Land use has important consequences for the environment, public health, economic productivity, inequality and social segregation. Land use policies are often complex and require co-ordination across all levels of government as well as across policy sectors. Not surprisingly, land use decisions can…

The European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (E-PRTR) ensures public access to information on pollutant releases to the environment from Europe’s largest facilities. Updated E-PRTR data have recently been published by the EEA, including information on pollutant releases to the environment…

The cultivation of bioenergy plants at fertile, arable lands increasingly results in new land use conflicts with food production and cannot be considered as sustainable, therefore. Marginal lands have been frequently considered as potential alternative for producing bioenergy from biomass. However…

Land degradation is becoming a serious environmental issue threatening fertile agricultural soils and other natural resources. There are many driving forces behind land degradation. The expansion of artificial surfaces due to various economic activities, such as housing, industry, and transport…

The World Bank is pleased to release the 2018 Atlas of Sustainable Development Goals. With over 180 maps and charts, the new publication shows the progress societies are making towards the 17 SDGs. It’s filled with annotated data visualizations, which can be reproducibly built from source code and…

A new study has quantified the economic impact of reducing avoidable food waste in Germany, Poland and Spain. The researchers modelled impacts on production, GDP and employment. The results show that reducing food waste from households has the greatest impact, although policy measures should be…

Researchers have proposed a global roadmap for decarbonisation over the coming decades. The roadmap is based on the idea of a simple heuristic, described by the researchers as ‘carbon law’, of halving carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions every decade from 2020 to 2050. The researchers say that, if…

Drought is a complex and recurring natural disaster that occurs throughout the world and often has negative impacts on many sectors of society. Drought monitoring is challenging given the complex spatio-temporal dimensions of drought and its severity. Traditionally, drought monitoring has relied…

Twenty-four million new jobs will be created globally by 2030 if the right policies to promote a greener economy are put in place, a new report by the International Labor Organization (ILO) says. Action to achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement, to limit global temperature rise to below 2…

What is planetary health? And what kind of science will this new journal be seeking? In The Rockefeller Foundation–Lancet Commission on Planetary Health, planetary health was defined as the health of human civilisations and the natural systems on which they depend. To explain this idea in simpler…

The Lancet Planetary Health is a new online-only title in The Lancet’s growing family of specialty journals, joining The Lancet Public Health and The Lancet Global Health to provide a third pillar in The Lancet’s open-access programme. Building on the foundation of The Rockefeller Foundation–Lancet…

Rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns lead to heat waves and droughts occurring with greater frequency and intensity. This issue includes a collection of original research documenting how droughts and heatwaves, as well as their impacts on both natural and human systems, may change with…

In the first months of 2018 three studies recently published by the World Bank (WB),the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) prominently addressed the link between degradation of land, water stress…

Given that land and soils are increasingly threatened by degradation, this project investigated how SDG target 15.3, which strives to achieve a land degradation neutral world by 2030, can be implemented. The report suggests necessary steps towards the implementation of Land Degradation Neutrality…

Climate-smart interventions in agriculture have varying costs and environmental and economic impacts. Their implementation requires appropriate investment decisions by policy makers that are relevant for current as well as future scenarios of agro-ecology, climate and economic development. Decision…

"Land degradation is estimated to cost the global economy from $2 to $4.5 trillion a year, while economic benefits of restoration efforts are an estimated $84 billion a year, according to a report in Environmental Research Letters, and statistics from World Resources Institute. The purpose of the…

Restoring degraded land could inject $84 billion a year to the global economy, according to researchers, but public resources fall short of unlocking this potential.

A free and evolving resource to empower informed discussion on sustainable food systems.