The Kalu Ganga Basin in Sri Lanka is generally flooded once a year. A network of low-lying lands acts as natural retention and storage that captures floodwater, minimizing damage. An increase in the flood frequency has been observed in recent years. It is commonly perceived that this increase is caused by a rise in the frequency and severity of ‘very wet’ precipitation events. We conclude that land-use changes may have played a larger role in generating floods.

Land provides a host of ecosystem services, of which the provisioning services are often considered paramount. As the demand for agricultural products multiplies, other ecosystem services are being degraded or lost entirely. Finding a sustainable trade-off between food production and one or more of other ecosystem services, given the variety of stakeholders, is a matter of optimizing land use in a dynamic and complex socio-ecological system. Land degradation reduces our options to meet both food demands and environmental needs.

Land provides a host of ecosystem services, of which the provisioning services are often considered paramount. As the demand for agricultural products multiplies, other ecosystem services are being degraded or lost entirely. Finding a sustainable trade-off between food production and one or more of other ecosystem services, given the variety of stakeholders, is a matter of optimizing land use in a dynamic and complex socio-ecological system. Land degradation reduces our options to meet both food demands and environmental needs.

The Kalu Ganga Basin in Sri Lanka is generally flooded once a year. A network of low-lying lands acts as natural retention and storage that captures floodwater, minimizing damage. An increase in the flood frequency has been observed in recent years. It is commonly perceived that this increase is caused by a rise in the frequency and severity of ‘very wet’ precipitation events. We conclude that land-use changes may have played a larger role in generating floods.

This Country Profile (CP) of the Republic of Armenia is the nineteenth in the series and the second review done for the country. The first was prepared in 2004 and the analyses covered only the housing sector. This CP is an in-depth analyses of the housing, urban development and land management sectors of the Republic of Armenia. It provides policy recommendations on these sectors, while focusing on specific challenges and achievements.

Land provides a host of ecosystem services, of which the provisioning services are often
considered paramount. As the demand for agricultural products multiplies, other ecosystem services
are being degraded or lost entirely. Finding a sustainable trade-off between food production and
one or more of other ecosystem services, given the variety of stakeholders, is a matter of optimizing
land use in a dynamic and complex socio-ecological system. Land degradation reduces our options

Understanding the combined and separate effects of climate and land use change on the water cycle is necessary to mitigate negative impacts. However, existing methodologies typically divide data into discrete (before and after) periods, implicitly representing climate and land use as step changes when in reality these changes are often gradual. Here, we introduce a new regression-based methodological framework designed to separate climate and land use effects on any hydrological flux of interest continuously through time, and estimate uncertainty in the contribution of these two drivers.

O Perfil Rápido do Sector Urbano para Sustentabilidade (RUSPS) é um processo de avaliação rápida e proactiva de necessidades urbanas e lacunas de capacitação institucional a níveis nacional e das cidades. Esta avaliação está sendo implementada actualmente em mais de 20 países em África e Estados árabes. A metodologia RUSPS consiste em três fases: (1) uma abordagem participativa de perfil urbano, a níveis nacional e local, com enfoque na

Pacific Island Countries (PICs) are often cited as being the most vulnerable to the future impacts of a changing climate. Furthermore, being located in the ‘Pacific Rim of Fire’, PICs have long been exposed to the impacts of a range of natural and climate-related extreme events—such as earthquakes and cyclones—and are considered to be amongst the most vulnerable countries to natural disasters. The physical vulnerability of Pacific towns and cities is further exaggerated by development deficits, geographical isolation, weak governance, and complex issues of land tenure.