Improving Homeland Security Decisions
Improving Homeland Security Decisions

Author: Ali E. Abbas

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2017-12-06

Total Pages: 788

ISBN-13: 110821665X

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What are the risks of terrorism and what are their consequences and economic impacts? Are we safer from terrorism today than before 9/11? Does the government spend our homeland security funds well? These questions motivated a twelve-year research program of the National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE) at the University of Southern California, funded by the Department of Homeland Security. This book showcases some of the most important results of this research and offers key insights on how to address the most important security problems of our time. Written for homeland security researchers and practitioners, this book covers a wide range of methodologies and real-world examples of how to reduce terrorism risks, increase the efficient use of homeland security resources, and thereby make better decisions overall.

Highway Safety Research Agenda
Highway Safety Research Agenda

Author: Charles V. Zegeer

Publisher:

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 110

ISBN-13: 9780309283526

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"TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) 756: Highway Safety Research Agenda: Infrastructure and Operations develops a proposed agenda of prioritized safety research needs in the area of highway infrastructure and operations. The report provides options to the U.S. transportation community on how to direct research to the areas where it can provide the most benefit. The agenda is based on a prioritization methodology developed by the research team which can be applied on a recurring basis to update the agenda over time. Both the agenda and the methodology documented in this report will assist government officials, private sector employees, and academics with managing highway safety research. In addition to the report, 16 unpublished appendices (Appendices A-O and R) have been made available electronically."--Publisher description.

Economics of Land Degradation and Improvement – A Global Assessment for Sustainable Development
Economics of Land Degradation and Improvement – A Global Assessment for Sustainable Development

Author: Ephraim Nkonya

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-11-11

Total Pages: 695

ISBN-13: 3319191683

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This volume deals with land degradation, which is occurring in almost all terrestrial biomes and agro-ecologies, in both low and high income countries and is stretching to about 30% of the total global land area. About three billion people reside in these degraded lands. However, the impact of land degradation is especially severe on livelihoods of the poor who heavily depend on natural resources. The annual global cost of land degradation due to land use and cover change (LUCC) and lower cropland and rangeland productivity is estimated to be about 300 billion USD. Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) accounts for the largest share (22%) of the total global cost of land degradation. Only about 38% of the cost of land degradation due to LUCC - which accounts for 78% of the US$300 billion loss – is borne by land users and the remaining share (62%) is borne by consumers of ecosystem services off the farm. The results in this volume indicate that reversing land degradation trends makes both economic sense, and has multiple social and environmental benefits. On average, one US dollar investment into restoration of degraded land returns five US dollars. The findings of the country case studies call for increased investments into the rehabilitation and restoration of degraded lands, including through such institutional and policy measures as strengthening community participation for sustainable land management, enhancing government effectiveness and rule of law, improving access to markets and rural services, and securing land tenure. The assessment in this volume has been conducted at a time when there is an elevated interest in private land investments and when global efforts to achieve sustainable development objectives have intensified. In this regard, the results of this volume can contribute significantly to the ongoing policy debate and efforts to design strategies for achieving sustainable development goals and related efforts to address land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.