24 pp. OCR and bookmarks supplied by UO. Maps, figures, illus. Published August, 2002. Captured February 19, 2009.

The need to increase water productivity is a growing global concern as the World Commission on Water has estimated that demand for water will increase by c. 50% over the next 30 years and approximately half of the world's population will experience conditions of severe water stress by 2025. Three-quarters of African countries are expected to experience unstable water supplies, whereby small decreases in rainfall induce much larger reductions in streamflow.

Incentive-based programs to reduce deforestation are expected to play an increasinglyimportant role in global efforts to protect ecosystems and sequester carbon but theirenvironmental effectiveness is not clear. We investigate program effectiveness and slippage in the context of Mexico's national payments for hydrological services program, which pays private and communal landowners to maintain forest cover on enrolled lands. To measure program impacts, we use matched controls drawn from the program applicant pool to establish counterfactual deforestation rates in the absence of payments.

Changing and competing land use, where we make use of a growing share of resources, potentially undermines the capacity of forests to provide multiple functions such as timber, biodiversity, recreation and pasture lands. The governance challenge is thus to manage trade-offs between human needs and, at the same time, maintain the capacities of forests to provide us with these needs. Sweden provides a clear example of this kind of challenge. Traditionally, timber has been the most apparent contribution of the forest to Swedish national interests.

Despite great successes in crop research for the developing world, many poor farmers in marginal areas have not benefited. There is increasing recognition that crop research can and should benefit these farmers. This paper reviews some of the key technical issues related to the challenge of formulating and carrying out crop research that is targeted, relevant and appropriate to these farmers, with a particular emphasis on crop improvement. It examines the reasons that underpin the lack of research impacts, and some of the key challenges and tools available to make this happen.

The cotton boom in Burkina Faso consisted of a growth in cotton land shares together with an overall increase intotal cultivated land. This paper examines the impact of institutional changes in the cotton sector on theevolution of smallholders’ land-use decisions. The empirical analysis is supported by a structural model thattakes into account the specific institutional features of the Burkinabè cotton sector and builds upon household leveldata collected in rural Burkina Faso.

Two adult oak tree groups in northern Serbia, differing in degree of decline, were studied. Measurements of pre-dawn water potential (PWP), nutrient status and radial growth were performed and compared with similar sites in Slovenia. In spite of favourable water conditions and sufficiently high groundwater table, values of PWP between groups were statistically significant, with lower values in the degraded group. Growth and nutrient analysis confirmed differences between the groups, while values of PWP did not indicate water stress.