Full text of _World Resources 1996-97: A Guide to the Global Environment_, produced by the World Resources Institute, United Nations Environment Programme, United Nations Development Programme, and World Bank, is available via the Web. It is the official source book for the United Nations Habitat II Conference being held in Istanbul, Turkey June 3-14, 1996. The tenth edition of _World Resources_ contains two major sections, Global Conditions and Trends and Data Tables, and The Urban Environment, a special section concentrating on how urban population growth is affecting the global environment. Major findings include: "more than half of humankind will live in urban areas by the end of the century, and 60 percent by 2020; by 2010 the number of motor vehicles could grow to more than 800 million; and, by 2050, as many as 2.4 billion people could live in countries facing water scarcity." The report is available in HTML, and the data tables and Executive Summary are available as Adobe Acrobat .pdf files. Acrobat may be downloaded from the site. Print version availability and pricing can be found on the home page at the bottom of the News Release and under "Ordering Information."
http://www.wri.org/wri/wr-96-97/index.html
Habitat II Conference:
http://pan.cedar.univie.ac.at/habitat/habitat.html
http://www.un.org/Conferences/habitat/