Rangeland scientists and quantitative ecologists have developed numerous methods and monitoring techniques that can be used for vegetation sampling (Barbour et al. 1987). The methods used to position samples (transects, quadrats, lines, and points) vary and can be classed as selective, capricious, systematic, or random. One of the prerequisites for valid statistical inference is that samples are taken randomly. A random sampling procedure implies that all elements or units of the population being studied have an equal chance of being represented in the sample.

Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa covering about 274,000 square kilometers. It is bordered by the Republic of Mali on the north and west; by Cote d’Ivoire on the Southwest; by Ghana, Togo, and Benin on the South; and by Niger on the east. The country has a dry tropi¬cal climate with two contrasting seasons. The rainy season generally lasts from May to October, but its duration decreases progressively from the southwest, amounting to only three months in the northern part of the country.

The CCAFS Regional Program for Southeast Asia (CCAFS-SEA) organized a convergence meeting involving CGIAR CCAFS focal persons and selected partners on 11-13 December 2013 in Bangkok, Thailand. About 24 participants from collaborating CGIAR Consortium Centers (Bioversity, CIAT, CIP, ICRISAT, IFPRI, IRRI, IWMI, World Agro-Forestry Center and WorldFish Center), CCAFS-SEA and selected partners participated in this undertaking. The main purpose of this activity was to establish the groundwork for collaborative work on climate change R4D among Centers in SEA.

National governments across East Africa are in the process of formulating and implementing adaptation and mitigation strategies to assist farmers cope with climate change. These include formulating actions, frameworks and programs to address climate change and embedding these within the long-term national development plans.

Tropical peatlands are among the largest pedologic pools of organic carbon. This study compared soil CO2 fluxes in an intact peat swamp forest, a transitional logged drained forest and an oil palm plantation located on the same alluvial peat plain (peat dome) in Jambi, Sumatra, Indonesia. Dynamic closed chambers were used to measure soil CO2 efflux from January to September 2012. Chambers were placed in pairs, with one close to a tree/palm and the other at mid-distance to the next tree/palm.

A three-year project was funded by the BMZ/GIZ to examine the benefits of integrating aquaculture and small scale irrigation by identifying improved water allocation and management strategies under current and future climate change scenarios. An integrated modeling approach was adopted to analyze the complex issues involved in the decision processes. A water budgeting approach was used in estimating and balancing the water resources available to farming communities (the supply aspect) and the water demand for agricultural use, including crops and fish farming, within a catchment.

Including inland water bodies, Ghana covers 238,539 square kilometers and is located on the south central coast of West Africa. The country shares bor¬ders in the east with Togo, in the north with Burkina Faso, and in the west with Côte d’Ivoire. The topography of Ghana is mainly undulating, with most slopes less than 5 percent and many not exceeding 1 percent. The topography of the high rainforest is, however, mainly strongly rolling. The uplifted edges of the Voltarian basin give rise to narrow plateaus between 300 and 600 meters in elevation (Boateng 1998).

Carbon footprint is a key indicator of the contribution of food production to climate change and its importance is increasing worldwide. Although it has been used as a sustainability index for assessing production systems, it does not take into account many other biophysical environmental dimensions more relevant at the local scale, such as soil erosion, nutrient imbalance, and pesticide contamination.

Agriculture is one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gases. Rice production has been identified as one of the major sources of greenhouse gases, especially methane. However, data on the contributions of rice towards greenhouse gas emissions in tropical Africa are limited. In Zimbabwe, as in most of Sub-Saharan Africa, there are very few studies that have explored greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural lands. This study reports the first dataset on greenhouse gas emissions from intermittently flooded rice paddies in Zimbabwe.

Making sure that we will continue to have enough to eat is at the heart of our shared ambitions to mitigate climate change. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the convention that has guided us through the highs and lows of 18 rounds of annual negotiations, states upfront that the reasons to stabilise emissions are threefold: to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally , to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner and to ensure that food production is not threatened .