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The Global Water Crisis: Addressing an Urgent Security Issue
Bigas Harriet; Axworthy Thomas S.; UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH); et al. - UNU, 2012In March 2011, high-level experts from around the world were invited to Toronto, Canada, to meet with members of the InterAction Council about the status of the world’s freshwater supply as it relates to global security issues (see List of Participants in this volume). These experts reported that that the global water crisis is real and that there is urgency in addressing the growing number of security risks associated with threatened water supply and quality. They also, however, expressed hope and identified opportunities that can be realized by the timely triggering of change in policies, in ...
Water for wealth and food security: supporting farmer-driven investments in agricultural water management
IWMI, 2012This report addresses the effective use of available water as a way to help to improve productivity and reduce poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. It combines the practical improved water management systems and approaches, including the reduction of risks associated with climate variability through environmental risks monitoring. It documents the benefits of irrigation already been invested by farmers in small-scale irrigation, and provides practical recommendations and tools for governments, the private sector, donors and organizations to effectively support these farmer-led initiatives to improve ...
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Green Accounting and Data Improvement for Water Resources
Winpenny James; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) - UNESCO, 2012 (UNESCO Side publications series-No. 02)Water makes a critical contribution to all aspects of personal welfare and economic life. However, global water resources are coming under increasing pressure. It is widely recognized that over the next few decades global drivers such as climate change, population growth and improving living standards will increase pressure on the availability, quality and distribution of water resources. Managing the impacts of these drivers to maximize social and economic welfare will require intelligent policy and management responses at all levels of collection, production and distribution of water. The go ...
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Crop yield response to water
Steduto Pasquale; Hsiao Theodore C.; Fereres Elias; et al. - FAO, 2012 (FAO irrigation and drainage paper-No. 66)Food production and water use are inextricably linked. Water has always been the main factor limiting crop production in much of the world where rainfall is insufficient to meet crop demand. With the ever-increasing competition for finite water resources worldwide and the steadily rising demand for agricultural commodities, the call to improve the efficiency and productivity of water use for crop production, to ensure future food security and address the uncertainties associated with climate change, has never been more urgent.
Feeding a thirsty world: challenges and opportunities for a water and food secure future
This report provides input into the discussions at the 2012 World Water Week in Stockholm and its special focus on water and food security. This report presents the latest thinking and new approaches to emerging and persistent challenges to achieve food security in the 21st century, including the use of early warning systems to bolster food security by reducing damages caused to agriculture by water scarcity and drought. It focuses on critical issues that have received less attention in the literature to date, such as: food waste, land acquisitions, gender aspects of agriculture, and early war ...
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IAEA Annual Report 2011
IAEA, 2012"The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has released its annual report for 2011. The report highlights, inter alia, its research activities on climate change issues in the oceans, isotope applications in hydrology and climate studies, and nuclear energy as a mitigation option.
The report indicates that the Agency strengthened its research activities to monitor radionuclides in the marine and terrestrial environment, and to study climate change issues in the oceans, in particular to study the impact of ocean acidification and climate change on oceanographic processes, ecos ...
Sea level rise and the Freely Associated States: addressing environmental migration under the compacts of free association
Dema Briana - Columbia Law School, 2012This paper is concerned with rising sea levels that have the potential to submerge coastal regions and displace millions of people. It reports on how current international legal frameworks applicable to refugees and immigrants will offer little protection to citizens of Freely Associated States (FAS) displaced by rising sea levels. The FAS are sovereign nations (Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau) that have negotiated Compacts of Free Association with the United States, under which the U.S. provides the states with certain types of assistance. It addresses how current refugee and immigrat ...
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Adapting to climate-change induced water stress in the Nile basin
This summary report addresses the need for national and intergovernmental projects to reduce the impact of climate change on the Nile River basin. It indicates that any future changes in water quantity and quality caused by climate change will have a negative impact on economies, environment, and livelihoods in the Nile region. Provided in this summary report is information to help governments decide a better course of action for dealing with high population growth and rising levels of water scarcity, such as creating measures that will have both a local effect and positively impact countries. ...
Technical Report Series, 01. Climate and Meteorological information requirements for water management : a review of issues
In providing better understanding between climate and water management, this review will, where relevant, adopt the approach of a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats). As well as some recent initiatives noted in the preceding section, the basic data requirements and methods for water management are covered in the WMO Guide to Hydrological Practices (Ref. 7). In Volume I, Chapters 2, 3 and 4 deal with the climate observations required for water management, whilst Volume II deals with applications and management activities. Table II.4.1 from that publication is a part ...
State of Arab cities 2012
UN-Habitat, 2012This report, the first report in the UN-Habitat series on the state of cities to focus on the Arab world, highlights issues of environmental and natural disasters, risk and vulnerability, within a collective picture of urban conditions and trends in each of four Arab regions - Maghreb, Mashreq, Gulf Cooperative Council (GCC) and Southern Tier. It provides a discussion of the similarities, differences and linkages between these countries in the context of a larger Arab region.
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Status Report on The Application of Integrated Approaches to Water Resources Management
UNEP, 2012Over 80 per cent of countries have reformed their water laws in the past twenty years as a response to growing pressures on water resources from expanding populations, urbanization and climate change.
In many cases, such water reforms have had positive impacts on development, including improvements to drinking water access, human health and water efficiency in agriculture.
But global progress has been slower where irrigation, rainwater harvesting and investment in freshwater ecosystem services are concerned.
These are among the findings of a United ...
Sustainable development: Perspective of the World Meteorological Organization
This position paper outlines how, through the Global Framework for Climate Services experts from various disciplines and regions will work together to develop science-based climate and environmental information tailored to end-users’ needs for the purpose of increasing agricultural productivity to improve food security and reduce hunger; Improving and optimizing management of water resources to provide sustainable access to freshwater for drinking, irrigation and household use; Reducing the risk of disasters and other climate hazards, the cost of which often burdens developing and least develo ...
Community disaster preparedness guide
This document contains practical information on preparing and recovery from the effects of disaster events which may affect the British Virgin Islands. It includes hazard-specific safety tips and information on personal, family, business and community preparedness and protection. It considers the following hazards: flood, hurricane, including tides and surge, earthquake and tsunami, extreme heat and drought, as well as climate change.
This document is a revision of the 2005 Community Disaster Preparedness Handbook with updated information, pictures and with more colour. Its pro ...
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The Little Green Data Book 2012
World Bank, 2012The Little Green Data Book is a pocket-sized ready reference on key environmental data for over 200 economies. Key indicators are organized under the headings of agriculture, forestry, biodiversity, energy, emission and pollution, and water and sanitation.
Application of ICTs for climate change adaptation in the water sector : developing country experiences and emerging research priorities
As a follow-up to a first paper A preliminary analysis of flood and storm disaster data in Viet Nam, this Quang Binh case study provides a more in-depth disaster profile of one particular province in Viet Nam, including specific temporal and spatial distribution patterns while using district aggregated data. It also looks deeper into the relationship between disasters and poverty through analysis of various indicators: number of deaths, impact on housing and agricultural produce, poverty rate and the percentage of poor households.
The first part of this paper examines the disas ...
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A cost effective solution to reduce disaster losses in developing countries : hydro-meteorological services, early warning, and evacuation
In Europe, it can be estimated that hydro-meteorological information and early warning systems save several hundreds of lives per year, avoid between 460 million and 2.7 billion Euros of disaster asset losses per year, and produce between 3.4 and 34 billion of additional benefits per year through the optimization of economic production in weather-sensitive sectors (agriculture, energy, etc.). The potential for similar benefits in the developing world is not only proportional to population, but also to increased hazard risk due to climate and geography, as well as increased exposure to weather ...
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Helping to Better Manage the World’s Oceans : the World Bank and the Drive for ‘Blue Growth’
World Bank, 2012A healthy ocean is a valuable natural asset that, if maintained and nurtured, can provide ‘ecosystem services’ that contribute to economic expansion – or ‘blue growth’ – in developing coastal and island countries. World Bank investments in the oceans between 2007 and 2011 have supported developing coastal and island countries in improving the health of their ocean environments, enhancing the value of the ecosystem services they provide to the local and global economy. In particular, these investments supported countries to manage the transition to more sustainable fisheries, establish coastal ...
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L'accumulation inquiétante des polluants dans l'Arctique: In lemonde.fr
2012S'il est vrai, comme le pense l'ex-première ministre norvégienne Gro Harlem Brundtland, que "les régions polaires demeurent celles du monde sur lesquelles on a le moins de connaissances", les travaux présentés du 22 au 27 avril à Montréal, lors de la conférence de l'Année polaire internationale 2012, ont permis de mesurer les avancées scientifiques réalisées.
C'est particulièrement le cas pour les études concernant la présence en Arctique de métaux - comme le mercure - et de polluants organiques persistants (POP), dont les impacts sur la santé et l'environnement sont très nocif ...
Safari's encounter with coastal and marine hazards : UNISUNISDR Africa educational series, vol. 4, issue 1:
UN/ISDR, 2012This booklet targets primary school children to sensitize them to the causes, impacts and mitigation of coastal and marine hazards, such as cyclone, tsunami, storm surge and flood, as well as other natural hazards such as drought, oil spill, ‘red tide’ and ‘brown tide’, and city fire.
Managing water under uncertainty and risk: from the United Nations World Water Development Report 4 (WWDR4) - facts and figures
UNESCO, 2012This document gathers the main statistics and analysis from the UN world water development report 4 (WWDR4) related to water demand and its link to energy crisis, industry and human activities. It also provides facts and figures on water quality and related hazard risks, water management and capacity development, social and environmental benefits, and regional challenges and global governance and impacts.
PWS, 23. Proceedings of the WMO Regional Association VI Conference on Social and Economic Benefits of Weather, Climate and Water Services
The Conference provided material, and, in particular, a number of studies which are contained in these proceedings and which will be used in the development of guidelines on undertaking the analysis, assessment and demonstration of socio-economic benefits of meteorological and hydrological services. These guidelines will complement the development of demonstration and pilot projects and capacity-building and training activities on this subject. These proceedings represent the collection of abstracts of papers delivered at the Conference.
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Accessing economic and political impacts of Hydrological variability on treaties: case studies on the Zambezi and Mekong basins
The term 'green jobs' can refer to employment in a narrowly defined set of industries providing environmental services. But it is more useful for the policy-maker to focus on the broader issue of the employment consequences of policies to correct environmental externalities such as anthropogenic climate change. Most of the literature focuses on direct employment created, with more cursory treatment of indirect and induced job creation, especially that arising from macroeconomic effects of policies. The potential adverse impacts of green growth policies on labor productivity and the costs of em ...
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Managing water under uncertainty and risk: World Water Development report, 4 (WWDR4)
UNESCO, 2012According to the Report, people in many parts of the world enjoy improved access to safe drinking water –86 per cent of the population in developing regions will have it by 2015. But there are still nearly one billion people without such access, and in cities the numbers are growing. Sanitation infrastructure is not keeping pace with the world’s urban population, which will almost double by 2050 to 6.3 billion people. Today, more than 80 per cent of the world’s waste water is neither collected nor treated.
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A Glass Half Empty: regions at Risk Due to Groundwater Depletion
UNEP, 2012The tiny fraction of freshwater not bound up in ice sheets and glaciers comprises only a very small fraction of total global water volume (about 0.79 %) (1). Global use of that freshwater, however, has been growing at roughly twice the rate of global population for the past century (2,3) (Figure 1). Even so, this volume of unfrozen freshwater is still more than adequate to meet all human needs. However, this essential resource, which is mostly stored as groundwater, is distributed quite unevenly around the globe. Furthermore, physical and economic constraints make it impractical in most cases ...
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