In 2024, the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) recorded 393 natural hazard-related disasters. These events caused 16,753 fatalities and affected 167.2 million people. Economic losses totaled US$241.95 billion. The year 2024 was marked by extreme temperature events in Asia that caused thousands of deaths, severe droughts in Africa affecting over 25 …
One potential impact from greenhouse-gas emissions is increasing damage from extreme events. Here, we quantify how climate change may affect tropical cyclone damage. We find that future increases in income are likely to double tropical cyclone damage even without climate change. Climate change is predicted to increase the frequency of …
This volume of case studies comprises one of two main publications resulting from the Oct. 21-22, 2011 Land Tenure and Forest Carbon Management Workshop hosted by the University of Wisconsin/Madison’s Land Tenure Center (LTC), Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, and Geography Dept. Contributed by an impressive array of researchers, NGOs, …
By 2015, it expects more than 50 % of sales to come from Asia Volvo on Thursday launched its new range of buses, comprising city bus and coaches, aimed at inter-State routes and cities. The expanded range of Volvo buses in India now includes three new models that are the …
Amphibian population declines far exceed those of other vertebrate groups, with 30% of all species listed as threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The causes of these declines are a matter of continued research, but probably include climate change, land-use change and spread of the pathogenic fungal …
Since the mid-1990s, the International Land Coalition (ILC) has been working to promote equitable and secure access to land for poor men and women in order to combat poverty and achieve food security. With more than 120 institutional members, the Coalition is committed to amplifying the voices of civil society …
Scientific evidence suggests that increasing amounts of carbon in the atmosphere are causing climate change that will result in global warming, sea -level rise and more extreme weather events. In response to anthropogenic climate change, market-based mechanisms have been proposed to mitigate these rising carbon dioxide emissions. One of these …
The world’s deforestation rate has accelerated to 6.4 million hectares a year, the UN said on Wednesday in its most comprehensive survey yet, but Asia showed net gains due to extensive planting in China. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation used satellite technology for the first time to map forests, …
The collapse of the Maya civilization is often attributed to drought, but is the explanation really as simple as that? On the basis of evidence from their respective fields, an archaeologist and a palaeoclimatologist call for a more nuanced assessment.
Tropical South America is rich in different groups of pollinators, but the biotic and abiotic factors determining the geographical distribution of their species richness are poorly understood. We analyzed the species richness of three groups of pollinators (bees and wasps, butterflies, hummingbirds) in six tropical forests in the Bolivian lowlands …
This new report is a global inventory of identified Payment for environmental services (PES) —water for cities? schemes and —pre PES water schemes? around the world.
Large-scale geographical patterns of biotic specialization and the underlying drivers are poorly understood, but it is widely believed that climate plays an important role in determining specialization. As climate-driven range dynamics should diminish local adaptations and favor generalization, one hypothesis is that contemporary biotic specialization is determined by the degree …
Biological invasion and climate change pose challenges to biodiversity conservation in the 21st century. Invasive species modify ecosystem structure and functioning and climatic changes are likely to produce invasive species' range shifts pushing some populations into protected areas. The American Bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus) is one of the hundred worst invasive …
Google’s Street View is heading down the Amazon to capture pictures of “some of the most remote and biodiverse areas in the world”, says its official blog. The Street View team will be floating downriver in Peru in partnership with the Amazonas Sustainable Foundation (FAS), the non-profit conservation organisation that …
The global water market could be worth $800 billion by 2035, with Asia making up half that value as rapid economic growth and a rising population boosts demand, the president and chief executive of Finnish chemicals firm Kemira said on Friday. Some experts foresee the water market hitting $1 trillion …
Planet At Right Distance From Its Star For Water To Exist European astronomers said on Monday that they had found what might be the best candidate for a Goldilocks planet yet: a lump of something about 3.6 times as massive as the Earth, circling its star at the right distance …
New Delhi Land acquisition overseas for farming could soon become a reality. The agriculture ministry plans to announce a policy that will allow farmers to buy land in continents like South America and Africa to farm for all sorts of crops. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a source told FE …
South America’s media mogul Edir Macedo is also the region’s most powerful televangelist who presides over one of the world’s fastest-growing and controversial churches, Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. Despite controlling a media empire that includes a TV network, two newspapers and 26 radio stations in Brazil, he …
Protected areas (PAs) cover a quarter of the tropical forest estate. Yet there is debate over the effectiveness of PAs in reducing deforestation, especially when local people have rights to use the forest. A key analytic problem is the likely placement of PAs on marginal lands with low pressure for …
It has been estimated that the number of hungry people in the world rose from 820 million in 2007 to more than a billion in 2009, following a spike in food prices; and that while this figure may since have dropped to about 900 million, about 16 percent of the …
