The study of soils is important for landuse planning, agriculture, and natural resource development programs. Determination of soil characteristics and limitations is one of the most important duties of soil researchers. This report presents a semi-detailed soil survey of Merek watershed in Kermanshah Province, and Honam watershed in Lorestan Province, Iran. It is hoped that the analyses and recommendations will be of value to those interested in the optimum use of Iran’s land and water resources.

REDD+ is a proposed mechanism to make forests more valuable living and healthy than dead or damaged. Its advocates believe it could help fix a lot of persistent problems in forest management. Its opponents fear it will make these things worse. It's too early to tell, but this brief covers some important lessons learned after decades of successes and failures in forest management, and it asks how REDD+ could benefit, or burden, Asia-Pacific's forests and the people who need them.

This report presents the results of extensive work of the smart green infrastructure task force commissioned by the World Bank under the Global Tiger Initiative (GTI). The report benefited from advice, ideas, and information about tigers and tiger-friendly infrastructure development from staff at the World Bank, and from several institutions that promote tiger and biodiversity conservation throughout the world.

Backed by sound economic policies and until the global crisis, a buoyant global economy, many developing countries made significant movement toward achieving the 2015millennium Development Goals (MDGs), particularly those for poverty reduction, gender parity in education, and reliable access to safe water. But even before the global economic crisis, progress in achieving some MDGs, especially those on child and maternal mortality, primary school completion, hunger, and sanitation, was lagging. The global food, fuel and economic crises have set back progress to the MDGs.

En este informe se estudian los efectos del cambio climático en los próximos años y hasta 2100 sobre el sector agropecuario de Costa Rica en su conjunto  El estudio incluye los subsectores pecuario, agrícola y algunos de los cultivos más importantes para el país. Al alterarse el clima y con ello la producción podría darse una reconfiguración en los cultivos y de esta forma en la intensidad con que se utilicen los suelos, por ello en este trabajo también se analizan los posibles efectos sobre el valor de la tierra.

The surge in food prices in the last years, following a century of decline, has been the most marked of the past century in its magnitude, duration and the number of commodity groups whose prices have increased. The ensuing crisis has resulted in a 50–200% increase in selected commodity prices, driven 110 million people into poverty and added 44 million more to the undernourished.

The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other research, predict a significant future increase in the frequency and intensity of heavy rainfall events in many regions. This increase runoff and soil erosion, and reduce agricultural productivity, as well as increasing risks of flood damage to crops and infrastructure. Implementing adaptation measures and improved land management through erosion control and soil protection are among those that protect water and agriculture and limit their vulnerability.

Forests in Asia-Pacific are under threat. That's not a new story, though it becomes more important with every lost hectare and every family denied their means of survival. The big new question that journalists should be asking themselves, and their sources, is what climate change means for the forests of the region and the people who depend on them. This media brief provides an overview of REDD+ and things to watch as efforts to protect forests in the name of carbon gather momentum.

A single word can describe the history of forest management in the region: conflict. Too often this happens because local people are excluded from decision-making and the benefits of forest management. REDD+ is a proposed mechanism to make forests more valuable standing than destroyed. This media brief looks at the reasons for forest conflict and how REDD+ could impact this contested terrain.

Australia has long been a major exporter of the products of broadacre agriculture, a production system well suited to the economic and climatic conditions of the country. According to the conventional wisdom, Australia holds a comparative advantage in these products, among which wheat and livestock products predominate. However, the future validity of this proposition is sensitive to the projected impacts of climate change.

As part of international climate change policy, voluntary opt-in programs to reduce emissions in unregulated sectors or countries have spurred considerable discussion. Since any regulator will make errors in predicting baselines, adverse selection will reduce efficiency since participants will self-select into the program. In contrast, pure subsidies lead to full participation but require large financial transfers; this is a particular challenge across countries. A global social planner facing costless transfers would choose such a subsidy to maximize efficiency.

The purpose of this report is to examine development trends in the Southern Gobi Region (SGR) as they affect livestock and wildlife. It provides an overview of the environment and natural resources of the region, discusses existing relationships and interactions among humans, livestock, large herbivore wildlife, and the natural resources on which they are dependent. It then explores the impact that economic development of the region is likely to have if that development does not consider the needs of the current users.