December 22, 2019

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The increasing complexity between individual land management, farming area scarcity, and water availability is of emergent concern in Sub-Saharan Africa. Agricultural production requires huge natural resources, which is why decision-makers have to consider the demand and supply of food, energy and water. Applying the three elements in an action concept allows to identification of synergetic…

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With limited water resources, there is increasing demand on water from various stakeholders in Iraq. Upstream stakeholders use the water for agriculture using sumerian flood irrigation techniques. These irrigation techniques were adequate when there was a flood pulse that healed the farmlands from salt, however, with building dams upstream, floods have stopped and the agricultural…

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The food-energy-water (FEW) nexus framework considers tradeoffs between food, energy, and water sectors in order to achieve effective, integrated solutions to natural resource challenges. Despite the capacity of restoration to address challenges at the intersection of human and ecological systems, and the acknowledgement of the central importance of ecosystem services to FEW systems, restoration has…

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Increasing awareness among governments, companies, and financial institutions has spurred interest in ‘green’ labeled bonds and other investment vehicles as a mechanism to reduce risk and increase sustainability. Commonly used as long-term debt instruments, green bonds are issued by governments, companies, and other institutions to finance or re-finance assets or activities with environmental benefits. They…

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The presentation will explore, from the perspective of institutional investors, some of the challenges with respect to mandates, risk/ return, benchmarks, performance measurement, and regulations. Similarly, the paper will explore some of the opportunities with respect to long-term systemic risk mitigation, uncorrelated returns, and diversification.  

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Conservation South Africa (CSA) is an affiliate of Conservation International. CSA’s key focus is restoration of South Africa’s rangelands and sustainable land use management, working in South Africa’s biodiversity hotspots and promoting regional economic development that values nature. The Namakwa District of the Northern Cape is likely to experience increasing temperatures, aridity, and water stress…

December 21, 2019

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Ecologists, hydrologist, and restoration scientists in South Africa have contributed substantially to the knowledge on how interventions in ecological infrastructure, such as alien clearing and wetland restoration, can increase surface water flows, groundwater infiltration, and water quality with additional benefits for disaster risk reduction (floods, droughts and fires). Much less research exists on the socio-economic…

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A sizable investment gap exists in South Africa for the sustainable and scaled funding of landscape-wide interventions to restore and/or rehabilitate functionally critical ecological infrastructure (EI). Such interventions have considerable potential to address water insecurity and contribute to the development of sustainable livelihoods. The analysis of existing EI restoration investment models can reveal the characteristics…

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In 2011, Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania installed a three-hectare, 1.6-megawatt solar field.   Half was previously agriculture and half was a low-quality meadow. Following panel install, four seed mixes were installed and evaluated to determine if any mix could serve as an effective, ecologically diverse seed option for solar fields in the region. Mixes were low…

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Functional traits are important predictors of species distributions and abundance, and their response to the environment. During community assembly, species that colonize the newly established habitat must be able to adapt to contrasting environmental conditions, in comparison to the undisturbed forest, and thus belong to contrasting functional groups. Although functional groups are well described for…