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The Rapid Agricultural Disaster Assessment Routine (RADAR) is based on the idea that a disaster is the product of extreme factors and a vulnerable agricultural system. This book proposes to move from empirical assessments of disaster impact on agriculture towards model-based approaches. Once an event strikes a region, the user of the procedure should rapidly collect all available geo-referenced and quantitative data on the event and the region.

Awareness of the limitations of a single-species approach to fisheries management has led to global acceptance of the need to adopt a wider ecosystem approach to fisheries (EAF) assessment and management. Applying EAF in management requires the application of scientific methods and tools that also go beyond the single-species approaches which used to be, to a large extent, the exclusive sources of scientific advice. Managers and decision-makers must now find management solutions that take into account the wider range of societal objectives that must be explicitly considered under EAF and the interactions in the ecosystem. Ecosystem models, i.e. models that represent a wider range of technological and ecological processes affecting the species in the ecosystem (including multispecies and whole ecosystem models), are potentially important tools for providing this wider scientific information.

The High-Level Conference which Italy has the honour of hosting and which today I have the honour of inaugurating, represents an extraordinary opportunity for reflection and commitment on crucial issues of our time and is already a significant event on account of such a distinguished attendance, notably of Heads of State and Government. I read this as a sign of awareness and renewed willingness on the part of the leadership of all continents and. together with the world organizations, of the international community as a whole.

The goal of Article II of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is to ensure stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent "dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system".