methods developed by the Project to Honduran, Nicaraguan,
and Colombian village administrators through training workshops.
The institutionalization and mass distribution of Project
outputs is our present goal and challenge. It is also a
stated objective of CIAT.
Related Research and Development Grants
and Activities
The
Ecoregional Trust Fund provided a unique opportunity for
research on the application of information technology and
the application of cross-scale, geographical systems theory.
During
the period of this Project, CIAT researchers also received
special project funding from the Swiss Development Cooperation
(SDC), IDRC (Canada), DANIDA (Denmark), and the IDB, as
well as unrestricted core generously contributed by CGIAR
members. Funding from these sources paid for scientific
staff salaries, travel, and maintenance of regional offices
(including support staff, supplies, services, and vehicles
for the CIAT "Community-based Watershed Resource Management"
Project). This provided indispensable logistic support to
this research and opportunities to interact closely with
stakeholders in the regional Communities and Watersheds Consortium, the national
Honduran members of this Consortium, and the local watershed
stakeholders. Without these "roots" in Honduras,
it is difficult to imagine that we would have had sufficient
access to Honduran government officials, and it is certain
we would not have had the resources to carry out ground-truth
missions required to validate census and imagery data.
We
are very grateful to SDC and IDRC for their support for
carrying out work focusing on developing local community
consortia. Interaction with that work led us to formulate
ITDEA and the six tasks necessary for success in negotiating
action plans and carrying out ecoregionally focused projects
through collective action. The SDC and IDRC were also primarily
responsible for supporting the development of nine training
guides that introduce ecoregional field techniques to local
community stakeholders and technicians. The subjects of
two guides, for example, are "Stakeholder Identification"
and "Participatory Resource Mapping".
The
IDB and DANIDA assumed primary responsibility for funding
a study focusing on local indicators of poverty. This is
in contrast to traditional standardized statistics at the
national level. Because this work focused on issues related
to the uniqueness of local, small, spatial areas, it complemented
the Trust Fund Project's work on across-scale and multi-scale
analyses (Leclerc et al., 1999). The IDB study of local
indicators of poverty relied heavily on the Honduras Atlas
for the design of a sampling strategy.
As
reported in the press, other organizations in addition to
the Trust Fund, supported publication and distribution of
the digital "Mitch Atlas" adapted from the Atlas
for Honduras. The Trust Fund Project exclusively carried
out the technical research required, adding value to the
data by testing and documenting the across-scale analytical
procedures capable of turning the data into knowledge. The
application of the Atlas of Honduras to an immediate disaster
relief need is a testimony to the power of the open architecture
methods and procedures used to build the Atlas for Honduras.
Lessons Learnt
Without
doubt, the greatest challenge faced by the Project was to
operationalize an "ecoregional process" as articulated
by the Fund, in the Guidelines for Submitting Proposals
(Figure 1). The iterative approach and the evolution of
the Project's strategy for producing its outputs are important
lessons about the need for a learning approach, and the
importance of understanding that the results of ecoregional
processes cannot be "blueprinted" from start to
finish.
Our
focus for this Project was originally on the development
of an extensive, quality-checked database and of cutting-edge
methods to handle data from different sources. An extraordinary
database was built for this purpose, as were several tools
that tackle some of the core methodological problems in
building scale-consistent databases and multi-scale characterizations
of databases.
However,
we then realized that this was not enough. The efficiency
in generation and use of data is greatly enhanced when it
is intimately linked to the process of decision making.
Moreover, we learned that many stakeholders needed help
in understanding how to use data for decision making. This
encouraged us to explore the planning methodology domains,
which resulted in the development of ITDEA and of the ecoregional
process, DSS tutorial. Rather than producing finished characterizations
for end users, we focused on providing them with the means
to design, construct, and interpret their own characterizations
linked to the development of an action plan.
We
also found that the development of extensive databases and
application of sophisticated data mining methods were difficult
to justify to scientists and decision makers with a more
pragmatic approach than ours. We decided to work on well-documented
case studies as entry points for adoption of the new research
model proposed by the Project, and to date the strategy
has proven highly successful, as testified by the rapid
adaptation and application of the database to address targeting
of relief efforts in Honduras after Hurricane Mitch.
Follow
up
This
Project is part of a large program of work, which is in
its first phase, to use advanced information technology
for participatory decision making for NRM. The balance of
the first phase has been in the development of the principles,
procedures, and tools, together with the databases.
The
balance of the second phase will be on the application,
testing, and further adaptation of this Project's procedures
as a DSS in real-life, decision-support situations with
stakeholders, including building the relevant databases
for multi-scale characterization. Clients for this application
will be closely linked to the decentralization of land use
planning and management to the municipalities in Central
America and the Andean countries.
The
framework for follow-up of this Project has been established
by the CIAT Land Management Project's and GIS Unit's knowledge
discovery and decision-making methodological development,
and by the CIAT Community-based Watershed Resource Management
Project's training and capacity building in Honduras. Concerning
the latter, a national team of trainers has been formed,
and support the action plans of more than 30 institutions
involved in using decision-support tools that they and CIAT
have developed and tested in the field. The results of this
Project will be fed into this training process in Phase
2 in 2001-2003. We look forward to collaboration with ISNAR
and IDRC on the evaluation of this capacity-building process
in order to feed in effectively the tools developed in this
Project.
In
the short term, the Project will write and publish papers
(and a book) on activities that have just been completed
using the multi-scale, computer application tools. This
work will also serve as partial fulfillment of a Ph.D. degree
for Andrew Nelson.
Also,
in the very near future, we may repeat the watershed-level
analysis using SWBM for a 6700 ha benchmark watershed for
a USAID project. Our goal is to capture the interest of
USAID for expansion of Project outputs throughout the Central
American region.
In
the second phase, we want to test and publish a DSS that
packages and links all the tools developed so far in this
Project and in the CIAT NRM division as a whole. This will
include, for example, a WWW-based version of ITDEA, the
goal-driven, multiple-stakeholder planning forum tool. We
are also planning to advance in the development of the open-architecture
version of the Project DSS tutorial, a more challenging
task. We believe that with these products, we can satisfy
even the most ardent expectations of the international development
community.
After
the Project ends, CIAT will continue building on the results
accomplished with this grant, both in Central America and
with other countries that have expressed interest in training
and technical assistance in building multi-scale databases
for spatial analysis and decision making. This work is a
firm part of the ongoing research and training agenda of
the Center, and our commitment to it goes well beyond the
end of the Project. Building on this methodology development
continues to constitute a part of CIAT's strategy in NRM
research. We are looking forward to the conclusions reached
during the final synthesis and review workshop that will
help refine CIAT strategies in NRM and ecoregional research.
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