Food security and agriculture

Climate change will widen the social and health gap

Poorer households are usually at higher direct health risk due to weaker structures, less safe locations and building sites, and the weaker resilience of infrastructure in poorer cities and towns to withstand damage. The best way to address the unequal effects of climate change is address the causes of climate change and inequality...

Forging fire resilience on Amazon forest fringes in Peru

'We want to see if resilience to fire is different when the vegetation is at different ages,' said Schwartz, a doctoral student in ecology, evolution and environmental biology at Columbia University working with the CIFOR scientists. 'Our hypothesis is that as the forest becomes more mature, it will be less vulnerable to fire that may escape from burning fields'...

US: New Obama order aims to prepare communities for severe weather

In another move to address the impact of climate change, President Barack Obama ordered a bipartisan task force on Friday to help U.S. communities brace for longer heat waves, heavier downpours, more severe wildfires and worse droughts...

This volume presents eighteen case studies of natural disasters from Australia, Europe, North America and developing countries. By comparing the impacts, it seeks to identify what moves people to adapt, which adaptive activities succeed and which fail

Farmers in north Pakistan valley welcome warmer climate, experts fret

The director general of the Pakistan Meteorological Department, Arif Mahmood called for urgent action to make public infrastructure more climate-resilient, such as strengthening river banks and bridges, and to introduce new crop varieties. Otherwise, local communities will be increasingly threatened by torrential rains, floods and wildfires, he warned...

This report attempts to directly quantify the costs of losing livestock to disasters in order to present a comparison between the potential economic costs and the cost of livestock-oriented disaster planning. It is broken into four sections: (i) providing

Europe must adapt to stay ahead of a changing climate

'Adaptation is about new ways of thinking and dealing with risks and hazards, uncertainty and complexity. It will require Europeans to cooperate, to learn from each other and to invest in the long-term transformations needed to sustain our well-being in the face of climate change,' Jacqueline McGlade, EEA Executive Director, said...

This report examines four topics: (i) disasters in 2012, with a focus on recurring disasters; (ii) the role of regional organizations in disaster risk management; (iii) wildfires; and (iv) the important role of women in disaster risk management. It