The world’s soils store more carbon than the planet’s biomass and atmosphere combined. An increase of just 1% of the carbon stocks in the top metre of soils would be higher than the amount corresponding to the annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning. Many innovations in…
Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) are the most commonly known, used, and globally widespread, environmental planning and management tools, with Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEAs) also gaining increasing momentum over the last decade. The objective of these tools is to make sure that…
A study just published by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Nature Climate Change shows that soils can be a net sink of greenhouse gases through increased storage of organic carbon.
A Special Issue on Soil Organic Carbon and its influence on agricultural and environmental effects is open for contributions in Agronomy (E. Lugato). A Special issue on “Soil Erosion by Water” is open in Water MDPI. Another Special issue on the workshops of soil erosion modelling (Ispra, Seoul) is…
FuturePolicy.org is an online database designed for forward-thinking policy-makers, to simplify the sharing of existing and proven policy solutions to tackle the world’s most fundamental and urgent problems. Grown from the conviction that solutions exist for the most essential challenges to humanity…
Dryland areas are being seriously affected by degradation processes. The use of organic amendments in ecosystem restoration is an effective technique for accelerating soil regeneration processes in degraded drylands. This recovery is a result of the rapid increment of organic matter and clay…
Publication to present project BRIDGES under the FAO-Turkish Forestry Partnership programme in support of efforts to combat land degradation and desertification in Eritrea, Mauritania and Sudan, contributing to Africa's Great Green Wall initiative.
The concept of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) is distinct from, and more complex than, a conventional heritage site or protected area/landscape. A GIAHS is a living, evolving system of human communities in an intricate relationship with their territory, cultural or…
Results from a long-running field experiment suggest that a major group of plants could thrive as the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases.
Where in the world will people’s lives be affected by water issues by the year 2050? What is the impact of the growing global population, further urbanisation and climate change on these water risks, the food supply and migration? This new report by the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment…
A lone grain of sand, on its own, is completely harmless. It travels on its journey carried by the wind, by water, or even hitchhikes on a living being, barely noticed as it meanders through the landscape. When a grain of sand joins up with others to become a sand dune, it can become a force that…
Copper (Cu) distribution in soil is influenced by climatic, geological and pedological factors. Apart from geological sources and industrial pollution, other anthropogenic sources, related to the agricultural activity, may increase copper levels in soils, especially in permanent crops such as olive…
Quick and easy to read, the Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) country profiles give an overview of the agricultural challenges in countries around the world, and how CSA can help them adapt to and mitigate climate change. Developed by CIAT and CCAFS, in partnership with the World Bank, Costa Rica’s…
The report — Mechanized: Transforming Africa’s Agriculture Value Chains—summarizes the findings of a systematic analysis of what countries at the forefront of progress in mechanization have done right. It analyzes which policy decisions were taken and which interventions were implemented to…
This handbook contains 30 good practice examples that have been identified within the WATER SUM project. It is a valuable tool for identifying relevant experience in the fields of climate change, drought management, water demand management, and communication and participation. Examples of national…
Soil organic matter (SOM) supports the Earth's ability to sustain terrestrial ecosystems, provide food and fiber, and retains the largest pool of actively cycling carbon. Over 75% of the soil organic carbon (SOC) in the top meter of soil is directly affected by human land use. Large land areas have…
Agroforestry (AF) has the potential to restore degraded lands, provide a broader range of ecosystem goods and services such as carbon (C) sequestration and high biodiversity, and increase soil fertility and ecosystem stability through additional C input from trees, erosion prevention, and…
GLOBALANDS project aims to identify promising existing land use policies and to develop possible governance tools towards a more resource efficient and sustainable global land use.
Drylands may be resilient to environmental changes because the many species with intermediate relative abundances could take over ecosystem functioning if the environment becomes suboptimal for dominant species.
Increasing affluence is often postulated as a main driver for the human footprint on biologically productive areas, identified among the main causes of biodiversity loss, but causal relationships are obscured by international trade.
