An attempt is made here to shed light on how water legislation could address the climate change challenge. Although climate change legislation provides a framework for the integration of climate change issues into government policies on several topics, it does not cover water resources as such. Therefore, water legislation must provide for such integration. The challenge is to find a balance between well-defined water rights, duties and administrative functions on the one hand and, on the other, the flexibility required to respond to the vagaries of a changing climate.

The government of Indonesia allocated state land to private companies to establish forest plantations. However, ownership of this land was contested by some Sumatran communities. The plantation company, endorsed by the government, quickly developed a partnership to resolve the conflict, but this was unclear and inequitable. Action research was carried out to facilitate communication among stakeholders. This communicative action changed some perceptions and shared values began to emerge. A forum was established, which contributed to equitability producing a better partnership.

Dutch peatlands have been subsiding due to peat decomposition, shrinkage and compression, since their reclamation in the 11th century. Currently, subsidence amounts to 1–2 cm/year. Water management in these areas is complex and costly, greenhouse gases are being emitted, and surface water quality is relatively poor. Regional and local authorities and landowners responsible for peatland management have recognized these problems. In addition, the Netherlands Royal Meteorological Institute predicts higher temperatures and drier summers, which both are expected to enhance peat decomposition.

The relationship between sustainable urban development and environmental sustainability is crucial to every strategy of urban transformation, renewal and regeneration. In particular, urban regeneration entails programmes of urban transformation that involve the rehabilitation of existing parts of a city, re-use previously built-up area and abandoned buildings, and redevelop blighted urban spaces to increase urban sustainability.

We present a new indicator taxa approach to the prediction of climate change effects on biodiversity at the national level in Switzerland. As indicators, we select a set of the most widely distributed species that account for 95% of geographical variation in sampled species richness of birds, butterflies, and vascular plants. Species data come from a national program designed to monitor spatial and temporal trends in species richness. We examine some opportunities and limitations in using these data.

AIM: Habitat fragmentation threatens species’ persistence by increasing subpopulation isolation and vulnerability to stochastic events, and its impacts are expected to worsen under climate change. By reconnecting isolated fragments, habitat corridors should dampen the synergistic impacts of habitat and climate change on population viability. Choosing which fragments to reconnect is typically informed by past and current environmental conditions. However, habitat and climate are dynamic and change over time.

Vulnerability to climate change impacts is defined by three dimensions of human–environmental systems, such as exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. Climate change affects various aspects of human–environmental interactions, such as water stress, food security, human health, and well-being at multiple spatial and temporal scales. However, the existing protocols of vulnerability assessment fail to incorporate the multitude of scales associated with climate change processes.

Agriculture and animal husbandry are important contributors to global emissions of greenhouse (GHG) and acidifying gases. Moreover, they contribute to water pollution and to consumption of non-renewable natural resources such as land and energy. The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology allows evaluation of the environmental impact of a process from the production of inputs to the final product and to assess simultaneously several environmental impact categories among which GHG emissions, acidification, eutrophication, land use and energy use.

Summary The relationship between woody fuel consumption and fireline intensity was assessed using data collected at controlled fires and wildfires in south-western Western Australia, central Victoria and south-eastern New South Wales. The combined dataset consisted of fires in a range of dry eucalypt forests. Fire behaviour varied from slow, self-extinguishing prescribed burns to intense, fast—moving fires burning under conditions of extreme fire danger. Fireline intensity ranged from 50 kW m⁻ˡ to

Artificial neural networks (ANN) are nonlinear models widely investigated in hydrology due to their properties of universal approximation and parsimony. Their performance during the training phase is very good, and their ability to generalize can be improved by using regularization methods such as early stopping and cross-validation. In our research, two kinds of generic models are implemented: the feed-forward model and the recurrent model.

Non-Urbanised Areas (NUAs) are part of agricultural and green infrastructures that provide ecosystem services. Their role is fundamental for the minimization of urban pollution and adaptation to climate change. Like all natural ecosystems, NUAs are endangered by urban sprawl. The regulation of sprawl is a key issue for land-use planning. We propose a land use suitability strategy model to orient Land Uses of NUAs, based on integration of Land Cover Analysis (LCA) and Fragmentation Analysis (FA). With LCA the percentage of evapotranspiring surface is defined for each land use.

The urban heat island effect poses a challenge in several cities, and may affect human and ecosystem health. It was proven that relatively small urban conglomerations in mid-latitudes, such as the case study region of Rostock, have undergone a considerable effect recently, noticeable particularly in the warm season. Due to climatic changes, these effects are expected to alter in intensity and/or frequency. This was investigated using a model that focuses on interactions between land use and surface temperatures and on specific air conditions in cities.