A "forest-hydrology-poverty
nexus" hypothesis asserts that deforestation in poor
upland areas simultaneously threatens biodiversity and
increases the incidence of flooding, sedimentation, and
other damaging hydrological processes. The authors use rough
heuristics to assess the applicability of this hypothesis to
Central America. They do so by using a simple rule of thumb
to identify watersheds at greater risk of hydrologically

A tradable development rights (TDR)
program focusing on biodiversity conservation faces a
crucial problem defining which areas of habitat should be
considered equivalent. Restricting the trading domain to a
narrow area could boost the range of biodiversity conserved
but could increase the opportunity cost of conservation. The
issue is relevant to Brazil, where TDR-like programs are
emerging. Current regulations require each rural property to

The spatial distribution of vegetation trends identified by time series analysis of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) for the Mongolian grasslands was cross-referenced with the recently obtained land use/cover data and socioeconomic information in the geographic domain. Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies (GIMMS) dataset with an 8-km resolution provided by the Global Land Cover Facility (GLCF) of the United States were used to compute the vegetation trends.

Future forest cover changes were simulated under the business-as-usual (BAU), pessimistic and optimistic scenarios using the Markov-cellular automata (MCA) model in Pakxeng district, Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR). The Markov chain analysis was used to compute transition probabilities from satellite-derived forest cover maps (1993, 1996, 2000 and 2004), while the “weights of evidence” procedure was used to generate transition potential (suitability) maps.

Land use is a dynamic phenomenon that changes with time and space due to anthropogenic pressure and development. Evaluating the existing land use and its periodic change is useful for urban planners, policy makers and natural resource managers. Land use and land cover changes in Mekelle City, Ethiopia (north east Africa) over a period of 25 years was studied using remotely sensed data. Multi temporal satellite data of Landsat was used to map and monitor urban land use changes occurred during two point of time of 1985 and 2010.

Vegetation mapping provides basic information for forest management and planning. In remote sensing research, the process of creating an accurate vegetation map is an important subject. Recently, there has been growing research interest in the object-oriented image classification techniques. The object-oriented image classification consists of multi-dimensional features including object features and thus requires multi-dimensional image classification approaches.

Reducing emissions from deforestation
and forest degradation and enhancing carbon stocks (REDD+)
has raised the profile of benefit sharing in the forest
sector. Sharing benefits, however, is not a new concept.
Previous work on benefit sharing (associated with
intellectual property, forest and agriculture concessions,
mining, and so forth) has focused on clarifying the concept
and examining how benefit sharing could feed into broader

During the past several months, the
Ministry of Environment, Housing and Territorial Development
of Colombia has been researching potential indicators that
would be useful to assess and possibly adopt among which
included the ecological footprint. This work was
commissioned in order to provide the Ministry with a deeper
understanding of the ecological footprint and to train a
number of its staff on the scope of the footprint in order

Due to climate change and increasing
food prices, emphasis needs to be placed on addressing water
management as a key determinant for agricultural production
and productivity. However, governments and donors have
tended to pay relatively little attention to this area, and
investments remain low. This report, which is based on
economic and sector work carried out in the Water Anchor of
the World Bank, highlights the importance of improving water

This report describes a pilot study of
natural risk hazards in the peri-urban extension areas of
the Dakar Metropolitan Area, Senegal. The area subject of
this study stretches across 580 square kilometers, covering
less than 1 percent of the national territory, but housing
about 50 percent of Senegal's urban population. Much of
the rapid population growth of the Dakar Metropolitan Area
is taking place beyond the boundaries of the Department of

A Country Environmental Analysis (CEA)
is a World Bank analytical tool used to integrate
environmental issues into development assistance strategies,
programs, and projects. To that end, the CEA synthesizes
environmental issues, highlights the environmental and
economic implications of development policies, and evaluates
the country's environmental management capacity. It is
composed of three analytical building blocks: the

The objective of the Functional Review
of the Environment, Water and Forestry sector (FR-EWF) is to
help the Government of Romania (GoR) develop an action plan
for implementation over the short- and medium-term to
strengthen the effectiveness and efficiency of the sector
administration, and provide input to the Government National
Reform Program (NRP 2011- 2013) and beyond, especially in
relation to those functions that support Romania's