A new report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the International Energy Agency (IEA), and the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21), Renewable Energy Policies in a Time of Transition, is an unprecedented collaboration that sheds new light on the policy…

This paper explores the linking of disaster risk reduction, climate change, and the sustainable development goals in Paris agreements and reveals that no reason exists for climate change to be separated from wider disaster risk reduction and sustainable development processes.

Land is a limited resource. There are different – synergistic or competing – options how land can be used. Any use does impact our soil, sediment and water system to which the land is linked. A good understanding of these complex linkages is essential in order to steward land to a more sustainable…

Twenty years have passed since the last atlas of desertification was published. Within that short period enormous global changes have taken place in terms of human expansion and the impact that had on the environment. Equally significant progress has been made in understanding the fundamentals of…

This year’s theme for the World Day to Combat Desertification focuses on sustainable land management (SLM) as a way to regenerate economies, create jobs and revitalize communities. Under the slogan “Land has true value – Invest in it”. Over the years, IUCN has focused its efforts on advocating for…

FAO report calls for a more pro-active and long-term planning to become more resilient against droughts

Desertification is a form of land degradation in drylands. It results from unsustainable land management practices and climatic factors. Thirteen EU Member States, not only in the Mediterranean region, but also in Central and Eastern Europe, have declared that they are affected by desertification…

Contamination of land by persistent organic pollutants has significant implications for human health and for future development potential. Bioremediation is an effective method for reducing the concentrations of such contaminants to below harmful levels, but the presence of co‐contaminants may…

The aim of this project is to state a mainly qualitative comparison between three cases of brownfields in Spain, looking for the identification of factors of success in the process of redevelopment of the affected area. The project embraces an Introduction and Pre-analysis of the brownfields…

With climate change soon to be the main threat to biodiversity, protected habitat will be a higher priority than ever to give wildlife a chance.

The LDN Country Profiles provide evidence-based arguments that contribute to making the case for investing in measures to avoid, reduce and reverse land degradation. These profiles demonstrate the importance and multiple benefits of taking actions to achieve Land Degradation Neutrality. The country…

When people are forced to leave their homes, they usually also leave behind their means of economic activity. In their new location, they may not be able, or permitted, to work. This has wide-ranging implications. This issue includes 22 articles on the main feature theme of Economies: rights and…

Governments should invest in healthy, living soils by channeling agricultural subsidies towards sustainable farming methods. If done right, agriculture can conserve the diversity of species found in soils, helping halt land degradation and desertification. This in turn helps countries ensure future…

The policy requests to develop trends in soil erosion changes can be responded developing modelling scenarios of the two most dynamic factors in soil erosion, i.e. rainfall erosivity and land cover change. The recently developed Rainfall Erosivity Database at European Scale (REDES) and a statistical…

The ECC Factbook is a powerful map-tool to explore the complex relationships between climate and environmental change and situations of fragility around the world. The fundamental purpose of this Factbook is to provide an overview on conflict and cooperation around the world that relates to…

Accepted Articles (Accepted, unedited articles published online and citable. The final edited and typeset version of record will appear in future.) RESEARCH ARTICLES

With a growing population with changing demands, competition for the global land resource is increasing. We need to feed a projected population of 9–10 billion by 2050, rising to approximately 12 billion by 2100. At the same time, we need to reduce the climate impact of agriculture, forestry and…

The Expert Review of the First Order Draft of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Climate Change and Land (SRCCL) will take place from 11 June to 5 August 2018. Expert Reviewers can register at https://www.ipcc.ch/apps/comments/srccl/fod/ until 29 July 2018.

The Landscapes Portal is an online GIS platform with a number of features for visualisation, data management and spatial modelling

In March this year, an unusual sand and dust storm nicknamed ‘Mars on Earth or Orange Snow[1]’ transported and deposited dust that transformed European landscapes into a surreal orange-tinted scenery. An even more drastic dust storm swept over India recently and left behind a trail of casualties.[2]…

This report provides a new perspective to the nature of urban sprawl and its causes and environmental, social and economic consequences. This perspective, which is based on the multi-dimensionality of urban sprawl, sets the foundations for the construction of new indicators to measure the various…

Images of thousands of African youth drowning in the Mediterranean, propelled by poverty or conflict at home and lured by the hope of jobs abroad, have fed a misleading narrative that migration from Africa harms rather than helps the continent. The latest edition of the UNCTAD flagship Economic…

The publication is devoted to the deserts of the world and desertification as a global phenomenon of land degradation. Encyclopedia contains more than 1000 articles, which describe the deserts of the world; Large lakes and transit rivers crossing the deserts; general terms on climate, vegetation…

The Global Symposium on Soil Pollution (GSOP18), held on 2 – 4 May 2018 at FAO HQ in Rome, convened more than 500 participants, including environmental leaders, scientists and policy makers to discuss the issue of soil pollution and how to address it as a global threat. The outcome document has just…