All publications and documents

This report presents the results of a study on agricultural plastic products used globally in a range of different value chains. The study assessed the types and quantities of plastic products, their benefits and trade-offs. Sustainable alternative products or practices were identified for products assessed as having high potential to cause harm to human and ecosystem health or having poor end-of…

Central Asia experiences frequent sand and dust storms (SDS), which have been made worse by human activity. The main objective of this study is to provide an economic analysis of the benefits of afforestation of the former Aral Seabed in Uzbekistan. The objective of this study is to estimate economic benefits attributed to afforestation of the former Aral Seabed in Uzbekistan. Proper estimation…

The Sand and Dust Storms Risk Assessment in Asia and the Pacific provides a long-term horizon of the risk and potential socio-economic losses associated with sand and dust storms in the region for a better understanding of the severe multidimensional impact of this hazard, including the deterioration to human health, in urban and rural settings, and its adverse impact on energy, transport,…

The World Meteorological Organization has updated data in its Atlas of Mortality and Economic Losses from Weather, Climate and Water-related hazards. The data now cover the period 1970 to 2021. Extreme weather, climate and water-related events caused nearly 12 000 disasters from 1970-2021 Reported economic losses are US$4.3 trillion and rising The death…

Africa is in the eye of a triple storm. The last half decade has been extremely challenging from a climate perspective: from Cyclone Idai in Mozambique to heavy snowfalls in North Africa, and from desert locusts and fall armyworm ravaging crops across East and Southern Africa to floods in Ghana and other countries in West Africa, the repercussions of climate change have been felt across the…

West Africa faces a number of urgent and interconnected challenges. With temperatures rising 1.5 times faster than global averages, intense climate variability, reliance on rain-fed agriculture, and limited adaptive capacity, the region is fast becoming a climate hotspot. This, in combination with other stresses, is projected to lead to highly unpredictable agricultural productivity, loss of…