Africa is home to some of the greatest wilderness areas in the world, as well as some of the greatest biodiversity hotspots. The GLOBIO analysis shows that the great deserts and the Central African rain forests have huge remaining tracts that show low human impact and development.

These projections of biodiversity loss from 2000 to 2050 were produced by the GLOBIO consortium for UNEP's Global Environment Outlook 4. Across the GEO scenarios and regions, global biodiversity continues to be threatened, with strong implications for ecosystem services and human well-being. All regions continue to experience declines in terrestrial biodiversity in each of the scenarios. The greatest losses are seen in Markets First, followed by ...

Deforestation is well known for aggravating erosion. Bare soil has no protection against heavy rain, washing away immediately. On hillsides, it readily turns into mudslides leaving people very little time to seek refuge and cutting deep ravines into the earth. And where deforested land was turned into cultivated fields, the soil is likely to be overused and exploited through intensive use of fertiliser.

For people in countries at war or subject to economic embargos many goods are scarce, food and water constituting the most crucial shortages. But they also have to deal regularly with death and injury. In such countries disaster prevention may well not be a priority.

The graphic shows the protected areas of Albania, the proposed areas for protection and areas with endangered species. Albania is well known for its high diversity of ecosystems and habitats. Within its territory there are maritime ecosystems, coastal zones, lakes, rivers, evergreen and broadleaf bushes, broadleaf forests, pine forests, alpine and sub-alpine pastures and meadows, and high mountain ecosystems. It is rich in forest and pasture reso...

All the states that emerged from the break-up of Yugoslavia are still fragile, except Slovenia, which joined the EU in 2004, and Croatia, which is well on the way towards European integration. Since the Dayton Peace Agreement (1995), Bosnia and Herzegovina has constituted a state, but split into two entities: the Republic of Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, itself divided into 10 cantons.

Central Asia has a very high infant mortality rate and many other major health problems. This graphic shows some of the main causes of death as well as infant mortality and life expectancy rates for the region. In Russian.

Central Asia has a very high infant mortality rate and many other major health problems. This graphic shows some of the main causes of death as well as infant mortality and life expectancy rates for the region.

Central Asia is a disaster-prone area, exposed to various natural hazards such as floods, droughts, avalanches, rockslide and earthquakes. It is also vulnerable to man-made disasters related to industrial activity and the radioactive and chemical dumps inherited from the Soviet period. Several factors - population density in disaster-prone areas, high overall population growth, poverty, land and water use, failure to comply with building codes an...

The Soviet development model for Central Asia was based on building large-scale irrigation schemes enabling the region to become a major cotton producer and expanding the mining and processing industry. Industrial operations in the region paid little attention to the environment and public health, resulting in the accumulation of pollutants in the local environment. Today, not only active industrial facilities constitute a threat to environment, ...

In the soviet period the industrial operations paid little attention to environment or public health, resulting in the accumulation of pollutants in the local environment. Because of their vulnerability to natural hazards, previous history of accidents, and their position along water courses and in the vicinity of towns and cities in transboundary areas, tailing dumps at both active and closed mining enterprises constitute an environmental as wel...

The Mackenzie Valley in Arctic Canada, Northwest Territories, represents one of the main sites for development of fuels extraction in North America. Activities, including the development of pipelines, impact indigenous peoples, as well as sensity environment.

The Arctic has been opened up for increased exploration of petroleum, gas and mining activities. The Barents Sea, the Mackenzie Valley in Canada and the Alaskan North Slope, are the areas of chief interest at the moment. With increased temperatures and climate change, it is expected that the commercial intrest for more extraction and exploration will increase, as well as shipping of the products. As sea ice decreases, the shipping lanes will beco...

Thirty reference glaciers with almost continuous mass balance measurements since 1975 show an average annual mass loss of 0.58 m water equivalent for the past decade (1996–2005), which is more than twice the loss rate of the period 1986–1995 (0.25 m), and more than four times the rate of the period 1976–1985 (0.14 m). The results from these 30 continuous mass balance series correspond well to estimates based on a larger sample of more tha...

Glaciers and ice caps form around the world where snow deposited during the cold/humid season does not entirely melt during warm/dry times. This seasonal snow gradually becomes denser and transforms into perennial firn (rounded, well-bonded snow that is older than one year) and finally, after the air passages connecting the grains are closed off, into ice. The ice from such accumulation areas then flows under the influence of its own weight and t...

The water resources of small islands and low-lying coastal areas are very susceptible to sea-level rise. This figure illustrates the direct impacts on the water resources sector, as well as the plethora of higher-order impacts which affect not only that sector but most, if not all, other sectors including health, transport and agriculture.

Snow and the various forms of ice - the cryosphere - play different roles within the climate system. The two continental ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland actively influence the global climate over time scales of millennia to millions of years, but may also have more rapid effects on, for example, sea level. Snow and sea ice, with their large areas but relatively small volumes, are connected to key interactions and feedbacks at global scales...

Observations of snow-covered area for the Northern Hemisphere show a significant development in the later 20th century, with a reduction of the area covered by snow in the spring (March-April) from some 38 million km2 in the 1930-ies to todays 35 million km2. Snow represents an important resource for water, ecosystems and human activities, as well as for reflecting incoming sun light. The linear trend shows a decrease in snow-covered area of 2.7 ...

There are major regional differences for the Arctic sea ice, with the strongest decline in ice extent observed for the Greenland Sea (10.6 per cent per decade). The smallest decreases of annual mean sea ice extent were found in the Arctic Ocean, the Canadian Archipelago and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In the marginal Arctic seas off Siberia (the Kara, Laptev, East Siberian and Chukchi Seas) a slight negative, but not significant, trend in ice exten...

Hydropower, generating electricity through turbines, represents a clean and renewable energy source, but not without problems. Dams and reservoirs disrupt the natural flow, and may increase siltation and evaporation, in addition to severe impacts for wildlife, for instance migrating fish. The gross theoretical capability, presented in this map, represents a calculation based on the topography and precipitation in the countries, and is the amount ...