Rio+20 must launch SDGs to guide countries through complex development challenges, argues Colombian ministry official Paula Caballero Gómez.

Conflicts over shared water resources could be mitigated through science-based environmental cooperation, argue Saleem Ali and Pamela Griffin.

Pakistan urgently needs to refine its crop yield forecasting and estimation system to improve food production, says Ibrar ul Hassan Akhtar.

Durable food security and agricultural growth depend on development strategies with resilience built in from the start, says Gordon Conway.

Feeding South-East Asia's rapidly growing population requires a second Green Revolution, says Crispin Maslog.

Peter Messerli and colleagues argue that reforms in agricultural policy will be needed to build green economies in the developing world.

More must be done to prevent damage of ocean data buoys that costs money, vital data — and lives, say Sidney Thurston and M. Ravichandran.

Improving access to information technology can help communities assess their own vulnerability and boost local planning, says John Waugh.

South-East Asia has suffered from neglecting planning for disasters. Governments must heed the warnings and act now, argues Crispin Maslog.

Agro-ecology offers simple solutions and can align climate change with food security agendas, says UN adviser Olivier De Schutter.

Analysing vulnerability to climate change must go beyond stating obvious problems to become truly useful, argues Marcus Moench.

Cities face many social, economic and environmental challenges, and must facilitate innovation to cope with them, says an editorial in Nature Geoscience.

The East Africa famine calls into question the wisdom of investing in early warning systems without improving take-up, writes Linda Nordling.

Success stories show that food crises can be controlled with the right tools and agricultural policies, says Sam Dryden.

A new southern African climate plan is impressive, but needs more funding if it is to plug the continent's data gap, writes Linda Nordling.

Developing countries need help with crop surveillance and the development of strains resistant to wheat rust, say agricultural research leaders.

The hydrological ecosystem services of Amazonian forests must be valued, says conservation biologist Carlos Peres.

With traditional food production under threat from climate change, we should switch from agriculture to cell culture, says Lucía Atehortúa.

Cities are vulnerable to climate change but can adapt with policymaking informed by sound science says Cynthia Rosenweig and colleagues.

The current way of assessing water scarcity in Africa should be abandoned in favour of one designed for local realities, argues Richard Taylor.