Conserving Dryland Biodiversity is intended to raise awareness amongst all stakeholders and galvanise wider action to boost drylands conservation and development. It is a call to action as well as a guide to how dryland conservation and development can be equitably pursued.

This new UN report advocates for a 'good', people centred city of the 21st century. It includes a new City Prosperity Index which shows at a glance how a city is faring in productivity, infrastructure, equity, quality of life and environmental sustainability.

The Global Chemicals Outlook assesses the status of health, environmental, economic and institutional factors related to the production, use, and disposal of chemicals, with a focus on issues relevant to developing countries and countries with economies in transition.

For cities to confront the challenges of fossil fuel depletion, increasing energy costs and rapid climate change, it is inevitable to develop and implement urban energy management solutions for their sustainable future.

A state-of-art assessment of existing monitoring/early warning systems (EWS) organized according to type of environmental threats is presented.

This guide focuses on the effect of unplanned, rapid growth of cities on the functioning of the ecosystems in which they are located. It outlines how development can be guided to ensure the ability of ecosystems to support sustainable human settlement.

The Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development marks 20 years since the historic Earth Summit1 that was instrumental in laying the foundations and charting the course for contemporary sustainable development. This report looks at the issues that pertain to the management, development and use of fresh water resources.

As a significant contribution to Rio+20, the 5th Global Environment Outlook (GEO-5) builds on previous reports and continues to provide analysis of the state, trends and outlook of the global environment.

Rapid urbanization -- together with climate change -- is emerging as the most challenging issue of the twenty-first century. As the region with the highest percentage increase in urban population over the last two decades, Asia faces fundamental economic, social and environmental challenges to its continued development.

This paper explores the type and quality of linkages between the objective of achieving sustainable consumption and production (SCP) patterns, and those of poverty alleviation and sustainable development.