Resource management domains as a vehicle for sustainable development
Date
1997
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Abstract
The concept of sustainable development (SD has been discussed for more than a decade. At the forefront of the discussion has been the Brundtland Commission report and Agenda 21, the environmental blueprint devised at the Rio Conference. Chapter 40 of Agenda 21 "information for' Decision Making" highlights the importance of using appropriate information and information technology in decision making. However, there have been few attempts to develop paradigms and tools based on information technology to operationalize and implement the concept of SD into the actual development planning processes at the national and regional level. Nevertheless, the operationalization of SD will require the development of such new methods and tools that can cope with the complexity of SD by utilizing state-of-the-art information technology. The international research community is actively working to develop tools for operationalizing the sustainable development concept. An example is the concept of Resource Management Domains that is defined as follows: "A
Resource Management Domain (RMD) is a spatial (landscape) unit that offers
opportunities for identification and application of resource management options to address specific issues. It is derived from georeferenced biophysical and socio-economic information, and it is dynamic and multiscale in that it reflects human interventions in the landscape." This paper focuses on RNlDs for sustainable land management for agriculture and draws on papers and Working Groups discussions at the lnternational Workshop on Resource Management Domains: Kuala Lumpur, August 26-29, 1996. The paper also draws on proceedings of the Expert Group Workshop on Decision Support System for Sustainable Development held at lnternational Institute
for Software Technology, United Nations University, Macau Feb. 25 - March 8, 1996. The RMD approach can be applied to other application domains as well.
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Keywords
BRUNDTLAND COMMISSION, DECISION MAKING, LAND MANAGEMENT, AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH, COMPUTER PROGRAMS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS, DATA COLLECTION, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT, RESOURCES MANAGEMENT DOMAIN