As water is the most disruptive element in the ongoing climate crisis, how land is managed plays a major role in taming this disruption. This publication shows that avoiding, reducing and reversing land degradation can have positive long-term gains in water security.

This new report by the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency in collaboration with the Clingendael Institute and other Dutch research institutes points to pressure on security and migration arising from too little, too much or polluted water. Many integrated solutions are possible to divert this trend towards a sustainable and climate-resilient world.

ABSTRACTED FROM INTRODUCTION: 

At the beginning of this textbook, the authors would like to make two suggestions about how to approach the study of property law.

Ce document constitue les actes du Colloque de restitution du programme de recherche APPI « Une action publique éclatée ? » organisé en décembre 2014. L’objectif du projet, mené dans le cadre de l’ANR les Suds II, est de comprendre comment, dans des pays africains dépendants de l’aide, se construit et se met en oeuvre l’action publique. Il a mobilisé les concepts et méthodes issus de plusieurs courants d’analyse tels que les sciences politiques, la socio-anthropologie du développement et l’économie institutionnelle, avec un souci d’empirisme.

Oil sands surface mining and processing in Alberta generate large volumes of fluid tailings and process water high in salts and metals, which must be reclaimed. We investigated growth of four common plants (two native and two non-native) found in boreal oil sands reclamation sites as influenced by substrate type (tailings cake, and mixtures of cake-sand, cake-peat, and cake-forest floor mineral mix) and water quality (0%, 50%, and 100% oil sands process water).

The headwaters of the Blue Nile River in Ethiopia contain fragile mountain ecosystems and are highly susceptible to land degradation that impacts water quality and flow dynamics in a major transboundary river system. This study evaluates the status of land use/cover (LULC) change and key drivers of change over the past 31 years through a combination of satellite remote sensing and surveying of the local understanding of LULC patterns and drivers.

The establishment of rural settlements in the topographically complex mountainous area of South-Western China is restricted by various geographical features. The fractal characteristics and water-facing distribution of rural mountain settlements and the suitability of spaces for rural mountain settlements were analyzed for a greater scientific understanding of what factors would facilitate a more appropriate selection of residential sites.

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.

In the tropics, the domestic water supply depends principally on ecosystem services, including the regulation and purification of water by humid, dense tropical forests. The Yangambi Biosphere Reserve (YBR) landscape is situated within such forests in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Surprisingly, given its proximity to the Congo River, the YBR is confronted with water issues. As part of its ecosystem function, the landscape is expected to reduce deterioration of water quality.

The multi-height (low, L = 3 cm; intermediate, M = 100 cm; high, H = 200 cm) Beerkan run methodology was applied on both a minimum tilled (MT) (i.e., up to a depth of 30 cm) and a no-tilled (NT) bare loam soil, and the soil water retention curve was estimated by the BEST-steady algorithm. Three indicators of soil physical quality (SPQ), i.e., macroporosity (Pmac), air capacity (AC) and relative field capacity (RFC) were calculated to assess the impact of water pouring height under alternative soil management practices.

Landscape planning and hydrological systems in the pleistocene sandy areas of the Netherlands

The main theme of this doctoral thesis is the relationship between landscape architecture and hydrology. Knowledge of hydrological processes - with the stress on the resulting spatial and temporal relationships - is applied for purposes of landscape planning. To this, the situation of the landscapes in the Dutch pleistocene sandy areas is central.

Prologue (Chapter 1)

Deze publicatie gaat over de toekomst van natuur in het landinrichtingsgebied Losser en is een van de achtergronddocumenten die in opdracht van de Dienst Landelijk Gebied zijn opgesteld, waarin het behoud en herstel van natuur- en landschapswaarden ende realisatie van de ecologische hoofdstructuur (EHS) centraal staan. Hierbij is de rol voor de terreinbeherende organisaties alhier - Staatsbosbeheer, Natuurmonumenten, Stichting Edwina van Heek en Landschap Overijssel - van groot belang.