This Portal brings together many useful tools and resources to provide technical support to assist governments in the investment process

This policy hub brings together useful resources for policy makers on a wide variety of topics: formulating investment policies, negotiating investment agreements, monitoring investment policies in other countries and more.

This platform provides an introduction to the concepts surrounding community monitoring, based on the "Contracting Roadmap" developed by the World Bank Institute. It is appropriate for civil society organisations who are exploring whether they can monitor procurements, butit also applies to any entity interested in contract and project monitoring. It explains the different types of monitoring and different approaches, how to access data and general rules in what to do with it afterwards in the analysis.

This study analyzed and evaluated the changes that occurred in two coastal wetlands, characterized by complex and fragmented landscape patterns, in Southern Italy, which were monitored over a period of seven years from 2007 to 2014. Furthermore, the performances of two Land Cover (LC) and habitat taxonomies, compared for their suitability in mapping the identified changes, were assessed. A post-mapping method was adopted to detect the habitat/LC changes that occurred in the study period.

The species richness and biodiversity of vegetation in Hungary are increasingly threatened by invasive plant species brought in from other continents and foreign ecosystems. These invasive plant species have spread aggressively in the natural and semi-natural habitats of Europe. Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) is one of the species that pose the greatest ecological menace. Therefore, the primary purpose of the present study is to map and monitor the spread of common milkweed, the most common invasive plant species in Europe.

The state of water quality of lakes is highly related to watershed processes which will be responsible for the delivery of sediment, nutrients, and other pollutants to receiving water bodies. The spatiotemporal variability of water quality parameters along with the seasonal changes were studied for Lake Okeechobee, South Florida. The dynamics of selected four water quality parameters: total phosphate (TP), total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN), total suspended solid (TSS), and chlorophyll-a (chl-a) were analyzed using data from satellites and water quality monitoring stations.

Forest carbon sequestration offset protocols have been employed for more than 20 years with limited success in slowing deforestation and increasing forest carbon trading volume. Direct measurement of forest carbon flux improves quantification for trading but has not been applied to forest carbon research projects with more than 600 site installations worldwide.

This research is dedicated to solving an urgent problem associated with the large-scale destruction of taiga forests by Siberian silk moth (Dendrolimus sibiricus) outbreaks. The dynamics of the damage to dark coniferous forest stands induced by the Siberian silk moth outbreaks in mid-altitude mountains were studied. A hypothesis was formulated based on the fundamental influence of the orography on the phytophage’s dispersal within the landscape, along with the climate, which acts as a secondary predictor—a catalyst for outbreaks.

Monitoring land use with geographical databases is widely used in decision-making. This report presents the possibilities, methods and adapted techniques using geo-information in monitoring land use changes. The municipality of Soest was chosen as study area and three national land use databases, viz. Top10Vector, CBS land use statistics and LGN, were used. The restrictions of geo-information for monitoring land use changes are indicated. New methods and adapted techniques improve the monitoring result considerably.

Voorspelde veranderingen in natuur-, landbouw- en stedelijk gebied tot 2020 bij ongewijzigd ruimtelijk beleid zijn met behulp van diverse rekenmodellen beoordeeld op hun effecten voor natuur, landschap en recreatie. Het areaal natuurgebied neemt met 32 toe; het landbouwareaal neemt af met 7-15. De natuurkwaliteit verbetert hierdoor aanzienlijk. De toename van woonbebouwing ligt voor driekwart binnen landschappelijk waardevolle gebieden. De recreatieve vraag groeit met 21 ten gevolge van bevolkingsgroei en vergrijzing.

In 2011 is de Uitvoeringovereenkomst WOT Natuur & Milieu vernieuwd. Hierin zijn de voorwaarden vastgelegd, die het Ministerie van Economische zaken en de stichting DLO medio 2011 zijn overeengekomen voor de uitvoering van deze wettelijke onderzoekstaken tot en met 2016. Dit werkdocument bevat de jaarresultaten van het WOT thema WOT-04-009 (Natuur, Landschap en Platteland). Voor elk project binnen dit thema zijn de administratieve gegevens te vinden en wordt een beknopte inhoudelijke beschrijving gegeven van het doel en het behaalde resultaat.

Het bestand LGN7 geeft voor Nederland landsdekkende informatie over landgebruik. Het is een rasterbestand met een resolutie van 25*25 m hetgeen overeenkomt met een 1:50.000 schaal. Het bestand geeft een tijdsbeeld van het landgebruik voor 2012 dat voor zowel beleidsanalyses als voor modelinput is te gebruiken. In het bestand worden 39 verschillende typen landgebruik onderscheiden die geaggregeerd worden naar de acht monitoringsklassen: agrarisch gebied, kassen, boomgaarden, bossen, water, stedelijk gebied, infrastructuur en natuur.