A practical, bipartisan call to action from the world’s leading thinkers on the environment and sustainability Sustainability has emerged as a global priority over the past several years. The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change and the adoption of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals through the United Nations have highlighted the need to address critical challenges such as the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, water shortages, and air pollution. But in the United States, partisan divides, regional disputes, and deep disagreements over core principles have made it nearly impossible to chart a course toward a sustainable future. This timely new book, edited by celebrated scholar Daniel C. Esty, offers fresh thinking and forward-looking solutions from environmental thought leaders across the political spectrum. The book’s forty essays cover such subjects as ecology, environmental justice, Big Data, public health, and climate change, all with an emphasis on sustainability. The book focuses on moving toward sustainability through actionable, bipartisan approaches based on rigorous analytical research.

U.S. land and water resources are analyzed as a basis for projecting national agricultural cropland and other land needs to the year 2000. Impact of changes in technology and resource development as well as environmental and institutional factors affecting the availability of these natural resources are discussed. Emphasis is placed on the continuing responsibility of federal, State, and local governments to assess the adequacy of our natural resources to meet future needs and to improve the quality of the environment.

The State of the World's Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture is FAO's first flagship publication on the global status of land and water resources. It is an 'advocacy' report, to be published every three to five years, and targeted at senior level decision makers in agriculture as well as in other sectors. SOLAW is aimed at sensitizing its target audience on the status of land resources at global and regional levels and FAO's viewpoint on appropriate recommendations for policy formulation. SOLAW focuses on these key dimensions of analysis: (i) quantity, quality of land and water resources, (ii) the rate of use and sustainable management of these resources in the context of relevant socio-economic driving factors and concerns, including food security and poverty, and climate change. This is the first time that a global, baseline status report on land and water resources has been made. It is based on several global spatial databases (e.g. land suitability for agriculture, land use and management, land and water degradation and depletion) for which FAO is the world-recognized data source. Topical and emerging issues on land and water are dealt with in an integrated rather than sectoral manner. The implications of the status and trends are used to advocate remedial interventions which are tailored to major farming systems within different geographic regions.

Historical perspective. Wildlife values in a Changing World. New patterns on land and water. Influence of land management on wildlife. Special problems of waters and watersheds. Pesticides and wildlife. Wildlife demage and control. Legislation and administration. Evaluation and Conclusions.

Water and land interrelate in surprising and ambiguous ways, and riparian zones, where land and water meet, have effects far outside their boundaries. Using the Malheur Basin in southeastern Oregon as a case study, this intriguing and nuanced book explores the ways people have envisioned boundaries between water and land, the ways they have altered these places, and the often unintended results. The Malheur Basin, once home to the largest cattle empires in the world, experienced unintended widespread environmental degradation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. After establishment in 1908 of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge as a protected breeding ground for migratory birds, and its expansion in the 1930s and 1940s, the area experienced equally extreme intended modifications aimed at restoring riparian habitat. Refuge managers ditched wetlands, channelized rivers, applied Agent Orange and rotenone to waterways, killed beaver, and cut down willows. Where Land and Water Meet examines the reasoning behind and effects of these interventions, gleaning lessons from their successes and failures. Although remote and specific, the Malheur Basin has myriad ecological and political connections to much larger places. This detailed look at one tangled history of riparian restoration shows how—through appreciation of the complexity of environmental and social influences on land use, and through effective handling of conflict—people can learn to practice a style of pragmatic adaptive resource management that avoids rigid adherence to single agendas and fosters improved relationships with the land.

The degradation of land and water resources as a result of agricultural activity has had an enormous impact on human societies and economies. It is predicted that, by 2025, most developing countries will face physical or economic water scarcity, compounded by land degradation. In order to alleviate this problem, an advanced understanding of the state of our water resources and the relationships between land use, water management and social systems is needed. Conserving Land, Protecting Water includes an overview of global patterns of land and water degradation and discusses new insights drawn from successful case studies on reversing soil and water degradation and their impact on food and environmental security.

Softbound - New, softbound print book.