Publications
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Surabaya: The Legacy of Participatory Upgrading of Informal Settlements
by and -This case study describes the history of Surabaya, Indonesia’s inclusive housing policy and how the Kampung Improvement Program became a model for in situ slum upgrading efforts both nationwide and internationally. The paper suggests certain actions that the city can take to maintain its legacy of inclusive housing policy, including prioritizing in situ, incremental upgrading of informal settlements; partnering with NGOs and universities to facilitate innovation; and improving the city’s transportation network and limiting high-end development that displaces residents.
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Unaffordable and Undrinkable: Rethinking Urban Water Access in the Global South
by , , and -This working paper describes water access challenges in cities of the global south that have been hitherto largely invisible in global indicators. In analyzing 15 cities, we found that piped utility water is the most affordable option, yet, on average, almost half of all households lack access, and most of those that do have access receive intermittent service. This paper highlights four key action areas for cities to improve water access: extending the formal piped water network, addressing context-specific causes of intermittent water service, pursuing diverse strategies to make water affordable, and supporting informal settlement upgrading.
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Creating a Sustainable Food Future
A Menu of Solutions to Feed Nearly 10 Billion People by 2050 (Final Report)
by , , , and -By 2050, nearly 10 billion people will live on the planet. Can we produce enough food sustainably? World Resources Report: Creating a Sustainable Food Future shows that it is possible – but there is no silver bullet. This report offers a five-course menu of solutions to ensure we can feed everyone without increasing emissions, fueling deforestation or exacerbating poverty. Intensive research and modeling examining the nexus of the food system, economic development, and the environment show why each of the 22 items on the menu is important and quantifies how far each solution can get us.
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Guadalajara: Revisiting Public Space Interventions through the Via RecreActiva
by , and -This case study tells the story of the Via RecreActiva, a ciclovía event that closes more than 60km of streets in Guadalajara, Mexico every Sunday for public recreation and entertainment. The paper explains the benefits that can come to a city that invests in car-free space and how these investments can spark broader change towards a safer and more equitable city.
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Johannesburg: Confronting Spatial Inequality
by and -This case study in the World Resources Report, Towards a More Equal City, examines transformative urban change in Johannesburg, South Africa, through transit-oriented development (TOD). The Corridors of Freedom program aims to help reduce spatial inequality in the city by extending bus rapid transit to many new areas and spur new or improved infrastructure for non-motorized transport, social facilities and public infrastructure.
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Creating a Sustainable Food Future
A Menu of Solutions to Feed Nearly 10 Billion People by 2050 (Synthesis Report)
by , , , , and -The result of multiple years of research and modeling, the synthesis report of World Resources Report: Creating a Sustainable Food Future shows there is no silver bullet to sustainably feeding 10 billion people by 2050. How we produce and eat food will need an overhaul.
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Confronting the Urban Housing Crisis in the Global South: Adequate, Secure, and Affordable Housing
by , , and -This paper discusses the challenge of adequate, secure and affordable housing in the global south.
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Towards a More Equal City: Framing the Challenges and Opportunities
by , and -The World Resources Report (WRR) examines if prioritizing access to core urban services, we can create cities that are prosperous and sustainable for all people. This first installment of the WRR developed a new categorization of cities into emerging, struggling, thriving, and stabilizing cities. It focuses on solutions for struggling and emerging cities—over half the cities included in the analysis—because they have the greatest opportunity to alter their development trajectory.
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Shifting Diets for a Sustainable Food Future
Creating a Sustainable Food Future, Installment Eleven
by , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and -
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Ensuring Crop Expansion is Limited to Lands with Low Environmental Opportunity Costs
Creating a Sustainable Food Future, Installment Ten
by and -Installment 10 of Creating a Sustainable Food Future proposes a definition for lands with low environmental opportunity cost. From there, it offers recommendations for how new cropland expansion can be directed toward these low opportunity cost lands.
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Avoiding Bioenergy Competition for Food Crops and Land
Creating a Sustainable Food Future, Installment Nine
by and -What is the role of bioenergy in a sustainable food future? The answer must recognize the intense global competition for land, and that any dedicated use of land for bioenergy inherently comes at the cost of not using that land for food, feed, or sustained carbon storage.
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Wetting and Drying: Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Saving Water from Rice Production
Creating a Sustainable Food Future, Installment Eight
by , , , and -A sustainable food future will require reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture even as the world produces substantially more food. The production of rice, the staple crop for the majority of the world’s population, emits large quantities of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
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Crop Breeding: Renewing the Global Commitment
Creating a Sustainable Food Future, Installment Seven
by , and -The world needs to close a 69 percent gap between the crops produced in 2006 and the crops the world is on a course to need by 2050.
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Indicators of Sustainable Agriculture: A Scoping Analysis
Creating a Sustainable Food Future, Installment Six
by , and -Quantifiable indicators of the environmental sustainability of agriculture—by which we mean minimizing the environmental impacts of agriculture—are an important tool for helping move the world toward a sustainable food future.
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Improving Productivity and Environmental Performance of Aquaculture
Creating a Sustainable Food Future, Installment Five
by , , , , , , and -Fish—including finfish and shellfish—are an important item in the human food basket, contributing 17 percent of the global animal-based protein supply in 2010. They are an especially valuable food source in developing countries, where more than 75 percent of the world’s fish consumption occurs.
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Creating a Sustainable Food Future: Interim Findings
A menu of solutions to sustainably feed more than 9 billion people by 2050
by , , , , , , and -The world’s agricultural system faces a great balancing act. To meet different human needs, by 2050 it must simultaneously produce far more food for a population expected to reach about 9.6 billion, provide economic opportunities for the hundreds of millions of rural poor who
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Improving Land and Water Management
Creating a Sustainable Food Future, Installment Four
by , , , , , and -The world’s food production systems face enormous challenges. Millions of farmers in developing countries are struggling to feed their families as they contend with land degradation, land use pressures, and climate change.
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Achieving Replacement Level Fertility
Creating a Sustainable Food Future, Installment Three
by , , , , and -The world’s population will rise from just over 7 billion in 2012 to nearly 9.6 billion by 2050. Most of the world’s regions have already achieved or are close to achieving replacement level fertility.
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Reducing Food Loss and Waste
Creating a Sustainable Food Future, Installment Two
by , , , , and -The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that 32 percent of all food produced in the world was lost or wasted in 2009. This estimate is based on weight.
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The Great Balancing Act
Creating a Sustainable Food Future, Installment One
by , , , , , , and -How can the world feed more than 9 billion people by 2050 in a manner that advances economic development and reduces pressure on the environment? This is one of the paramount questions the world faces over the next four decades.
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World Resources Report 2010-2011
Decision Making in a Changing Climate
by , , , and -
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World Resources 2008
Roots of Resilience - Growing the Wealth of the Poor
by , , , and -World Resources Report 2008 continues the focus of the World Resources report series on poverty and the environment.
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World Resources 2005 -- The Wealth of the Poor
Managing Ecosystems to Fight Poverty
by , , and -World Resources 2005 Online
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World Resources 2002-2004
Decisions for the Earth: Balance, voice, and power
by , , and -World Resources 2002-2004 focuses on the importance of good environmental governance. We explore how citizens, government managers, and business owners can foster better environmental decisions -- decisions that meet the needs of both ecosystems and people with equity and balance.
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World Resources 2000-2001
People and ecosystems: The fraying web of life
by , , and -World Resources 2000-2001 is the definitive guide to the global environment. The millennial edition presents a comprehensive assessment of vie fo the world's major ecosystems:
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World Resources 1996-97
The Urban Environment
by , , and -World Resources 1996-97 is an authoritative primary reference volume on global environmental and natural resource conditions and trends for the United Nations, World Bank, and related international organizations.
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World Resources 1994-95
People and the Environment
by -Widely recognized as a unique, authoritative asessment of the world's natural resource base, each World Resources report is a definitiave reference on the global environment with the latest information on essential economic, population, and natural resource conditions and trends
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World Resources 1992-93
Guide to Global Environment
by -Widely recognized as an authoritative assessment of the world's natural resource base, World Resources reports are definitive references on the global environment, containing the latest information on essential economic, population, and natural resource conditions and trends for 153 countr
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World Resources 1990-91
Climate Change in Latin America Focus
by , and -- World Environment Overview. Crisp summations of the worlds most critical environmental and natural resource problems.
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World Resources 1988-89
An Assessment of the Resource Base that Supports the Global Economy
by , and -Widely recognized as a unique and authoritative assessment of the world's natural resouce base, the World Resources series has been praised as "a consumer's guide to the globe." Building on earlier editions, World Resources 1988-89 gives special attention to envi
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World Resources 1987
An assessment of the resource base that supports the global economy
by -Special focus on the spread of toxic wastes in the developed world and sustainable agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa.
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World Resources 1986
An assessment of the resource base that supports the global economy
by -The inaugural 1986 edition features a special chapter on multiple pollutants and forest decline and focuses attention on a number of important issues: the environment and human health; tropical deforestation; the atmosphere as a shared resources; soil degradation; the relationship of population a
