8 March 2013, Geneva/Rome – Droughts cause the deaths and displacement of more people than cyclones, floods and earthquakes combined, making them the world’s most destructive natural hazard. Yet while droughts are expected to increase in frequency, area and intensity due to climate change, effective drought management policies are missing...

27 August 2012, Stockholm/Rome - Drought in some parts of the world has hurt global grain production and contributed to food price spikes virtually every other year since 2007, highlighting the need to transform the way water is used - and wasted - throughout the entire food chain. This is one...

Regional water experts will gather in Nairobi 29-31 May. Some 2.5 billion people worldwide depend solely on groundwater resources to satisfy their daily needs for water and hundreds of millions of farmers rely on groundwater to sustain their livelihoods. Yet most if not all aquifers are not being sustainably managed to conserve...

Lack of water limits the ability of farmers to produce enough food to eat or earn a living. 22 March 2012, Rome - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today said that producing enough food to feed the world's rapidly growing population will require the international community to ensure the sustainable use of...

FAO is helping to rehabilitate Afghanistan’s traditional irrigation systems. 14 February 2012, Rome - The UN Food and Agriculture Organization is boosting its technical support for rehabilitation of Afghanistan's dilapidated traditional irrigation systems, in a bid to help farmers increase crop production. The initiative also aims to improve the knowledge and...

Widespread degradation and deepening scarcity of land and water resources have placed a number of key food production systems around the globe at risk, posing a profound challenge to the task of feeding a world population expected to reach 9 billion...

17 November 2011, Rome/Bonn - As pressure on the world's water resources reaches unsustainable levels in an increasing number of regions, a "business-as-usual" approach to economic development and natural resource management will no longer be possible, FAO said today.  Agriculture will be key to the implementation of sustainable water management, the...

Rapid population growth and natural resource degradation in the Nile River Basin pose the risk of intensified hunger and poverty in the region and require better, more forward-looking development planning to prevent that from happening, FAO said today. The warning came...

Coordinated by FAO Natural Resources Department, through its Land and Water Division, and on behalf of UN-Water members and partners, the World Water Day in 2012 is intended to draw the international attention on the relationships between water & food. Below...

THE REPORT A major objective of the State of the World's Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture (SOLAW) is primarily to raise awareness on the status of land and water resources, at the same time it scopes and inform on...