The country water resources assistance
strategy for Zambia provides an analysis of the role of
water in the economy and identifies the specific challenges,
development opportunities and policies which inform an
agreed framework for priority areas of assistance. Zambia
lies entirely within the catchments of the Zambezi and Congo
rivers and all internal runoff is shared by downstream and
parallel riparian countries. This strategic geographic

This paper develops a methodology for
regional disaggregated estimation and mapping of the areas
that are ex-ante the most vulnerable to the impacts of
climate change and variability and applies it to Tajikistan,
a mountainous country highly vulnerable to the impacts of
climate change. The authors construct the vulnerability
index as a function of exposure to climate variability and
natural disasters, sensitivity to the impacts of that

This paper examines the impacts of
weather shocks, defined as rainfall or growing degree days
more than a standard deviation from their respective
long-run means, on household consumption per capita and
child height-for-age. The results reveal that the current
risk-coping mechanisms are not effective in protecting these
two dimensions of welfare from erratic weather patterns.
These findings imply that the change in the patterns of

The authors use regression analysis to
assess the potential welfare impact of rainfall shocks in
rural Indonesia. In particular, they consider two shocks:
(i) a delay in the onset of monsoon and (ii) a significant
shortfall in the amount of rain in the 90 day post-onset
period. Focusing on households with family farm businesses,
the analysis finds that a delay in the monsoon onset does
not have a significant impact on the welfare of rice

A carbon tax is an efficient economic
instrument to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide released
from fossil fuel burning. Its impacts on production of
renewable energy depend on how it is designed --
particularly in the context of the penetration of biofuels
into the energy supply mix for road transportation. Using a
multi-sector, multi-country computable general equilibrium
model, this study shows first that a carbon tax with the

This paper quantifies hurricane damage
caused by climate change across the US. A damage function is
estimated from historic hurricane data to measure the
impacts at each location given the storm's strength.
The minimum barometric pressure of each storm turns out to
be a better indicator of damages than the traditional
measure of maximum wind speed. A hurricane generator in the
Atlantic Ocean is then used to create 5000 storms with and

This paper integrates information on
climate change, hydrodynamic models, and geographic overlays
to assess the vulnerability of coastal areas in Bangladesh
to larger storm surges and sea-level rise by 2050. The
approach identifies polders (diked areas), coastal
populations, settlements, infrastructure, and economic
activity at risk of inundation, and estimates the cost of
damage versus the cost of several adaptation measures. A

This paper confronts the wide political
support for the 2C objective of global increase in
temperature, reaffirmed in Copenhagen, with the consistent
set of hypotheses on which it relies. It explains why
neither an almost zero pure time preference nor concerns
about catastrophic damages in case of uncontrolled global
warming are prerequisites for policy decisions preserving
the possibility of meeting a 2C target. It rests on an

Recent increases in production of
crop-based (or first-generation) biofuels have engendered
increasing concerns over potential conflicts with food
supplies and land protection, as well as disputes over
greenhouse gas reductions. This has heightened a sense of
urgency around the development of biofuels produced from
non-food biomass (second-generation biofuels). This study
reviews the economic potential and environmental

Wastewater use in agriculture is a
growing practice worldwide. Drivers include increasing water
stress, in part due to climate change; increasing
urbanization and growing wastewater flows; and more urban
households engaged in agricultural activities. The problem
with this trend is that in low-income countries, but also in
many middle-income countries, it either involves the direct
use of untreated wastewater or the indirect use of polluted

Energy poverty is a frequently used term
among energy specialists, but unfortunately the concept is
rather loosely defined. Several existing approaches measure
energy poverty by defining an energy poverty line as the
minimum quantity of physical energy needed to perform such
basic tasks as cooking and lighting. This paper proposes an
alternative measure that is based on energy demand. The
energy poverty line is defined as the threshold point at

The past decade has witnessed major
shift thinking about water, including how water
infrastructure development strategies can help advance
sustainable development and the global fight against
poverty. This reflects, in part, greater attention now being
paid to governance reforms promoting integrated water
resource management (IWRM), the efficient and wise use of
water, and expanding access to water and energy services. In