What's New
What’s New? is a current digest of the Population-Environment Research Network (PERN), containing pertinent and up to date information to facilitate research and advance knowledge of population environment relationships. Previous "What’s New" newsletters (pdf) can be found via the "Past Newsletters" menu at the bottom of this page. Also try the top menu links to search/browse Events Calendar, Jobs/Funding, and eLibrary listings by year. Also, check out recent announcements on PERN's Twitter feed and Facebook page
Special Announcements
- A PERN Cyberseminar on “The habitability concept in the field of population-environment studies: relevance and research implications” will take place from 13-17 March 2023. The cyberseminar will be jointly organized with the HABITABLE project and will serve as input for the Columbia Climate School’s 2023 Managed Retreat conference (see next item).
- The Columbia Climate School is organizing its third conference on Managed Retreat from 20-23 June 2023, the theme for which is Habitability and Mobility in an Era of Climate Change. The deadline for the call for sessions is 2 December, and the deadline for the call for paper is 20 January. For more information visit https://adaptation.ei.columbia.edu/managed-retreat-2023.
- Frontiers Forum Planetary Boundaries session with Prof Johan Rockström’s keynote and the discussion with Prof Peng Gong, Prof Felix Dapare Dakora, and Prof Phoebe Koundouri recording is now available here.
Here are the links shared during the session:
• More on the planetary boundaries framework
• Netflix documentary Breaking boundaries: The science of our planet with Johan and Sir David Attenborough
• Books by Johan on the planetary boundaries and how to live within the limits of our planet
• Frontiers in Environmental Economics, focused on research that supports the transition to a sustainable interaction between the economy, society and nature and led by Prof Phoebe Koundouri
The next Forum session takes place November 29 at 11:30-12:45 CET. Climate and coral expert Prof Ove Hoegh-Guldberg will give an update on coral health in his keynote, then discuss how reefs can survive the climate crisis with globally renowned marine scientists.
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Conferences/Workshops/Public Discussions
Call for Submissions: At What Point Managed Retreat?: Habitability and Mobility in an Era of Climate Change (Columbia University)
Building on the success of the 2019 and 2021 conferences on Managed Retreat, the Columbia Climate School is pleased to announce that the next conference, At What Point Managed Retreat?: Habitability and Mobility in an Era of Climate Change, will be held from 20-23 June 2023 at Columbia University. The organizers are inviting session proposals for traditional academic paper sessions, roundtable panels, and workshops, as well as paper and poster presentation abstracts.
The deadline for the call for sessions is 2 December 2022, and the deadline for the call for paper is 20 January 2023.
For a full list of conference themes and submission instructions and forms, visit https://adaptation.ei.columbia.edu/managed-retreat-2023
Call for Papers for Special Issue "Urban Climate and Health"
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Urban and Rural Development".
This Special Issue aims to explore the complex relationships between urban climates and various aspects of human health in cities. Urban climates involve multiple spatial scales such as the building scale, micro scale, and neighborhood scale to larger scales such as the city scale or regional scale. Moreover, the health impact of urban climate ranges from the short term, i.e., days, to the long-term, i.e., decades. This Special Issue represents an effort to better understand the exposure, risks, and different health effects in urban environments considering climate change. We welcome interdisciplinary research that offers new insights into the relationship between urban climates and health issues.
Papers may be submitted from now until 28 February 2023 as papers will be published on an ongoing basis. Submitted papers should not be under consideration for publication elsewhere. We also encourage authors to send a short abstract or tentative title to the Editorial Office in advance (mailto:mada.zhao@mdpi.com).
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
Health risks of air pollution;
Co-exposure to urban pollution and urban heat island;
Heat-related mortality and morbidity;
Urban environment and thermal comfort;
Urban precipitation, flooding, and health risks;
Communicable diseases in urban environments;
Occupational heat exposure, productivity, and concentration;
Climatic change and mental health in cities;
Vulnerability, impact, and adaptation assessments;
Health impact assessments of intervention strategies;
Early warning systems regarding heat health and air pollution
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 28 February 2023
Call for Papers for Special Issue, Vulnerable populations: The role of population dynamics in climate change resilience and adaptation
The proposed special issue of The Journal of Population and Sustainability will focus on population growth as a factor in the resilience and adaptive capacity of communities in facing the impacts of climate change. The editors are interested in publishing papers examining both natural population growth and those considering local growth due to migration, including the effects of urbanisation upon the vulnerability of urban populations to climate change. In addition, papers considering the effects on resilience and adaptation resulting from migration from the Global South to the Global North are welcomed. Moreover, we are particularly interested in papers examining how climate change relates to the vulnerability of particular demographic groups, especially children and women in high fertility countries.
Deadline for full article submissions via the JP&S website: 31 December 2022.
Further enquiries to the editor: editor@jpopsus.org.
X Conference of the Latin American Population Association – ALAP
The X Conference of the Latin American Population Association (ALAP) will take place 6-9 December 2022 in Valparaiso, Chile, first in-person event since 2018. Population & environment topics are included in the Inaugural Plenary and in several regular sessions and roundtables, among them vulnerability and environmental hazards; mobility, environment and policy challenges; and health and environmental change in ecosyndemics contexts.
More information: https://eventos.galoa.com.br/alap-2022/page/1378-inicio
Wittgenstein Centre Conference 2022
The Wittgenstein Centre Conference 2022 on “Population and Climate Change: The Defining Relationship of the 21st Century”, taking place in hybrid format from November 30 to December 2 is available online and registration is open.
Registration link: https://www.oeaw.ac.at/vid/events/calendar/conferences/wic-2022-population-and-climate-change/registration-wic-2022
About the Conference: https://www.oeaw.ac.at/vid/events/calendar/conferences/wic-2022-population-and-climate-change
Call for papers - Advances in Climate Mobility Modeling
The Climate Mobility Section of Frontiers in Climate is pleased to announce a special issue ("Research Topic") on methodological advances in climate mobility modeling. The goal of this Research Topic is to advance the state of the art on climate mobility modeling through the description of modeling data inputs, methods and results. It is hoped that by exploring multiple modeling approaches, modelers will learn from one another, and non-modelers will better understand the complexities of the socio-ecological processes related to this issue. The focus is both on modeling approaches that seek to understand the contributions of climate and other variables to explaining past mobility as well as future-oriented projections.
Topic Editors: Andrea Milan (International Organisation for Migration), Gabriele Standardi (Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change), and Michal Burzynski (Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research)
To learn more or submit an abstract, visit: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/49300/climate-mobility-modeling-methodological-advances-and-future-prospects
Funding/Study/Work Opportunities
Population and Social Data Science Summer Incubator Program at MPIDR, Rostock, Germany
Summer Research Visit: Rostock, Germany, 1 June – 25 August 2023
The Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) Laboratory of Digital and Computational Demography is inviting applications from qualified and highly motivated students for a Summer Research Visit. The goal of the Population and Social Data Science Summer Incubator Program is to enable discovery by bringing together data scientists and population scientists to work on focused, intensive and collaborative projects of broad societal relevance.
For more information, visit the MPIDR website.
Application Deadline: 15 January 2023
IIASA Young Scientist Summer Program 2023 | Call for Applications
The Young Scientist Summer Program (YSSP) at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) is currently accepting applications to its 2023 program.
The program, which takes place from 1 June to 31 August each year, is designed for PhD students (ideally about 2 years prior to receiving their PhD) working on a topic compatible with ongoing research at IIASA and a wish to explore the policy implications of their work. Participants will be working under the direct mentorship of an experienced IIASA scientist in a unique interdisciplinary and international research environment. They will produce a paper (serving as first step towards a publishable journal article) and will get the opportunity to build up contacts for future collaboration within the institute's worldwide network.
Applications of candidates interested in human-centered and population-based approaches to understanding drivers of population change, sustainable development, and wellbeing are particularly welcomed.
More information: https://iiasa.ac.at/train-with-us/yssp-young-scientists-summer-program
Closing date: 12 January 2023, midnight CET)
Research Fellow: Migration, Climate Change, Disasters and Development
Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) Asia is recruiting for a Research Fellow who is an experienced social science researcher with a strong interest and proven track record in designing and implementing successful research projects in the areas of migration, climate change disasters and adaptation. The candidate must also have good listening skills and capacity for collaboration in diverse and dynamic settings.
SEI is an independent international research institute founded in 1989. Its mission is to support decision-making and catalyze and enable change towards sustainable development around the world by providing integrative knowledge that bridges science and policy in the field of environment and development.
Location: Bangkok, Thailand
Type of contract: Full-time, fixed-term, two-year contract with possibility of extension depending on funding availability and performance
Deadline: 14 December 2022
Start date: ASAP
For information on how to apply, see https://www.sei.org/people/jobs/research-fellow-migration-climate-change-disasters-development/
Postdoctoral Scholar – Climate and Urban Health Salud Urbana en América Latina (SALURBAL) (Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Berkeley)
The SALURBAL project at UC Berkeley is seeking a postdoctoral scholar to work in the area of climate change and urban health and health inequalities beginning January 2023. This is part of a large, multisite, research group (Salud Urbana en American Latina - SALURBAL) involving several institutions across the United States and Latin America. The position is for one year, full time, with renewal for up to one more year contingent on funding.
SALURBAL seeks to enhance our understanding of how complex changes in urban environments affect health and health inequalities among Latin America’s urban residents of 370 plus large cities. Within SALURBAL, there is increasing interest and support for examining how climate-mediated exposures and natural hazards affect urban health, including some recent publications available here, here and here. All SALURBAL publications are open access.
At UC Berkeley, the project is housed at the Institute of Transportation Studies and is led by a team involving Professor Daniel A. Rodriguez (City and Regional Planning) and Professor Iryna Dronova (Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning and Environmental Sciences and Policy). The scholar will join a postdoctoral scholar at Berkeley currently working in SALURBAL. Prior scholars are now in faculty positions at the National University of Singapore, University of Michigan, Nanjing University, University of Haifa, and Universitat Rovira i Virgili.
Responsibilities and Duties
65% - Conduct research activities including: leading and contributing to manuscripts on climate and health; participating and potentially leading working groups on themes of interest (e.g., floods, heat, air pollution, green spaces, blue spaces); monitoring and reporting the progress of the project components; and working with other postdoctoral scholars and SALURBAL researchers; presenting work at conferences.
25% - Project management and coordination. Work with project leads at Berkeley to collect and analyze climatic and spatial data on urban heat; document and catalogue the data collected and developed; transmit and coordinate data analysis with biostatistics experts; organize and run internal and external virtual meetings for both projects.
10% - Participation in other SALURBAL activities; training and skills development; participation in UC Berkeley seminars and development opportunities; and attending bi-monthly SALURBAL virtual meetings; and meeting regularly with the UC Berkeley team
Basic Qualifications:
The successful candidate must hold, or be about to be conferred, a doctoral degree in Public or Community Health, City and Regional Planning, Geography, Environmental Sciences, Engineering, or related fields.
Preferred Qualifications:
Candidates that enjoy working in a multidisciplinary team environment that values problem solving skills and creativity will be given particular attention.
• Expertise in either climate-related urban hazards or in climate-related health outcomes.
• A broad understanding of the connections between the built and the natural environment and health
• Considerable experience with statistical methods and related statistical software (R, SAS, Stata, Matlab, Python, or the like)
• Experience and interest in drafting manuscripts for publication in peer-reviewed journals
• A desire to conduct urban research in the Global South
• Detail-oriented, extremely organized, and comfortable with multitasking
• Excellent oral, written, analytical, organizational, and interpersonal skills
• Team oriented and experienced working with diverse groups of investigators and trainees
• Some expertise in using geographic information systems (GIS) or Google Earth Engine
• Some working knowledge of Spanish and/or Portuguese a plus
Salary and Benefits:
Salary will be commensurate with experience and qualifications based on negotiated pay scales available here. We are interested in candidates who will contribute to diversity and equal opportunity in higher education through their work. UC Berkeley offers excellent health and welfare packages. It also has a number of policies and programs in place to support employees as they balance work and family. Information on available plans and eligibility can be found here.
To be considered for the postdoctoral scholar position:
Please submit a cover letter (usually one to two pages) to danrod@berkeley.edu with subject line “SALURBAL postdoc” stating the applicant's interest in the project, prior research experience and/or projects of particular relevance, areas of interest, key competencies, and anticipated date of availability. Include also a full CV and the names of three references.
The University of California is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, age or protected veteran status. For the complete University of California nondiscrimination and affirmative action policy see: http://policy.ucop.edu/doc/4000376/NondiscrimAffirmAct.
Literature/New Additions to Database
Gender and climate action
Using unique survey data from the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA), the paper examines whether men and women differ in their views regarding their support for climate policy and in undertaking climate action in their everyday lives.
Author(s): Niklas Elert, Erik Lundinhttps://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-022-00397-x
A machine learning analysis of drought and rural population change on the North American Great Plains since the 1970s
In this study, to look for possible connections between drought and rural population loss on the North American Great Plains between 1970 and 2020, the study uses machine learning techniques in the form of random forest and regression tree analyses.
Author(s): Robert McLeman, Clara Grieg, George Heath, Colin Robertsonhttps://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-022-00399-9
Does a prolonged hardship reduce life span? Examining the longevity of young men who lived through the 1930s Great Plains drought
To investigate whether young men’s exposure to drought and dust storms in 341 Great Plains counties was linked to a higher risk of death in early-old age, the author use a new, massive, linked mortality dataset drawn from CenSoc-DMF.
Author(s): Serge Atherwoodhttps://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-022-00398-w
Modeling population density guided by land use-cover change model: a case study of Bogotá
In this research, the authors propose a supervised machine learning approach, Random Forest, for population density appraisal in a large and dense developing city.
Author(s): Luis A. Guzman, Ricardo Camacho, Arturo Rodriguez Herrera, Carlos Beltránhttps://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-022-00400-5
London congestion charge: the impact on air pollution and school attendance by socioeconomic status
In this paper, the authors investigate how more stringent traffic regulations implemented in Central London from late 2015 affected pollution levels and school absences.
Author(s): Risto Conte Keivabu, Tobias Rüttenauerhttps://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-022-00401-4
International Handbook of Population and Environment
Provides readers theoretical perspectives (both macro and micro), data, methods and research findings that would help readers better understand the complexities within population-environment connections.
Author(s): Lori M. Hunter, Clark Gray, Jacques Véronhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76433-3
Integrated water balance and water quality management under future climate change and population growth: a case study of Upper Litani Basin, Lebanon
Because of the impacts of the growing population in Lebanon together with the changing climate, the Bekaa Valley’s water resources is in a precarious situation. In this study, the impacts on water balance and water quality for a 2013 baseline and future scenarios are simulated using the Water Evaluation And Planning model.
Author(s): R. Abou Slaymane, M. R. Solimanhttps://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-022-03385-0
Spatial heterogeneity in drinking water sources in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA), Ghana
The authors analyzed census data to examine the spatial heterogeneity in drinking water sources and neighborhood income in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA), the largest urban agglomeration in Ghana using the Shannon Entropy Index and the Index of Concentration at the Extremes at the enumeration area level.
Author(s): Jacob Doku Tetteh, Michael R. Templeton, Alicia Cavanaugh, Honor Bixby, George Owusu, Sandow Mark Yidana, Simon Moulds, Brian Robinson, Jill Baumgartner, Samuel Kobina Annim, Rosalind Quartey, Samilia E. Mintah, Ayaga Agula Bawah, Raphael E. Arku, Majid Ezzati, Samuel Agyei-Mensahhttps://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-022-00407-y
Gender and climate change adaptation: A case of Ethiopian farmers
This study examines the existing gender gap in climate change adaptations among farmers in Ethiopia and factors contributing to this relationship using data from 2279 farm households in Ethiopia and applying a multivariate probit model and exogenous switching treatment effect regression method.
Author(s): Jeetendra Prakash Aryal, Tek Bahadur Sapkota, Dil Bahadur Rahut, Hom Nath Gartaula, Clare Stirlinghttps://doi.org/10.1111/1477-8947.12259
Rural out-migration as a coping strategy in the drought-prone areas of Rarh region of Eastern India
For this study, 82 of a total of 190 households in the Rarh region (a region between Chota Nagpur Plateau and the Ganges Delta) of West Bengal were randomly selected for collection of data to investigates the importance of temporary migration as a coping strategy in times of drought.
Author(s): Manoj Debnath, Debendra Kumar Nayakhttps://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12908
The effect of natural disasters on nuptiality: evidence from L’Aquila earthquake (Italy)
This paper provides an original conceptual framework examining whether and how natural disasters exert any influence on nuptiality by drawing on socio-psychology and economics literature contributions.
Author(s): Lorenzo Cicatiello, Salvatore Ercolano, Giuseppe Lucio Gaeta, Benedetta Parentihttps://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-022-00396-y
Disaster, demographics, and vulnerability: Interrogating the long-term effects of an extreme weather event
This article examines the long-term sociodemographic impacts of that weather event and reveals dramatic changes in fertility, mortality, and nuptialityis based on analysis of church records and population censuses of 22 mountain parishes over a 21-year period.
Author(s): Cristina García-Hernándezhttps://doi.org/10.1111/1745-5871.12550
Women political empowerment and vulnerability to climate change: evidence from 169 countries
This article analyzed the effect of the political empowerment of women on vulnerability to climate change in 169 countries for the period 1995–2017.
Author(s): Simplice A. Asongu, Omang O. Messono, Keyanfe T. J. Guttemberghttps://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-022-03451-7
Climate change and non-migration — exploring the role of place relations in rural and coastal Bangladesh
Through 60 semi-structured interviews of individuals from four communities in the Kalapara region, the paper examines the complex dimensionality of non-migration as a form of place relations.
Author(s): M. M. Golam Rabbani, Matthew Cotton, Richard Friendhttps://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-022-00402-3
The demographic characteristics of populations living near oil and gas wells in the USA
Using well location data and population characteristics from the American Community Survey, this study documents the prevalence of historically marginalized populations (across age, income, education, race-ethnicity, and language) living near active oil and gas wells throughout the USA, at both local and aggregated scales.
Author(s): Jeremy Proville, Katherine A. Roberts, Adam Peltz, Lisa Watkins, Elizabeth Trask, Dustin Wiersmahttps://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-022-00403-2
As California burns: the psychology of wildfire- and wildfire smoke-related migration intentions
The authors surveyed a representative sample of 1108 California residents following the 2020 wildfire season to better understand how perceptions and personal experience inform wildfire- and smoke-associated migration intentions.
Author(s): Nina Berlin Rubin, Gabrielle Wong-Parodihttps://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-022-00409-w
Environmental and socioeconomic determinants of neonatal mortality in a northern Italian city in the early nineteenth century
Individual data, relative to the resident population of Udine, a city in northeastern Italy, under French domination (1806–1815) have been used to explore the effects of the environment on neonatal mortality in the early nineteenth century, controlling for social and economic factors.
Author(s): Alessio Fornasin, Laura Rizzihttps://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-022-00405-0
Putting climate-induced migration in context: the case of Honduran migration to the USA
This paper will discuss how and if climatic factors can be isolated from other factors to explain recent Honduran migration behavior, in order to move towards a holistic explanation of climate-driven migration by drawing on ethnographic studies of Honduran coffee farmers.
Author(s): Daniel R. Reichmanhttps://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-022-01946-8