This paper presents five design prototypes for cool urban water environments developed in the 'Really cooling water bodies in cities' (REALCOOL) project. The REALCOOL prototypes address an urgent need: urban water bodies, such as ponds or canals, are often assumed to cool down their surroundings during days with heat stress, whereas recent research shows that this is not always the case and that urban water bodies may actually have warming effects too. There are, however, indications that shading, vaporising water, and proper ventilation can keep water bodies and their surroundings cooler.

FIRST PARAGRAPH OF CHAPTER: Uzbekistan emerged as an independent state in September l99l with a legacy of an undiversified monocultural agriculture heavily specialized in cotton. During the Soviet era, cotton production in Uzbekistan registered persistent gains from the very beginning of collectivization in 1928, often at the expense of wheat and other cereals.

This profile provides an overview of climate risk issues in Uzbekistan, including how climate change will potentially impact five key sectors in the country: agriculture, water, tourism, ecosystems, human health, and infrastructure. The brief also includes an overview of historical and future climate trends in Uzbekistan, the policy context outlining existing climate risk strategies and plans developed by  Uzbekistan, and a list of ongoing projects that focus on climate adaptation.

This paper discusses the key issues and concerns regarding sustainable Philippine watershed management. Emphasis is made on the various requisites of a sustainable management with a focus on the critical roles of land use planning. land use planning, land management, watershed

India’s urbanisation results in the physical and societal transformation of the areas surrounding cities. These periurban interfaces are spaces of flows, shaped by an exchange of matter, people and ideas between urban and rural spaces—and currently they are zones in transition. Periurbanisation processes result inter alia in changing water demands and changing relations between water and society. In this paper the concept of the hydrosocial cycle is applied to interpret the transformation of the waterscapes of six periurban villages in the fringe areas of Pune, Hyderabad and Kolkata.

CESCR calls for written contributions to the draft general comment on Land and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is developing a general comment on Land and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The purpose of this general comment is to clarify the specific obligations of States parties relating to land and the governance of tenure of land under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

The Maghreb's oases systems provide a major contribution to the region's food security, economy and natural resources. Despite this potential, oasis ecosystems are threatened by a range of complex factors related to the expansion of agricultural land and increasing scarcity of water resources. The project, implemented by FAO in Tunisia, Morocco and Mauritania from May 2016 to December 2019, brought together key stakeholders to address the lack of available information on the status of oases and to advocate on factual bases shared by all stakeholders and verifiable in the field.

This country profile is a summary of key information that gives an overview of the water resources and water use at the national level. It can support water-related policy and decision makers in their planning and monitoring activities as well as inform researchers, media and the general public.

Bhutan is a small, landlocked country deep in the eastern Himalayas between India and China. Over a horizontal distance of just 100-150 km, the elevation rises from about 150 meters above sea level in the south to over 7,000 meters in the north. The population of about 735,0001 is scattered across steep mountain slopes and valleys, many in remote and far-flung hamlets. This makes Bhutan one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world, ranked 182 out of 215 countries. Nearly half the land area is protected to help preserve biodiversity.

This powerpoint presentation explains why and how to use the Solutions Journalism approach for reporting on key land-related challenges and solutions, including pollution, climate change, deforestation, water scarcity, waste disposal etc. The presentation was given at the Introductory Briefing: Reporting on Environmental and Land Issues: The Solutions Journalism Approach, on 9 March 2022.

This publication synthesizes climate characteristics and projections, vulnerability to natural hazards, sectoral climate change impacts, and adaptation priorities in Kazakhstan.

Contemporary large-scale land transactions (LSLTs), also called land grabs, are historically unprecedented in their scale and pace. They have provoked robust scholarly debates, yet studies of their gender-differentiated impacts remain more rare, particularly when it comes to how changes in control over land and resources affect women's labor, and thereby their livelihoods and well-being.