Blog

Rivers are the world’s main source of clean drinking water, and their economic and environmental value are fundamental to the health of people and ecosystems. However, river basins face interrelated challenges — population growth, industrialization, urbanization, land use changes (including deforestation and land degradation), and changes in water quantity and quality.

• 07/17/2019
• Owen Scott, Fernanda Zermoglio

Countries in Asia are steadily addressing the need to reduce emissions through the deployment of market-based mechanisms (MBMs), such as carbon taxes, cap and trade programs, baseline and credit programs, and the development of renewable electricity and energy efficiency standards.

• 07/08/2019
• Emily Kent, Megha Kedia, Deborah Harris

The USAID Feed the Future Learning Community for Supply Chain Resilience is happy to share the launch of a new website aimed to provide coffee companies with the resources they need to combat climate change. The Climate Smart Coffee website, launched in early May, was created to increase private sector engagement and funding in smallholder farmer resilience against climate change.

• 07/02/2019
• Kaitlin Sampson

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) needs a comprehensive map of development. The country holds the largest contiguous block of rainforest outside of Brazil, but as the map below illustrates, much of the remaining forest falls under mining, oil and logging permits.

• 05/31/2019
• Leo Bottrill

This month, Climatelinks is featuring geospatial tools and analysis. When it comes to climate change, geospatial tools and analysis provide innovative methods of visualizing drivers, threats and impacts. Emerging trends can also be identified and studied through geospatial analysis, which in turn allows for more strategic positioning of resources.

• 05/10/2019
• Stephan Hardeman

Finding ways to adapt to the effects of climate change is no longer optional for most communities - it is necessary. The question is, what are the range of strategies for adaptation? Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) is a nature-based and people-centered approach that emphasizes ecosystem integrity as crucial for human resilience to climate change.

• 04/30/2019
• Anila Jacob, Jennifer Kane, Christine Chumbler

“The water is pushing very hard on our islands and communities,” recounted the Bonthe Deputy Mayor, during a recent meeting with USAID staff in the southwestern district of Sierra Leone. His description captures the profound impacts that climate change is having on coastal communities.

• 04/29/2019
• Julia Bradley-Cook

Every day, Indonesian palm oil mills emit nearly 2,000 metric tons of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, from the waste treatment of palm oil mill effluent (POME), which cannot be discharged in its raw form. Though POME is waste byproduct of palm kernel milling, it can become an energy source when its biogas byproduct is harnessed for electricity production.

• 04/25/2019
• Joshua Forgotson

Integrating biodiversity and sustainable landscapes objectives in development programming can increase the sustainability of interventions, amplify results and reduce costs. ‘Integrating Biodiversity and Sustainable Landscapes in USAID Programming’ highlights these and other key considerations for USAID staff and development practitioners interested in connections between biodiversity and sustainable landscapes priorities.

• 04/23/2019
• Catherine Wahlen, Jennifer Kane

A new land cover tool originally developed for southeast Asia is now being expanded globally. “Land cover mapping in the Lower Mekong has been challenging in the past, based primarily on outdated maps using different criteria,” said Dr. David Saah, Professor at the University of San Francisco and Managing Principal of the Spatial Informatics Group (SIG).

• 04/10/2019
• Devrin Weiss, Leah Kucera

Do you work on a project or activity that is increasing climate resilience or reducing carbon emissions while conserving biodiversity? Have you collaborated with colleagues across USAID to design a project or activity that has biodiversity outcomes and tackles development challenges across multiple programming areas?

• 04/04/2019
• Jennifer Kane, Catherine Wahlen

Gordon Mumbo grew up in the small village of Kamuga, in Kenya’s Kisumu County. Year after year, he watched as frequent floods from one of Kenya’s major rivers, the Nyando, disturbed the peaceful flow of village life.

• 03/28/2019
• Global Waters

“My interest in tree planting started when I was very young, when I used to go with my mum to plant trees in the forest, as part of the shamba system of plantation establishment [a Kenyan form of taungya],” recounts Zipporah Matumbi. 

• 03/26/2019
• CIFOR

Happy World Water Day! This year’s “Water for All” theme highlights the importance of leaving no one behind. It brings to light the fact that billions of people still live without access to safe water.

• 03/21/2019
• Stephan Hardeman

Since the 1970s, the Sahel region of northern Africa has been experiencing ongoing drought. The ecological, economic and social impacts are far-reaching, and coastal and estuarine ecosystems have
not been spared.

• 03/14/2019
• CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry