LAUSR

1. Overview In the tropics, rural areas are still the place where many people live, despite ongoing urbanization. In tropical Africa, most of the population is still rural and will be so for at least another generation [1,2]. The development of the rural tropics is not merely a contribution to the growth of individual countries. It can be a way of reducing poverty [3,4] and inequalities in access to water [5], health care [6], and education [7] that the process of urbanization is unable to alleviate. However, it can also be a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change if rural development is pursued in a sustainable way. This means stopping deforestation [8]. Then, reducing livestock-related emissions, which now account for 56%, 83%, and 87% of the greenhouse gases produced in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, respectively, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization’s latest estimates [9]. Efforts to achieve sustainable rural development are often thwarted by hydro-climatic disasters (droughts, flooding, heavy rains, typhoons) which local communities are little prepared to tackle. Understanding these disasters, improving preparation, and strengthening governance have become equal priorities of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction [10]. However, the implementation of disaster risk reduction (DRR) at local scale, to achieve the objectives of the Sendai framework, has come across innumerable obstacles. It is often the case that agricultural practices and local planning are not very risk-informed. Climatic information is absent or not accessible locally [11]. Early warning systems and climate services are habitually not constructed with and for the rural communities [12,13]. Exposure and vulnerability are frequently considered as static determinants of risk [14]. Finally, the frequency and quality of DRR mainstreaming in local development plans are low [15,16] or simply unknown [17,18]. These deficiencies are particularly acute in the Tropics, where many Least Developed Countries are located, and where there is, however, great potential for agricultural development [19,20]. This Special Issue aims to investigate ways of increasing local knowledge of risks to contribute to rural development. It also aims to ascertain the status of essential resources, such as water and soil, and identify what undermines their integrity. Finally, it seeks to identify local policies for risk reduction and adaptation. The 22 articles collected here cover case studies from 12 countries. More than half of the articles concern Africa, as the subcontinent contains most of the Earth′s surface in the tropical zone. The 94 authors mobilized cover a wide range of disciplines, such as agronomy, architecture, civil engineering, climatology, earth sciences, ecology, economic policy, environmental engineering, geography, geology, geomatics, hydraulics, materials science, oceanography and atmospheric physics, remote sensing, and spatial and regional planning.