USGS Environmental Sciences Strategies Released for 2012

Recently, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) released a series of scientific strategies for various areas relating to environmental law.  For more information on these reports see below:

• Climate and Land Use Change Science Strategy: A Framework for Understanding and Responding to Global Change (USGS Circular: 1383-A 2013). Report 56 pp.

• Core Science Systems Strategy:Characterizing, Synthesizing, and Understanding the Critical Zone Through a Modular Science Framework (USGS Circular: 1383-B 2013). Report 44 pp.

• Ecosystems Science Strategy: Advancing Discovery and Application Through Collaboration (USGS Circular: 1383-C 2013). Report 56 pp.

• Energy and Minerals Science Strategy: A Resource Lifecycle Approach (USGS Circular: 1383-D 2013). Report 52 pp.

• Environmental Health Science Strategy: Providing Environmental Health Science for a Changing World (USGS Circular: 1383-E 2013). Report 56 pp.

• Natural Hazards Science Strategy: Promoting the Safety, Security, and Economic Well-being of the Nation (USGS Circular: 1383-F 2013). Report 96 pp.

• Water Science Strategy: Observing, Understanding, Predicting, and Delivering Water Science to the Nation (USGS Circular: 1383-G 2013). Report 63 pp.

World Bank Book Released: Transforming Cities with Transit: Transit and Land-Use Integration for Sustainable Urban Development

Recently, the World Bank, a partnership established in 1944, that provides "financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world" released a book titled, Transforming Cities with Transit: Transit and Land-Use Integration for Sustainable Urban Development (2013).  The 233-page report, available here (scroll down to download), discusses how the book,

Transforming Cities with Transit explores the complex process of transit and land-use integration in rapidly growing cities in developing countries. As one of the most promising strategies for advancing environmental sustainability, economic competitiveness, and socially inclusive development in fast-growing cities, transit and land-use integration is increasingly being embraced by policy-makers at all levels of government.

This book focuses on identifying barriers to and opportunities for effective coordination of transport infrastructure and urban development. Global best-case practices of transit-oriented metropolises that have direct relevance to cities in developing countries are first introduced. Key institutional, regulatory, and financial constraints that hamper integration and opportunities to utilize transit to guide sustainable urban development are examined in selected cities in developing countries. For this, the book analyzes their Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems and their impact on land development. The book formulates recommendations and implementation strategies to overcome barriers and take advantage of opportunities.

It asserts that unprecedented opportunities have and will continue to arise for the successful integration of transit and land development in much of the developing world. Many cities in developing countries currently exhibit the pre-requisites - e.g., rapid growth, rising real incomes, and increased motorization and congestion levels - for BRT and railway investments to trigger meaningful land-use changes in economically and financially viable ways. Recommendations for creating more sustainable cities of the future range from macro-level strategies that influence land development and governance at the metropolitan scale to micro-level initiatives, like Transit Oriented Development (TOD), that can radically transform development patterns at the neighborhood level.

The book will be of interest to a wide and diverse audience, including mayors, council members and other national and local policy makers, urban and transportation planners, transit-agency officials, and developers and staff of development financial institutions and others involved with TOD projects in rapidly growing and motorizing cities of the developing world.

USGS Paper Released: Status and Trends of Land Change in the United States--1973 to 2000

Recently, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) released a report titled Status and Trends of Land Change in the United States--1973 to 2000 (2012) (USGS Professional Paper: 1794). The 336-page paper available here, "is the first in a four-volume series on the status and trends of the Nation’s land use and land cover, providing an assessment of the rates and causes of land-use and land-cover change in the Western United States between 1973 and 2000. Volumes B, C, and D provide similar analyses for the Great Plains, the Midwest–South Central United States, and the Eastern United States, respectively."

National Academies Report Released: Disaster Resilience: A National Imperative

Recently, the National Academies Press (NAP) released a report produced by the Committee on Increasing National Resilience to Hazards and Disasters; Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy; and the The National Academies titled, Disaster Resilience: A National Imperative (2012). The 244-page report is available free with a one-time registration. According to the abstract,

No person or place is immune from disasters or disaster-related losses. Infectious disease outbreaks, acts of terrorism, social unrest, or financial disasters in addition to natural hazards can all lead to large-scale consequences for the nation and its communities. Communities and the nation thus face difficult fiscal, social, cultural, and environmental choices about the best ways to ensure basic security and quality of life against hazards, deliberate attacks, and disasters. Beyond the unquantifiable costs of injury and loss of life from disasters, statistics for 2011 alone indicate economic damages from natural disasters in the United States exceeded $55 billion, with 14 events costing more than a billion dollars in damages each.

One way to reduce the impacts of disasters on the nation and its communities is to invest in enhancing resilience--the ability to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from and more successfully adapt to adverse events. Disaster Resilience: A National Imperative addresses the broad issue of increasing the nation's resilience to disasters. This book defines "national resilience", describes the state of knowledge about resilience to hazards and disasters, and frames the main issues related to increasing resilience in the United States. It also provide goals, baseline conditions, or performance metrics for national resilience and outlines additional information, data, gaps, and/or obstacles that need to be addressed to increase the nation's resilience to disasters. Additionally, the book's authoring committee makes recommendations about the necessary approaches to elevate national resilience to disasters in the United States.

Enhanced resilience allows better anticipation of disasters and better planning to reduce disaster losses-rather than waiting for an event to occur and paying for it afterward. Disaster Resilience confronts the topic of how to increase the nation's resilience to disasters through a vision of the characteristics of a resilient nation in the year 2030. Increasing disaster resilience is an imperative that requires the collective will of the nation and its communities. Although disasters will continue to occur, actions that move the nation from reactive approaches to disasters to a proactive stance where communities actively engage in enhancing resilience will reduce many of the broad societal and economic burdens that disasters can cause.

Third Symposium on Advanced Legal Topics in Land Conservation -- Land Trust Alliance CLE

Third Symposium on Advanced Legal Topics in Land Conservation June 11-12, 2012 | Charleston, SC. 

Gather with your colleagues to take advantage of this rare opportunity to discuss and contribute insight on these complex legal issues:
• Using common sense and administrative discretion in stewardship decisions
• Translating the flurry of Tax Court decisions into conservation documents
• Considering the legal and governance implications of creative financing and unusual transactions
• Litigating conservation disputes and perspective on records and evidence
• Exercising due diligence in mitigation projects for land trusts
• Discussing technical details relating to whether current oil and gas extraction practices are consistent with upholding conservation purposes

All while earning your CLE’s!

Landscapes: Improving Conservation Practice in the Northeast Megaregion -- RPA and America 2050

Landscapes: Improving Conservation Practice in the Northeast Megaregion from the Regional Plan Association and American 2050 (Feb. 2012)  finds that "Buying land isn’t enough. Building parks

won’t get it done. Restoring forests and wetlands by themselves is not an answer. Successful conservation requires a comprehensive, regional approach.

Landscape conservation means looking beyond property boundaries and political jurisdictions.... With funding scarce, it’s also crucial to build partnerships that can set mutual priorities, share resources and collaborate effectively....

This is especially true for complex geographies like the 13-state Northeast megaregion.... Its cities, suburbs and rural areas are expected to add an additional 15 million people by the year 2040. Where these people are housed, and how their transportation and energy needs are met, will dictate whether the region’s wildlife, drinking water and other resources, farms and forests, and outdoor recreational opportunities are truly lasting.

Landscape conservation initiatives can bring together the diverse interests critical for conservation success in the Northeast and elsewhere.... Such collaboration can enable the conservation community to align protection and management of individual properties while providing a platform for engaging non-traditional partners in their work. 

This report offers a summary of the work landscape conservation initiatives are doing in the Northeast megaregion. Specific examples on how landscape practitioners are carrying out their work are highlighted throughout the document.... The survey was used to identify the major challenges facing landscape conservation, including urban growth and land-use change, investments in transportation, water and energy infrastructure, climate change and limited funding for conservation and management.... Maps and analyses of infrastructure investments, energy resources and climate change similarly help paint a mega-regional-scale picture of challenges and opportunities.

Potomac Conservancy Report: State of the Nation's River 2010

This report Farms and Forests: Rural Land Use in the Potomac Watershed, highlights the value of our natural and working landscapes, as well as the pressures facing both from man-made causes, primarily development.

The report makes the case for placing a high value on forested lands, and also appropriately scaled and well-managed farms, by recognizing the value of such lands when compared to developed or built environments. We highlight the importance of rural lands in this developing watershed, and discuss the stressors that are currently affecting the health of lands and waters in the Potomac region.

The potential for significant pollution from agricultural lands does not diminish the cultural and economic importance of farming. Pollution from nutrients, disease-causing organisms such as E. coli and carcinogens and mutagens such as endocrine disrupting compounds from antibiotics, herbicides, and pesticides can be lessened with adherence to best management practices.

From Sprawl to Sustainability

This ABA sponsored CLE teleconference on July 20, 2010 will offer ways to develop effective wealth producing sustainable growth systems that produce quality of life, revitalize neighborhoods, conserve agricultural and sensitive environmental land, combat climate change, and reduce air pollution and energy usage.

Communities Tackle Global Warming: A Guide to California’s SB 375

This publication by the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) dated June 2009 is a guide to California’s Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act, or SB 375, the nation’s first legislation to link transportation and land use planning with global warming.

The report claims that locating homes closer to jobs and transportation choices creates walkable communities and can improve quality of life, reduce commute times and cut millions of tons of global warming pollution. It also features a photo simulation of how communities could come alive after mixed-use development and improved street design bring pedestrian activity into the area."

Condemnation Hot Topics CLE

This ABA teleconference will examine new and important condemnation cases and trends, and also review eminent domain as a backdrop for land use regulation.

Date: Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Format: Teleconference and Live Audio Webcast
Duration: 90 minutes

$90 Section of State and Local Government Law Members
$130 ABA Members
$150 General Public
$60 Each additional registrant using the same phone line

Environmental Effects of Agricultural Land-Use Change: The Role of Economics and Policy

This Report (Economic Research Report Number 25) from the United States Department of Agriculture examines the relationship between agricultural land-use changes, soil productivity, and indicators of environmental sensitivity. If cropland that shifts in and out of production is less productive and more environmentally sensitive than other cropland, policy-induced changes in land use could have production effects that are smaller—and environmental impacts that are greater—than anticipated. To illustrate this possibility, this report examines environmental outcomes stemming from landuse conversion caused by two agricultural programs that others have identified as potentially having important influences on land use and environmental quality: Federal crop insurance subsidies and the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), the Nation’s largest cropland retirement program. The report finds that lands moving between cultivated cropland and less intensive agricultural uses are, on average, less productive and more vulnerable to erosion than other cultivated lands, both nationally and locally. These lands are also associated with greater potential nutrient runoff and leaching compared with cultivated cropland nationally. Crop insurance subsidies and CRP have estimated effects on erosion and other environmental factors that are disproportionate to the acreage and production effects, but specific environmental impacts vary with the features of each program.

2009 Northeast Land Trust Regional Conference

The Land Trust Alliance 2009 Northeast Regional Conference will take place at The Thayer Hotel, West Point, NY on April 29-30, 2009. The conference offers two days of learning and networking, including full-day seminars and roundtable discussions. Registration information and full brochure available in February.

Condemnation 101: How To Prepare and Present an Eminent Domain Case

This continuing legal education program sponsored by ALI_ABA provides an introduction (or refresher) to basic concepts and techniques of preparing and presenting an eminent domain case. The program will take place January 8-10, 2009 at the Eden Roc Resort in Miami Beach, FL. A webcast version is also available.