Many experts believe that low-cost
mitigation opportunities in agriculture are abundant and
comparable in scale to those found in the energy sector.
They are mostly located in developing countries and have to
do with how land is used. By investing in projects under the
Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), countries can tap these
opportunities to meet their own Kyoto Protocol obligations.
The CDM has been successful in financing some types of

Today, 370 million people live in cities
in earthquake prone areas and 310 million in cities with
high probability of tropical cyclones. By 2050, these
numbers are likely to more than double. Mortality risk
therefore is highly concentrated in many of the world s
cities and economic risk even more so. This paper discusses
what sets hazard risk in urban areas apart, provides
estimates of valuation of hazard risk, and discusses

This paper reviews recent developments
in biofuel markets and their economic, social and
environmental impacts. Several countries have introduced
mandates and targets for biofuel expansion. Production,
international trade and investment have increased sharply in
the past few years. However, several existing studies have
blamed biofuels as one of the key factors behind the
2007-2008 global food crisis, although the magnitudes of

There are two common problems in flood
hydrology: 1) estimate the return period for a given flood;
and 2) estimate the flood for a given return period. A
commonly used procedure to solve these problems is to fit a
probability density function such as the Gumbel, Pearson
type three or the generalized extreme value distributions to
the historical data. The Pearson probability distribution
was named after the statistician Pearson, it is also called

In Africa, most development strategies
include efforts to improve the productivity of staple crops
grown on smallholder farms. An underlying premise is that
small farms are productive in the African context and that
smallholders do not forgo economies of scale -- a premise
supported by the often observed phenomenon that staple
cereal yields decline as the scale of production increases.
This paper explores a research design conundrum that

The Latin America and Caribbean Region
has been at the forefront of global biodiversity
conservation, dedicating 20 percent of its land to protected
areas compared to 13 percent in the rest of the developing
world. This progress has stretched available budgets for
conservation with estimates indicating that a twofold
increase would be necessary to achieve optimal management of
existing protected areas based on 2008 data. Recognizing the

The World Bank, with the financial
support of the Japan Social Development Fund (JSDF), is
implementing the Alternative Indigenous and Afro-Descendants
and Agroforestry Project (COCOA-RAAN) in the indigenous and
Afro-descended (Miskito) regions of Nicaragua. The
implementing agency, the Agro-forestry coordinating
association of indigenous peoples and farmers, is a regional
Non government Organization (NGO) 'focused on seeking

Argentina is one of the world's
largest biodiesel producers and the largest exporter, using
soybeans as feedstock. Using a computable general
equilibrium model that explicitly represents the biofuel
industry, this study carries out several simulations on two
sets of issues: (i) international markets for biofuel and
feedstock, such as an increase in prices of soybean, soybean
oil, and biodiesel, and (ii) domestic policies related to

This study provides estimates of social
and financial costs of environmental damage in India from
three pollution damage categories: (i) urban air pollution;
(ii) inadequate water supply, poor sanitation, and hygiene;
and (iii) indoor air pollution. It also provides estimates
based on three natural resource damage categories: (i)
agricultural damage from soil salinity, water logging, and
soil erosion; (ii) rangeland degradation; and (iii)

This book is about development and
measuring development progress. While precise definitions
may vary, development is, at heart, a process of building
wealth, the produced, natural, human, and institutional
capital which is the source of income and wellbeing. A key
finding is that it is intangible wealth, human and
institutional capital, which dominates the wealth of all
countries, rising as a share of the total as countries climb

The Tugi Silvo-pastoral Project (TUSIP)
is a South-South Cooperation between the Tropical
Agriculture Research and Higher Education Centre (CATIE)
based in Costa Rica (www.catie.ac.cr) and the Akwi Memorial
Foundation (AMF) based in the North West Region of Cameroon.
The main goal of TUSIP was to assess the environmental
benefits of a set of silvo-pastoral practices and to empower

These report overviews recent
developments in the consumption and production of bioenergy.
It examines the main issues and possible economic
implications of these developments and assesses their
potential impact on land use and the environment, especially
with respect to forests. The report examines both solid
biomass and liquid biofuels, identifying opportunities and
challenges at the regional and country levels. The