“Extended drought due to enhanced warming and rapid population growth pose major threats to the people living in the drylands,” says atmospheric scientist Jianping Huang at Lanzhou University in China. “Degradation and desertification will become a challenge to the global ecosystem and human…

Science and technology, including Earth observation, provide critical inputs for disaster risk reduction - not only at international, national and regional levels, but also at the local level. The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), through its Platform on for Disaster Management…

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…

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…

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…

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 trick to boosting crops in drought-prone, food-insecure areas of West Africa could be a ubiquitous native shrub that persists in the toughest of growing conditions. Growing these shrubs side-by-side with the food crop millet increased millet production by more than 900 percent, according to a…

The Eurosoil 2020 Organizing Committee invites proposals for Scientific Sessions. In line with the theme “Connecting People and Soil” (24-28 AUGUST 2020 | Geneva, Switzerland), the organizers expect sessions addressing the soil-related topics of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United…

World Bank Steps Up Climate Funding in Arab World. With a 2 degree Celsius temperature rise, rainfall in MENA is projected to decline by 20 to 40 percent. Increasing water scarcity will have an economic impact, and is expected to lower growth by 6 to 14 percent by 2050. But the impact will vary…

Thirty kilometres from the bustle of downtown Abu Dhabi, lies a remarkable undertaking that could one day change the environmental impact of air travel. Set on a two-hectare farm down the road from the IRENA Headquarters building, a pilot project conducted by Masdar Institute’s Sustainable Bioenergy…

As wind blows in the sails of 2017 – or ‘Year Two’ if you work on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, the editors at the SDG Knowledge Hub, will be watching for a number of trends on the horizon

Almost 88 percent of the world’s 1.2 billion youth live in developing countries. Globally, young people account for approximately 24 percent of the working poor and this dynamic is particularly pronounced in Africa, where over 70 percent of youth subsist on US$2 per day or less. Although the world’s…

The workshop took place in Ispra, Italy (20-22 March 2017) and was organized by the Joint Research Centre (JRC). It hosted more than 110 participants and the 83 presentations are available for download. This workshop discussed mainly issues how the local/regional model­ing results can be upscaled…

In recent years, several major drivers have put the world off track to ending world hunger and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030. The challenges have grown with the COVID-19 pandemic and related containment measures. This report presents the first global assessment of food insecurity and…

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…

Herdade do Freixo do Meio is an organic certified farm of 440 hectares located in the Alentejo region in the south of Portugal, a region characterized by the multifunctional agro-silvo-pastoral system of cork and holm oak trees, named montado. This farm employs about 20 people and produces cork…

As the climate changes, so too do the conditions in which non-state armed groups operate. The complex risks presented by conflicts, climate change and increasingly fragile geophysical and socio-political conditions can contribute to the emergence and growth of non-state armed groups. Our new report…

AquaCrop is a crop-water productivity model developed by FAO’s Land and Water Division to address food security and assess the effect of the environment and management on crop production. AquaCrop simulates the yield response of herbaceous crops to water and is particularly well suited to conditions…

Long-term field experiments at Rothamsted Research, dating back as far as 1843, prove that modern carbon emissions cannot be locked in the ground to halt global warming