research

Watersheds are an attractive unit for development in mountainous landscapes. However, watershed analysis usually requires significantly more time, data and funds, and must include more actors. Also, results may be disappointing. Many off-site effects are very difficult to modify without major changes in land use systems. Frequently, these land use changes (e.g. more pasture or reforestation)...

The east African mountain region provides living testimony to what can go wrong when the traditional balance between people, their habitat and the socio-economic context breaks down. The problems posed by population growth, land pressure, food scarcity, and degradation of a fragile environment with finite natural resources are aggravated by insecurity, civil war and cross-border refugee camps...

Despite important technological achievements, agricultural research in Mexico has had little impact on the improvement of rural livelihoods in the mountains of Central Mexico. The reason for this is its failure to focus on the development of highland campesino agriculture. The Centro de Investigación en Ciencias Agropecuarias (CICA, Research Center in Agricultural Science) of the...

The first internationally coordinated initiatives to observe the environment in Alpine regions date back to the 19th century. Around 1880, the first mountain observatories were established on European mountains. Today, the record of their activities provides a meteorological time series covering more than a century. Continuous meteorological measurements on high mountains in other continents...
The United Nations University (UNU) is an international community of scholars engaged in research, postgraduate training, and knowledge dissemination to advance the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations. UNU undertakes multidisciplinary research on pressing global problems, provides advanced training through workshops and postgraduate fellowships, and disseminates knowledge...

The present-day world is threatened by increasing insecurity caused by global disparities and processes of global change. While in Europe, the US, and other countries of the “North” climate change has commonly been perceived as the most problematic component of global change, developing and transition countries are affected by a multitude of environmental, political, economic,...

Much concern has been raised about population increase in the highlands of Ethiopia and its potential to decrease runoff from the upper Nile Basin to the lowland countries of Sudan and Egypt. The present article examines long-term data on population, land use, land management, rainfall, and surface runoff rates from small test plots (30 m2) and micro-catchments (73–673 ha)...

Initiating a process of informed decision-making for sustainable development requires the following: a) the values and objectives to be pursued need to be negotiated among all concerned stakeholders of a specific territorial unit; b) these stakeholders should have access to a comparable level of knowledge; and c) the decisions taken and the subsequent actions initiated should have a...

What do the snow leopard in the Kangchenjunga Conservation Area in Nepal, flood water diversion on Mount Kenya, waste separation in Manantlán (Mexico), conflict transformation workshops in Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt, law and policy analysis with vigilantes in the Tunari park in Bolivia, and a radio programme for Nepali migrants have in common? They are all so-called Partnership Actions...
Repeat photography has proven to be a valuable, reliable and accessible methodology for evaluating and illustrating changes in landscapes over time. Ecologists often use the techniques as a complimentary tool for quantative research, providing a historical context for current findings, while historical images are a key source of information for historians.  Written by an ecologist and a...

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