Recent article published in the Journal of Migration and Development for people who are working on human migration and urban land usage and land cover change, might be interested in this study. As rural-urban human migration occurs in big cities, we often don't fully recognize their impact on the…

Regenerating Urban Land draws on the experience of eight case studies from around the world. The case studies outline various policy and financial instruments to attract private sector investment in urban regeneration of underutilized and unutilized areas and the requisite infrastructure…

A new study has assessed the vulnerability of 571 European cities to heatwaves, droughts and flooding caused by climate change. The causes of vulnerability differ across Europe and the researchers say the results could be used to design policies to mitigate the impacts.

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

This study is the first to comprehensively evaluate the spatial and temporal change of vacant land within the built‐up area of a large city in China. We used the core city of Shanghai as a case‐study to systematically investigate the spatial–temporal distribution of vacant land at the fine scale.…

We live in an urbanizing world. Since 2008, more than half of humanity lives in cities, both large and small, and old and new. We also live in a world that is becoming even more urbanized, it is expected that by 2050, 66 per cent of the world’s population will live in cities [1]. The process of…

Africa is projected to have the fastest urban growth rate in the world — by 2050, Africa’s cities will be home to an additional 950 million people. Urban planning and management are essential development challenges. Understanding urbanisation, its drivers, dynamics and impacts, is key to designing…

The European Environment Agency’s five-yearly assessment ‘The European environment – state and outlook 2015’ (SOER 2015)

The Global Ecological Land Unit map is the most detailed look ever at Earth’s ecosystems. Basically, it partitions the planet into squares 250 meters on a side—roughly the size of a couple of football fields. An ecosystem looks at lithology (that’s rocks and dirt), climate, topography, and land…

Land degradation and desertification are important issues to both ecological and social research. The need for a quantitative, repeatable methodology to assess land degradation and desertification reliably is more pressing than ever before.

This latest edition of the World Investment Report is being issued as the world embarks on the crucial work of implementing the landmark 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on climate change. The key findings and policy recommendations of the Report are far reaching and…

Around the world, 26.7 million hectares of agricultural land have been transferred into the hands of foreign investors since the year 2000. This means that these investors possess approximately 2 per cent of the arable land worldwide, or roughly the equivalent to the total area covered by United…

The hottest year on record, 2015, has confirmed that weather and climate-related disasters now dominate disaster trends linked to natural hazards, according to a new analysis presented today 11 February 2016.

The momentum of urbanization and its impacts are so massive that we must face up to this trend. In view of the existing cognitive, technical, economic and institutional path dependencies, a policy of business as usual – i.e. an unstructured, quasi-automatic urbanization – would lead to a non…

The map of potential natural vegetation of eastern Africa, gives the distribution of potential natural vegetation in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Malawi and Zambia. The map distinguishes 48 vegetation types, divided in four main vegetation groups: 16 forest types, 15 woodland…

Impact investing refers to investments that intend to generate measurable social and/or environmental impacts, as well as a financial return. It is often described as ‘doing good while doing well’ and is part of a wider strategy to shift finance towards more sustainable projects. This Future Brief…

Water stress levels in many parts of China are very high, due to low levels of water supply and very high levels of demand. And new research shows the situation is worsening.

Given the context of transitions related to rapid urbanization, the roles that rural economies and societies will have to play (particularly smallholder farmers and other rural producers) in creating sustainable and inclusive food systems, in generating employment and incomes and in contributing to…

The New Urban Agenda was formally adopted by national governments at the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, commonly referred to as Habitat III, on 20 October 2016, in the city of Quito, Ecuador. The agreement provides the road-map for sustainable urban…

The World Economic Forum releases report on Harnessing Public-Private Cooperation to Deliver the New Urban Agenda · A-to-Z guide on the implementation of sustainable urban development and housing solutions following the adoption of the New Urban Agenda at the Habitat III conference in October 2016 ·…

The termination of the African Humid Period (AHP) induced the most significant, broad-scale landscape change that occurred on the African continent during the Holocene. Although variable in tempo and spatial distribution, rainfall profoundly decreased across most of the northern half of Africa and…

Our assessments show that climate change has wide-ranging impacts in Europe on ecosystems, the economy, human health and well-being. The scale of future climate change and its impacts will depend on the effectiveness of implementing global agreements to cut greenhouse gas emissions, but also…

New research "Trees, forests and water: Cool insights for a hot world" has revealed a multitude of ways in which forests create rain and cool local climates, urging a closer look at forests’ capabilities beyond just climate change mitigation.

This report builds on and complements existing products and initiatives on urban adaptation in Europe. It focuses on the state of actions in the field and progress achieved since the first EEA report in 2012, and it considers this analysis in relation to current challenges: Do existing actions lead…

Supporting transparent, needs-based and relevant responses to food crises through coordinated analyses – Presentation of the results of the Global Report on Food Crises 2017