Added value:
The Area Development Plan has been undertaken to provide the Government of Barbados with a strategic overview of the changes in agricultural land use in recent history, and of the future viability of plantation sugar cane production and small holder cropping.

Halcrow were engaged as sub-consultants to provide specialist Geographic Information System (GIS), hydrogeological and economic inputs to this strategic agricultural planning study.

Within Barbados water resource utilisation, water contamination and aquifer recharge are all areas of crucial importance. This is due to the scarcity of available water resources on the island and the extremely high level of utilisation.

As part of the overall investigation into agricultural resources, Halcrow provided specialist inputs that examined the prevailing hydrogeological conditions. This was used to make an assessment of constraints and opportunities to optimise agricultural production within different catchments.

Innovation:
The GIS analysis encompassed three related activities:

• The cadastral mapping of agricultural land parcels
• The identification and mapping of plantation and former plantation lands
• The use of GIS to support a land suitability classification based on FAO guidelines

The work relating to cadastral mapping involved the creation of a cadastral index map from land tax records, and its analysis within the GIS to identify small holder concentrations and plantation extents.

The land suitability assessment relied on the GIS to bring together information on soil types, slope, water availability and current land use. This was done using ESRI’s ArcView and Spatial Analysis products. Suitability maps were created for five scenarios of agricultural land use.

Additionally, the GIS was used to quantify recent changes in agricultural land use and estimate the loss of agricultural land to urban and tourism development.

Team work:
Expertise in providing an economic evaluation on the future of small holder farming on the island was provided to the project team by Halcrow staff. This accounted for optimum farm sizes, land suitability and availability, food security, environmental and socio-economic requirements. Additional work in looking into agricultural diversification was also undertaken.

Now complete, the Area Development Plan is to be used by the Government of Barbados to assist in the planning of future land use on the island, and many of the data sets compiled through the study will be of service to other national studies.