A Portal on Sustainability

Land and waste management

04.05.2005 · Research Group on the Global Future

Not only is land the physical entity in terms of its topography and spatial nature but it also includes all natural resources like soils, minerals, water and biota. Expanding human requirements and economic activities are placing increasing pressures on land resources, creating competition and conflicts over land and resulting in suboptimal use of the land. Land Management seeks to integrate these components to achieve a sustainable use of both land and land resources. At the same time, growing production and consumption produce increasing amounts of waste: solid, hazardous, and radioactive waste. New initiatives to avoid, reduce and recycle waste are needed.

UN-ESA's site on land management addresses all of the above issues and gives readers detailed information on documents, decisions and activities by the United Nations. There is a related site on desertification and drought, an aspect of land management that particularly affects developing countries. To get the full picture on UN decisions on land resources management read chapter 10 of Agenda 21.

The World Bank's site on land policy aims at providing policymakers and researchers with information land issues with regard to developing countries. It offers conferences and resulting papers, e.g. on land rights systems and agricultural development in sub-saharan Africa or on land markets in South Asia.

New Ideas in Pollution Regulation (NIPR) is maintained by the World Bank's Economics of Industrial Pollution Control research team and targeted at people and organizations interested in public policy issues relating to the cost-effective control of pollution. It provides extensive resources in related areas, including country briefings, strategies for pollution modeling, and mechanisms of impact of the market. The site focuses on pollution issues related to developing countries and presents a variety of papers. As an example, one shows how pollution can be reduced without formal regulations.