2017 ESM News

The latest research and updates from the Ecosystems Services & Management Program

2017

11 December 2017
Prototype land cover map of Africa: Great start but more accuracy needed

The latest land cover map of Africa has exceptionally high resolution, picking out features at just 20 m. However, its detail does not reflect its accuracy, which lies at 65%, IIASA researchers have discovered, not as high as many had hoped.  More

06 November 2017
Two thirds of major emitting countries not on track to reach their climate targets

A new studyconcludes that 16 out of 25 analysed countries and regions are not on track to achieve the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) targets they have set for themselves on greenhouse gas emissions.  More

02 October 2017
Win-win strategies for climate and food security

Efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture and forestry sectors could lead to increased food prices—but new research identifies strategies that could help mitigate climate change while avoiding steep hikes in food prices.  More

26 September 2017
Land, forest, and cropland data now available

Three new data sets, developed with input from citizen scientists and the IIASA scientific network, have been fully documented and published in a new Nature open access journal.  More

19 September 2017
Citizen science targets land-use change in Austria

FotoQuest GO—a citizen science campaign aimed at collecting observations of land use and land cover across Austria—launches this week. Researchers hope it will bring a leap forward in community-based land-use change monitoring.  More

12 September 2017
Mapping and the Citizen Sensor is now on the shelves

Mapping and the Citizen Sensor, a new book edited by IIASA researchers and their colleagues, has just been published.  More

21 July 2017
Better farm water management could help achieve UN Sustainable Development Goals

Around 40% of irrigated agriculture is unsustainable, according to a new study. However, better farm water management could help reconcile global water, environment, and food targets.  More

27 June 2017
Safeguarding sustainability through forest certification mapping

How can we ensure forest protection and sustainable forest biomass production at the same time? A first-ever global map of certified forest areas, based on a participatory and collaborative mapping approach, contributes to the answer.  More

20 June 2017
Junguo Liu receives the Society for Ecological Restoration Communication Award

The Society for Ecological Restoration recently announced that the 2017 Communication Award would be presented to Prof. Junguo Liu, a research scholar at IIASA, as well as a professor at the Southern University of Science and Technology, in view of his outstanding contribution to the ecological environment.  More

09 June 2017
Focus on zero-deforestation palm oil in Malaysia

Many companies pledged to source deforestation-free palm oil only. What does that mean on the ground? A new IIASA study in collaboration with Ferrero sheds light on land use in palm estates in Malaysia.  More

28 April 2017
Citizen science campaign to aid disaster response

For the next few weeks researchers are testing a new system to aid disaster damage mapping, providing much-needed real-time data to help communities recover and rebuild after disaster.  More

20 April 2017
Restoring tropical forests for a sustainable future

The new RESTORE+ project brings together ten international partners to develop policy-oriented solutions for tropical forest restoration in Indonesia, Brazil, and the Congo.  More

13 April 2017
Next ten years critical for achieving climate change goals

In order to have a good chance of meeting the limits set by the Paris Agreement, it will be necessary to both reduce greenhouse gas emissions while preserving carbon sinks, with net emissions peaking in the next ten years, according to a new study.  More

05 April 2017
Small and medium farms are essential to sustain quality of global food supply

Small and medium farms produce more than half of the food globally, and produce the vast majority of food and nutrients in low income countries, according to a new study that maps global nutrient production from farms worldwide.  More

09 March 2017
Investment key in adapting to climate change in West Africa

Climate change will likely have negative impacts on food production in West Africa, but a new study provides insights on how strategic planning by decision makers could ease or exacerbate food security challenges in the region.  More

07 March 2017
ECONADAPT - Tools for Economic Assessment of Adaptation to Climate Change

The EU-Project ECONADAPT came to a close after three years of research on the economics of adaptation. The main impetus of the project was to support adaptation planning through building a knowledge base on the economics of adaptation to climate change and converting this into practical information for decision makers. As an output of the project, the ECONADAPT Toolbox and the ECONADAPT Library are available for use by the public and interested stakeholders.  More

30 January 2017
New momentum in low-carbon energy

Low-carbon energy is gaining momentum worldwide and is globally reducing carbon dioxide pollution, but unless new technologies are deployed, this momentum could be threatened.  More

25 January 2017
Harvests in the US to suffer from climate change

Some of the most important crops risk substantial damage from rising temperatures. To better assess how climate change caused by human greenhouse gas emissions will likely impact wheat, maize and soybean, an international team of scientists now ran an unprecedentedly comprehensive set of computer simulations of US crop yields.  More

16 January 2017
Trade-offs between economic growth and deforestation

In many developing countries, economic growth and deforestation seem to go hand in hand—but the links are not well understood. In a new study, researchers use an innovative methodology to quantify the relationship.  More

16 January 2017
Income and energy efficiency to drive future greenhouse gas emissions

Variation in projected long-term carbon dioxide emissions are primarily driven by future income and energy efficiency, according to new research.  More

13 January 2017
Bioenergy policy with forest protection better for climate mitigation

Greenhouse gas emissions from the land-use sector will be lower if the rising demand for bioenergy is met with worldwide protection for areas important for biodiversity and carbon storage.  More

11 January 2017
Grasslands hold potential for increased food production

Managing grazing on grasslands in a more efficient way could significantly increase global milk and meat production or free up land for other uses.  More



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Last edited: 04 April 2018

CONTACT DETAILS

Elisabeth Preihs

Program and Project Officer Systemic Risk and Resilience Research Group - Advancing Systems Analysis Program

ESM News Archive

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
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