Satellite mapping reveals agricultural slowdown in Latin America

University of British Columbia News: For the first time, satellite mapping of Latin America shows that the continent’s agricultural expansion has waned in the wake of the global economic downturn, according to UBC research.

“Nearly every agricultural region across Latin America slowed down in expansion from 2007 to 2013, compared to the previous six years,” says Jordan Graesser, the study’s lead author. Graesser is a visiting international student at UBC’s Liu Institute for Global Issues and the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability.

The study, recently published in Environmental Research Letters, involved the first large-scale mapping of changes in cropland and pastureland over more than a decade at the continental scale, using satellite imagery.

The slowdown is notable, given that agriculture in Latin America expanded faster over the past few decades compared to any other region on earth. The growth was fuelled by the continent’s “Green Revolution” in the 1960s, where agricultural innovations, such as the development of new seeds, increased crop yields.

But the agricultural decline revealed by the study may not last. “Agriculture in Latin America is tied to global commodity prices,” says Graesser, also a PhD student at McGill University’s Department of Geography. “So if the global economy continues to recover, and if crop prices increase, there’s likely going to be more expansion – which could impact biodiversity and boost carbon emissions.”

Soy production is the key driver of cropland expansion in South America. Much of the soy grown there is used to feed poultry and pigs in China, where the consumption of meat has surged as the population gains affluence. Pasture expansion is driven by the growth of beef cattle production, fueled by exports to Europe and increasing domestic consumption. Biofuels are another driver of cropland expansion in some Latin American countries....

Image (by Jordan Graesser) from the UBC website

The soil, silent ally against hunger in Latin America

Marianella Jarroud in IPS via Tierramerica: Latin America and the Caribbean should use sustainable production techniques to ensure healthy soil, the basic element in agriculture, food production and the fight against hunger.

“Keeping the soil healthy makes food production possible,” said Raúl Benítez, regional director for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). “Without good soil, food production is undermined, and becomes more difficult and costly. We are often not aware that it can take 1,000 years to generate one centimetre of healthy soil, but we can lose that centimetre in a few seconds as a result of pollution, toxic waste, or misuse of the soil,” he said in an interview with Tierramérica.

Despite its importance, 33 percent of the planet’s soil is degraded by physical, chemical or biological causes, which is reflected in a reduction in plant cover, soil fertility, and pollution of the soil and water, and which leads to impoverished harvests, FAO warns.

Latin America and the Caribbean have the largest amount of potential arable land in the world. The worst degradation of soil is in Central America and southern Mexico, where it affects 26 percent of the land. In South America that proportion is 14 percent....

Some dirt, shot by 4028mdk09, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

New forecasting method for predicting extreme floods in the Andes mountains

A press release from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research: Predicting floods following extreme rainfall in the central Andes is enabled by a new method. Climate change has made these events more frequent and more severe in recent decades. Now complex networks analysis of satellite weather data makes it possible to produce a robust warning system for the first time, a study to be published in the journal Nature Communications shows. This might allow for improved disaster preparedness. As the complex systems technique builds upon a mathematical comparison that can be utilised for any time series data, the approach could be applied to extreme events in all sorts of complex systems.

“Current weather forecast models cannot capture the intensity of the most extreme rainfall events, yet these events are of course the most dangerous, and can have severe impacts for the local population, for example major floods or even landslides,” says lead author Niklas Boers of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). “Using complex networks analysis, we now found a way to predict such events in the South American Andes.”

When the monsoon hits South America from December to February, it brings moist warm air masses from the tropical Atlantic. Travelling westwards, these winds are blocked by the steep Andes mountains, several thousand metres high, and turn southwards. Under specific air pressure conditions, the warm air masses, loaded with moisture, meet cold and dry winds approaching from the south. This leads to abundant rainfa
ll at high elevations, resulting in floods in the densely populated foothills of the Bolivian and Argentinian Andes. “Surprisingly, and in contrast to widespread understanding so far, these events propagate against the southward wind direction,” says Boers.

The international team of scientists performed a ‘Big Data’ analysis of close to 50,000 high-resolution weather data time series dating from the 15 years since high quality satellite data became available, generated by NASA together with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. “We found that these huge rainfall clusters start off in the area around Buenos Aires, but then wander northwestward towards the Andes, where after two days they cause extreme rainfall events”, says Boers. The new method makes it possible to correctly predict 90 percent of extreme rainfall events in the Central Andes occurring during conditions of the El Niño weather phenomenon when floods are generally more frequent, and 60 percent of those occurring under any other conditions....

The Andes between Chile and Argentina, shot by Jorge Morales Pideri, public domain

Rise in malaria forecast for tropical highlands

Maria Elena Hurtado in SciDev.net: More people may contract malaria in the tropical highlands of Africa, Asia and South America as global warming makes the climate in these areas more suitable for the disease’s transmission, according to a study.

While the study focuses on the effects of global warming, it notes that further studies will be needed to account for other factors that may influence the disease’s spread, including economic development, changes in human population patterns and adaptations in the mosquitoes that transmit malaria.

The authors of the paper, published this month in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (3 February), used five existing malaria impact models to make predictions for the 2030s, 2050s and 208
0s.

The malaria models were run under four different carbon dioxide emissions scenarios developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The researchers examined how easily disease would be transmitted and how many people would be at risk under the different scenarios.

They found that each of the five models predicted an extended the disease transmission season in the highland regions of eastern Africa, South Africa, central Angola, the plateau of Madagascar, central America, southern Brazil and the border area between India and Nepal....

A bucket of skeeters, shot by the National Institutes of Health

Innovative report calls for a new security agenda for Amazonia

Digital Journal via PRWEB UK:  In a report released today, the Global Canopy Programme and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture call for a new security agenda for Amazonia and its countries. One that focuses not only on national security in a traditional sense, but acts to strengthen the fundamental underpinnings of a flourishing society: sustained access to water, energy, food and good health for all.

Manuel Pulgar, Minister of Environment for Peru (host country of the UNFCCC Climate Change Summit COP 20 – December 2014) said, “Climate change is a global problem, but one that will multiply local and regional problems in unforeseeable ways. In Latin America, we have taken Amazonia and its seemingly limitless water and forests as a given. But recent unprecedented droughts have shown us just what happens when that water security falters: it impacts food and energy production, it affects the wellbeing of entire populations, and it leaves governments and businesses with a big bill to pay. The science is clear, so we cannot afford to miss the opportunity for positive action now.”

The report, developed with input from science experts and political leaders from Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, lays out initial recommendations as building blocks for dialogue and action in each of these countries. Since Amazonia’s ecosystems are shared between countries, there is also a need for governments to collaborate on coordinated responses to these shared risks.

Carlos Klink, Brazil’s National Secretary for Climate Change and Environmental Quality, said: “We are understanding more and more how interdependent water, food, energy and health security are across our continent. There is also interdependence between the countries that share the Amazon, which recycles trillions of tons of water that all our people and economies rely on. The challenge that we are just beginning to recognise and act upon is one of transitioning to a more sustainable economy - one that values the role of a healthy Amazonia in underpinning long-term security and prosperity.”...

A NASA image of the Amazon River near Manaus. You can see Fitzcarraldo!

Is the IPCC right on climate change? Just ask the world's farmers

John Vidal in the Guardian (UK): European development groups have reported that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's latest scientific assessment of the phenomenon matches the observations and experiences of farming and other groups they partner in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The IPCC scientists, who acknowledge they often have only sketchy rainfall and temperature data for many areas in developing countries, say global temperatures have risen, extreme weather is more frequent and rainfall less predictable. If emissions are not cut dramatically, they say, the world can expect steady sea-level and temperature rises, more extreme weather and less certain rainfall.

"Climate change is a reality here. We can see the impacts everywhere. There are new insects on our crops because of higher temperatures here. We can't produce now without spraying the crops," said a Bolivian farmer, Alivio Aruquipa, who lives in La Granja, near La Paz and works with Christian Aid partner group Agua Sustentable (Care).

"We are the ones who feel the impact of climate change. We have suffered a lot with the lack of water. People feel that they have to leave the country, or leave their homes to look for work and find a way of feeding their families. There are conflicts over water between the different communities because we all need water and there isn't enough for everyone," he said...

A porter hauling hay in Mali, shot by Jelle Jansen, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

At least five dead in South America cold snap

Terra Daily via AFP: At least five people have died due to a cold snap in South America, which has also killed thousands of cattle and damaged crops, authorities said Wednesday. In Bolivia, heavy snowfall claimed at least three lives and thousands of families were reeling from a sudden dip in temperatures over the past week, according to regional officials.

Two of the dead were farmers who perished in the high up Ancomilla region of the department of Potosi, according to local mayor Jaime Choque. Bolivia's Social Defense Ministry ministry said on Tuesday that an earlier victim died trying to save their livestock in the village of Huayllas in the central region of Cochabamba.

Four of the Andean nation's nine departments have suffered bad weather, leaving roads blocked and thousands affected. An official report Tuesday said the snow had hit 15 municipalities, affecting almost 3,500 families.

In neighboring Paraguay, two people died from hypothermia due to the chill that has also killed 4,000 cattle and affected 30 percent of the country's wheat crops, according to official reports released Wednesday....

Panoramic view shows the mountainous scenery of Chile’s Chajnantor Plateau, with snow and ice scattered over the barren terrain. The main peaks from right to left are Cerro Chajnantor, Cerro Toco, Juriques, and the distinctive conical volcano Licancabur. Also barely visible is the ALMA astronomy facility. Shot by ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

South American climate change think tank launched

Daniela Hirschfeld in SciDev.net: South America has got its first think-tank aimed at providing climate change knowledge to decision-makers to help them design tools tailored to local needs. The Regional Centre for Climate Change and Decision-Making was launched earlier this year (19 March) in Montevideo, Uruguay, where it will have its headquarters and where it is organising its first training event for policymakers.

The centre is a joint initiative by the Panama-based Avina Foundation, which promotes sustainable development in Latin America, and UNESCO (the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). Its programmes will be implemented through an interagency partnership of ten universities and academic foundations from five countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay.

During the first two years of the four-year initiative, UNESCO will provide a total of US$150,000 and the Avina Foundation a further US$80,000 for the centre's operation, Ramiro Fernández, energy and climate change director for Latin America at the foundation tells SciDev.Net.

The first training event to take place in Uruguay — chosen to run the initiative because of the interest shown by its government in tackling climate change and the progress in its climate-change adaptation plans — will consist of a symposium and workshop in October with senior representatives and decision-makers....

The Uruguayan legislatiure building in Montevideo, shot by http://www.flickr.com/photos/libertinus/, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

The dramatic retreat of the Andean glaciers over the last 30 years

Institut de recherche pour le developpment, the Media Centre: The glaciers in the tropical Andes shrunk between 30 and 50% in 30 years, which represents the highest rate observed over the last three centuries. IRD researchers and their partners( 1) recently published a summary which chronicles the history of these glaciers since their maximum extension, reached between 1650 and 1730 of our era, in the middle of the Little Ice Age*. The faster melting is due to the rapid climate change which has occurred in the tropics since the 1950s, and in particular since the end of the 1970s, leading to an average temperature rise of 0.7°C in this part of the Andes. At the current pace of their retreat, small glaciers could disappear within the next 10 to 15 years, affecting water supply for the populations.

 For the first time, a study conducted by IRD researchers and their partners(, recently published in the journal The Cryosphere , provides a retrospective of more than three centuries on glacier evolution in the entire tropical Andean region .

Since their maximum extension, reached between 1650 and 1750, during the Little Ice Age , the tropical Andean glaciers have gradually retreated. Over the last 30 years, however, their decline has taken dramatic proportions. This summary clearly shows the peculiarity of these last decades, with melting speeds that had never been reached before in 300 years: the surface areas of glaciers in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia were reduced from 30-50% since the end of the 1970s and up to 80-100% in extreme cases. This new study confirms the acceleration of climate change in this part of the world at the end of the 20th century.

...Today, it is vital to improve forecasts in order to better anticipate future impacts on Andean populations. Mountain glaciers help regulate water resources throughout the year. Millions of people living in the Andes depend on it during the dry season for purposes of agriculture, hydroelectric energy and urban consumption.

The Casaño Overa glacier in Argentina spills down over cliffs, leaving waterfalls and the 'thunder' of falling ice that gives the mountain its namesake. Shot by McKay Savage, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr,
under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Foreign demand for beef, soybeans adds pressure on Amazon forest

Alister Doyle in Reuters: Rising foreign demand for beef and soybeans will tempt Brazil to clear more of the Amazon rainforest, in a reversal of recent success in slowing forest losses, a study said on Thursday.

About 30 percent of deforestation in Brazil in the decade to 2010 was due to farmers and ranchers seeking land to expand export production of beef and soybeans, against about 20 percent in the 1990s, the report said.

"Trade is emerging as a key driver of deforestation in Brazil," according to experts at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research, Oslo (Cicero). "This may indirectly contribute to loss of the forests that industrialized countries are seeking to protect through international agreements," they wrote in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

Exports of beef and soybeans accounted for 2.7 billion metric tons (1 metric ton = 1.102 tons) of carbon emissions caused by Brazil's deforestation in the decade to 2010, the report said. That exceeds greenhouse gas emissions of a nation such as Egypt over the same period....

Beef cuts in Brazil, by MarioM, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Water grabbing occurring at 'alarming rates'

Cecilia Rosen in SciDev.net: Deals in which rich foreign corporations and countries buy or lease agricultural land abroad result in nearly half a trillion cubic metres of fresh water also being grabbed each year — often enough to grow sufficient food to abate undernourishment in the 'grabbed countries', a paper reveals.

The majority of land grabbing takes place in Africa and Asia, and the amount of grabbed water per capita often exceeds the water requirements needed to provide a balanced diet to residents in the grabbed nations, says the paper, published last week (2 January) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States.

It describes land grabbing as a "new form of colonialism that has intensified in the last four years, initially in response to the 2007 to 2008 increase in food prices". But it adds that "the interests of foreign land purchasers can be reconciled with those of developing countries if land grabbing can be used as a means to create new jobs and bring in investment and technological advances from which the local economy could benefit".

The amount of grabbed land is often a significant portion of a country's total area, for example nearly 20 per cent in Uruguay, around 17 per cent in the Philippines and almost seven per cent in Sierra Leone, the paper says....

USAID photo taken in Africa

Amazon regional alliance to confront the climate emergency

Milagros Salazar in IPS: "When someone in Peru sneezes, someone in Brazil catches a cold. When a barrel of oil is produced in Ecuador, a neighbouring country ends up buying it," says prominent environmentalist Yolanda Kakabadse.

Everything that happens in Latin American countries is closely connected, as if they were vital organs shared by the same body, maintains Kakabadse, former environment minister of Ecuador and current regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean of the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN).

This is why the CDKN is promoting an initiative that will allow Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia to exchange and assess evidence-based information on the risks, impacts and threats of climate change shared by the countries of the Amazon region.

The aim is not only to measure impacts that are already evident, but also to foresee damages in the medium to long term. What will be the implications for the lives of the most vulnerable people if global temperatures increase two degrees by 2025? This is the kind of questions that need to be asked, explained Carolina Navarrete of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), which is also supporting the initiative.

For example, Navarrete told Tierramérica*, "a two-degree increase in temperature could make it necessary to move coffee crops up 300 meters higher, and the same thing would happen with other crops. How can we prepare for this situation without causing pressure on sensitive areas, such as protected natural areas, for example?"

The goal of the project is help the region's authorities respond to these crucial questions for the population's survival with concrete actions, Kakabadse and Navarrete told journalists from the five countries gathered in Puerto Maldonado, the capital of the Peruvian Amazonian region of Madre de Dios....

The photo was taken 1986 in the Peruvian region of Ayacucho, shot by Torox, public domain

Sustainable land-use concept for South America

Seed Daily via SPX: In the world of agriculture, climate protection and intensive farming are generally assumed to be a contradiction in terms. At Technische Universitat Munchen (TUM), however, scientists have come up with a new land development concept that could change this view. The new model is tailored to medium-sized farms in South America and sees farmers transitioning from large-scale monoculture to more diverse crop mixtures spread over smaller plots interspersed with wooded areas - a switch that can bring significant financial benefits.

Each year, huge carbon stores are lost as a result of deforestation. In South America, around four million hectares of forest are cut down every year. As a result, international climate protection programs are planning to financially compensate farmers who preserve forests or plant new trees. Demand for land is rising, however. And growing need for food and energy crops will inevitably lead to conflicts of interest over fertile land in countries such as Brazil and Ecuador.

Thomas Knoke and Michael Weber at Technische Universitat Munchen (TUM) firmly believe that intensive, high-yield agricultural practices can go hand-in-hand with climate and environmental protection.

The two scientists and their colleagues have developed a "diversified land-use" concept for medium-sized holdings in South America based on an idea originally developed by retired TUM professor, Wolfgang Haber.

The new concept encourages farmers to move away from large-scale monocropping and plant a mix of field crops on smaller plots, while at the same time setting aside part of their land for forests and hedges. Any unused land will be reforested. The smaller plots of farmland will still be large enough for intensive farming practices using fertilizers, planting machines and harvesters. The interspersed wooded areas and hedges will protect the soil from erosion and serve as long-term carbon stores....

Burning sugar-cane fields in Ecuador, shot by Martin Zeise, Berlin, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Latin America’s climate conundrum

Simeon Tegel in the Global Post: From Tierra del Fuego to Tijuana, Latin America is highly vulnerable to climate change, which is expected to trigger a series of natural disasters that could even reverse local victories in the fight against poverty.

Droughts will grip regions from the southern cone to northern Mexico. Extreme storms are increasingly battering Central America. Rising seas will swallow up vast coastal areas. And many Andean glaciers will disappear forever.

Meanwhile, the greatest threat to the Amazon — home to roughly a third of all plant and animal species — may no longer be logging or cattle ranching but climate change itself. Gently rising temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns are leaving the world’s largest tropical rainforest more vulnerable to dieback, drought and forest fires.

Some scientists even warn that could trigger “positive feedback” as deforested areas generate less rain — leading to yet more dieback, drought and fires in an unstoppable cycle that could turn much of the Amazon into savannah regardless of any local successes in the fight against loggers. That would accelerate the global climate crisis as the vanishing jungle unleashes billions of tons of carbon currently locked in its plants and trees.

Although scientists remain wary of blaming individual weather events on climate change, almost all agree that the bigger picture of unpredictable weather, unprecedented storms, floods and droughts leaves no room for doubt that climate change is already upon us. All of these phenomena will have huge costs, both human and economic. Experts predict that it will be the poor who will be hit hardest....

A smoggy day in Mexico City, shot by Fidel Gonzalez, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Latin America must improve water management in face of climate change

Water World via Business News Americas: Latin America is in need of better water management to cope with the new global climate reality, as well as an improved legal framework to guarantee water access for agriculture, according to Benjamin Kiersch, natural resources and land tenure officer at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

"Water management is a necessity that can be generalized to all countries in the region, to be able to cope with droughts in the future, [but] also the legal framework, to guarantee access to different users such as agriculture," Kiersch told BNamericas.

While Latin America has the highest annual rainfall and the greatest freshwater reserves the world, climate change is still a cause for concern in all countries, and recommendations must be made on a case-by-case basis.

"Latin America is very well endowed when it comes to water resources. However, we have large regional differences, and with more extreme climatic events, it puts additional pressure on governments to better regulate the allocation of resources," the official said....

A reservoir in Peru, shot by Elbuenminero (I think), Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Central America to pay hefty price of climate change

Clayton R. Norman in the Tico Times (Costa Rica): For climate scientists, Central America’s future will bring higher temperatures, dangerous changes in rainfall patterns, stronger and more frequent hurricanes, and stress on hydrologic resources.

“This is a critical moment in the history of humanity,” said Julie Lennox, of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, speaking at a recent seminar on corporate social responsibility and climate change organized by the British Embassy in San José.

“The benefits of taking quick, firm action [to prepare for the effects of climate change] right now will outweigh the long-term costs involved, but will we be wise enough to manage risk and instability?” Lennox asked.

Lennox presented a report, “The Economics of Climate Change in Central America,” generated by the finance and environment ministries of Central American countries and nongovernmental organizations. The report, as Lennox explained it, sought to quantify the economic costs of climate change in Central America through the year 2100.

The projections in the report are startling, but can be boiled down to key points: Temperatures in Central America will rise, rainfall patterns will change in problematic ways – inundating some areas while others wither and dry – and major economic disruptions will happen, especially toward the end of the century....

Flooding in Guatemala from Tropical Storm Agatha in 2010, photo by the US Embassy

Rising temperatures push Andean species skyward

Nathanael Massey in E&E News: The cloud forests of the Andes mountains, bound between the Amazonian lowlands to the west and the peaks of the Andean uplift to the east, harbor worlds upon worlds. Within the mountains' mosaic of high plateaus, deep-cut valleys and steeply climbing slopes, unique ecosystems have flourished side by side for centuries, their equilibrium protected by the rugged terrain and 12,000 years of relatively stable climate. Home to nearly one-sixth of the world's plant species, as well as hundreds of kinds of mammals, birds and amphibians, the Andean cloud forests are one of the most biologically diverse regions on Earth.

They are also among the most vulnerable. Isolation has given rise to a high number of endemic -- or regionally unique -- species with little history of migration, leaving them ill-equipped to respond to the human influences that have crept through the forests in recent decades. Mineral extraction and agricultural deforestation have taken a toll, and incursions into the region show every sign of expanding.

Most alarmingly, warming temperatures have accelerated a process of upslope migration, begun at the close of the last ice age, that threatens to push the region's biodiversity into increased competition, nutrient-poor soil conditions and, finally, thin air, according to forest ecologists working in the region.

Although many South American countries have taken steps to protect Andean ecosystems, their efforts might be insufficient. A new study led by researchers at Duke University has identified and mapped hundreds of endemic plant and animal species across 17,000 miles of east-facing Andean uplift, a section ranging through Bolivia and Peru. It found that only 20 percent of areas with the highest levels of biodiversity are protected by government regulations.

"What our study showed was incredibly scary," said Bruce Young, director of species science at the organization NatureServe and a co-author of the study....

Cloud forest near Mindo, Ecuador, shot by Ayacop, public domain

Latin American integration does not extend to climate change

Emilio Godoy in the Guatemala Times via Tierramérica: The foreseeable absence of binding agreements to stabilize the global climate could give rise to increased regional cooperation to help Latin American countries adapt to the severe effects of climate change. A few initiatives have taken the first steps. But the results of the 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 17), taking place Nov. 28 to Dec. 9 in Durban, South Africa, could act as a catalyst for faster movement in this direction.

In August, Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua and Panama joined forces to establish the Intergovernmental Program for Climate Change Cooperation-Opportunities and Challenges in Agriculture (PRICA-ADO), which seeks to create a scientific-technical network, build the capacities of national and regional agencies, and support governments in the design and implementation of public policies.

The changes already observed in the agricultural sector highlight "the need for land management and agriculture models with the capacity to foresee and adjust to these changes," project leader Martha Alviar, a specialist in geomatics and land planning, told Tierramérica at the Mexican offices of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture.

Also crucial are public policies for climate change adaptation in areas such as land planning, technological development, risk financing, infrastructure, conservation strategies, and knowledge and use of environmental assets, explained Alviar.

The Caribbean and Mesoamerica (southern Mexico and Central America) are particularly exposed to severe droughts and devastating hurricanes. Agriculture is impacted by changing patterns in the frequency and intensity of rainfall, alterations in soil conditions and variations in crop yields....

Quetzaltenango farm highlands in Guatemala, shot in 2009 by Chensiyuan, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Global Adaptation Index launches in Latin America

Market Watch via PR Newswire: Government officials, students, teachers, business leaders and media participate in the trans-continental telecast hosted by the Tecnologico de Monterrey and the Global Adaptation Institute(TM).

Today, the Tecnologico de Monterrey hosted a presentation on the Global Adaptation Index(TM) (gain.globalai.org) ("GaIn(TM)") that was telecast to 39 of its campuses throughout Mexico and Latin America. In addition, many other institutions in Latin America joined, representing civil society, academica and the public and private sectors from Mexico, Ecuador, Brazil, Peru, El Salvador, Colombia and Panama.

GaIn is a response to the various challenges of sustainable development including population growth, economic expansion and the effects of climate change. It was developed as a navigation tool to help prioritize and measure progress in adapting to these challenges.

"The Global Adaptation Institute is promoting investment in projects that address adaptation to not only climate change impacts, but also the problems associated with migration, urbanization and economic development. This is a very timely initiative and I am happy to see that the Institute is incorporating ideas from the private and public sectors, academia and civil society," states Dra. Maria de Lourdes Dieck Assad, Rector, Graduate Schools of Business and Government ITESM - Tecnologico de Monterrey. Dieck Assad is a member of the Institute's Council of Scientific Advisors....

Central America floods and landslides 'leave 80 dead'

BBC: The number of people killed by a week of torrential rains, triggering floods and landslides across Central America, has reached at least 80, officials say. El Salvador is the worst-affected, with 32 people killed, mostly buried in their houses by mudslides.

The number of dead in Guatemala has risen to 28, while the total rose to 13 in Honduras, and eight people have died in Nicaragua. Rain generated by a tropical depression continues to fall across the region. International highways have been washed out, villages isolated and thousands of families have lost homes and crops.

The United Nations has classified Central America as one of the parts of the world most affected by climate change. The UN estimates that more than 100,000 people have been affected by the flooding....

Central America map by Wiz9999, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license