This report examines the challenges of managing water resources for agricultural use — specifically in the context of food production — in the face of a changing climate. It provides an overview of climate change impacts in different parts of the world, details options for adaptation and mitigation, and offers practical recommendations on how developing countries can cope with these impacts.  

The report outlines methods to assess impacts on water and agriculture, and stresses that water and agricultural policies must be more closely aligned. It concludes with suggestions for action to help countries in carrying out such assessments and adapting agricultural water management. These include using methods such as decision analysis to improve predictions; developing and applying downscaling techniques to build capacity for better analyses and climate adaptation; and coordinating analyses of the level of investment required for different solutions.

This technical report examines methods for assessing the vulnerability of wetlands — particularly in the context of climate change — as part of a broader set of methodologies for wetland inventory, assessment and monitoring. It gives an overview of available approaches to assessing vulnerability, including the frameworks available to incorporate climate change risks into development planning and projects.

The report identifies challenges and information gaps that have emerged from vulnerability assessments, including "multiple vulnerabilities" a lack of reliable data or long-term monitoring, and differing perceptions of the need to address wetland vulnerability. It concludes that to provide the information needed for sound management vulnerability assessments will need a better understanding of the complexity of interactive pressures that affect wetlands, such as land use and pollution; to develop appropriate metrics to assess vulnerability to multiple pressures; and to bolster data on the sensitivity and adaptive capacity of wetlands.

This report outlines the first coherent strategy drawn up by the UN to address dryland management, taking into account environmental concerns and the well-being of dryland communities. It examines the relationship between drylands and climate change, food security and livelihoods, and highlights ways in which the UN is working to mainstream drylands into policymaking processes.

Climate change is already having an impact on crop yields and nutrition in areas that rely on rain-fed agriculture, according to the report, and these impacts will intensify by 2020 in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America. The impacts of climate change may be most pronounced in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, suggesting that those already vulnerable will be affected the most.

A key message is that the international community has an opportunity to address the underlying causes of dryland degradation. The report concludes that global cooperation must be intensified if the ten-year strategic plan of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification — whose aim is to tackle desertification and degradation — and the Millennium Development Goals are to be achieved.

This report presents 17 case studies of good practice in coastal management across island territories of the Asia-Pacific region. These illustrate examples of locally tailored, evidence-based and cost-effective actions at a local, provincial, national and regional level.

For each case study — including efforts in the Cook Islands, Fiji and the Solomon Islands — the report provides background information, intended outcomes and how they were addressed, what was achieved and lessons learned.

The report concludes that communities in the region can make progress with integrated coastal management to deal with primarily land-based threats facing coastal areas. It highlights the importance of enhancing the role of government and strengthening enabling environments; multi-sector partnerships; scaling-up small initiatives and achieving cost effectiveness; and providing information through education, awareness, monitoring or research.

This report presents two case-studies that illustrate problems arising from subsidising fertiliser and electricity for groundwater irrigation in India — a policy put in place in the 1960s to boost food production and food security. It aims to analyse why subsequent reforms of these policies have done little to resolve economic and environmental problems; identify reforms that could prove successful; and outline political processes that could help achieve them.

Using India's experience, it highlights political challenges of using subsidy policies that could also be relevant to other countries.

This analysis is based on a literature review and interviews with stakeholders. The report also presents the conceptual framework, and gives an overview of fertiliser policy in India: how it has evolved, the stakeholders involved in the political process, and the policy implications of subsidy reform. Case-studies of electricity supply in Andhra Pradesh and Punjab are used to demonstrate policy reform feasibility.

The report concludes that for both electricity supply and fertiliser policies, various reforms could be adopted that are unlikely to face significant political obstacles. It argues that experimental and research-based knowledge could be used more effectively.

This report explores whether solutions for biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction can reinforce each other. Working through diverse opinions on whether these links can be made, it provides answers to ten frequently asked questions around the issue and highlights their implications for policy.

The questions include which components of biodiversity are important to poor people; whether people living in poverty rely more on biodiversity than other people; how the poor can reap the benefits of biodiversity conservation; and whether poverty or poverty reduction contribute to biodiversity loss.

The report concludes with a list of ten policy implications, including the need to clarify the different definitions of poverty, biodiversity and conservation to ensure that complex issues are not confused and misrepresented; the value of giving greater policy attention to how biodiversity can prevent poverty; and the importance of including safeguards in the design of conservation policy and projects, to ensure that poor people do not end up worse off.

This report aims at encouraging increased trans-boundary cooperation in water resource management in Afghanistan and Central Asia, through a bottom-up, basin-based approach that adheres to the principles of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM)

The largest river in the region, Amu Darya, is crucial for the 43 million people who live in the Aral Sea Basin — but river flow and water availability are becoming increasingly unreliable because of the impact of climate change and inefficient water management. This is a security threat heightened by an expected 50 per cent increase in the region's population by 2025, says the report.

It calls for countries that rely on the Amu Darya — Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — to follow the IWRM approach to balancing competing demands for water, build trust and share practices at the local level by training experts from different countries in joint forums, and avoid multilateral agreements that involve management mechanisms too broad to be effective.

This report presents the Framework for Assessing and Monitoring Forest Governance — an analytical framework that can help governments and other stakeholders describe, diagnose, monitor, assess and report on the state of a county's forest governance. It builds on the results of an expert workshop organised by the UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN-REDD) and the UK's Chatham House.

The framework aims to promote informed discussions about forest governance, drawing on approaches currently used or being developed. The report includes information about the framework's design, including a description of its components and a guide on how it should be used.

This handbook documents implementation issues and pitfalls to be avoided by developers of a Programme of Activities (PoA) — a tool designed to capture emission reductions associated with the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which allows emission-reduction credits earned by developing countries to be traded and sold under the Kyoto Protocol.

PoAs aim to reduce the transaction costs of the CDM and help adapt it to small-scale activities. But progress in adopting the tool has been slow. This is mainly because running and operating PoAs differs from managing CDM activities, and carries additional requirements, says the report. Unclear and constantly changing operational rules is another factor.

The handbook provides guidance for those working on PoAs, including an overview of the tool, models of how it can be structured, managed and operated, as well as information on costs and registration details. It also gives information about new market opportunities, and management and issues associated with PoAs.

This sourcebook provides guidance to managers involved in the design of projects that follow the World Bank's forest strategy, and draws on past experiences to highlight innovative strategies for implementing them. The first section addresses a range of topics including how forests can be managed to enhance their contribution to poverty reduction; engage the private sector; meet the growing demand for forest products; and improve forest governance. For each topic, the document gives a general overview of fundamental issues, constraints, policies, and institutional requirements that need to be considered, and includes a discussion of past World Bank activities. It also outlines future priorities for scaling up activities, and lists of key sources of information. The second section introduces the World Bank's Forests Policy and provides guidance for implementing safeguards, including how to use environmental assessment to identify critical forests and natural habitats.

This guide aims to help developing country negotiators and others who are working on REDD-plus — a programme of activities that aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries, which includes a role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and increasing forest carbon stocks. It provides tips for negotiators such as how to make effective statements in a meeting and review written proposals, outlines the formal rules for negotiations, and provides useful glossaries.

The guide, written by the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development, includes related documents such as the Bali Action Plan and The Copenhagen Accord. It states that negotiations over activities that aim to reduce emissions while protecting forests are difficult because REDD-plus is a complex concept not yet clearly defined, whose components may have implications that need to be considered separately and in how they relate to each other or to future decisions.

This paper reports the results of a systematic review of the impacts of climate change on crop productivity in Africa and South Asia. The study, funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), assessed eight food crops — rice, wheat, maize, sorghum, millet, cassava, yam, plantain and sugarcane — that make up more than 80 per cent of agricultural production in these regions. Its findings aim to inform DFID's policies, allocation of resources and other practices according to the need for a stronger focus on evidence-informed decision-making on agriculture in a changing climate. The report provides background information; a detailed account of the review protocol and methodology; the data extraction strategy; data collection; meta-analyses; a synthesis of results; and key findings for all crops organised by region. It recognises that climate change will worsen environmental conditions that already affect crops, such as heat, drought, salinity and submergence in water.

This report, published to mark World Water Day 2007, reviews the multiple dimensions of water scarcity including increasing demand, competition and conflict and climate change. The authors consider opportunities for improving the efficiency of water use, suggesting the need to increase investments in water, value environmental services and build awareness of water scarcity among the general public.

This guide explores the links between drinking water, biodiversity and development to alleviate poverty. It highlights the best technologies and procedures available for managing drinking water in a socially and environmentally sustainable way. It also provides a list of resources for more detailed information.

This special issue of the journal Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability presents a collection of interdisciplinary scientific articles and commentary on biodiversity. It includes new research in key areas such as food security and climate change.

It also reviews major initiatives that will be released or discussed during 2010, the International Year of Biodiversity. These include the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, a new remote sensing project called the Group on Earth Observations — Biodiversity Observation Network, and key issues such as access and benefit sharing.

This paper considers the potential role of 'innovation brokers' — intermediary organisations that help build links in innovation systems and facilitate multi-stakeholder interaction — in developing countries' agriculture. The authors suggest that to encourage organisations to take on this role, policies that encourage institutional learning and experimentation must be put in place. A first step must be mapping the strengths and weaknesses of the existing innovation system.

This report presents a collection of regional perspectives that examine the environmental threats to the Indian Ocean's coastal areas, including sea level rise and storm surges, and explore the challenges facing decision makers, including limited funding and poor institutional infrastructure. The authors present opportunities for technological innovation and discuss how policies must integrate multiple sectors while reflecting local needs.

This report advocates for the conservation and sustainable management of world's forests by highlighting the ways in which these support ecological stability, economic development and human well-being.

The authors present case studies from the Amazon, Central America and South-East Asia to discuss issues such as livelihoods, biofuel and indigenous people. An overview of the legal mechanisms to protect forests is also given.

This report from the Convention on Biological Diversity presents case studies of 'ecological networks' — programmes that aim to maintain ecosystem functions while simultaneously using the landscape sustainably. The extent to which ecological networks conserve biodiversity while boosting socioeconomic development is assessed in eight cases across the world, including Asia and Latin America. The authors also discuss how ecological networks can contribute to meeting biodiversity targets, reducing poverty and addressing climate change.

This report examines the relationship between biodiversity, forest resilience and ecosystem stability in the face of climate change. The authors review ecosystem resilience and stability theories, and conclude that forests' capacity to withstand disturbance depends on biodiversity at multiple scales.