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
- In collaboration with colleagues at Oregon State University and with co-sponsorship from the GEO Human Planet Initiative, PERN is organizing a cyberseminar on Refugee and Internally Displaced Populations, Environmental Impacts and Climate Risks, 10-18 May 2021. For more details visit: https://www.populationenvironmentresearch.org/cyberseminars. The list of panelists will be added soon.
- PERN is pleased to announce that Dr. Kathryn Grace will chair the Scientific Committee until January 2023. Dr. Grace is an Associate Professor of Geography, Environment and Society at the University of Minnesota where her research and teaching focus on topics related to population geography, demography and health. For more information visit https://kathryn-grace.dash.umn.edu/ and https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=qgKdJWMAAAAJ.
- PERN wishes to thank the following Scientific Committee members who rotated off at the beginning of this year for their contributions to the network: Raya Muttarak (chair), Andres Ignacio, Leiwen Jiang, Elma Montaña, David Rain, Brooke Wilmsen, and David Wrathall.
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Conferences/Workshops/Public Discussions
Call for papers. IUSSP – International Population Conference 2021 (IPC 2021) (Virtual and Onsite )
The International Population Conference 2021 (IPC 2021) scheduled to take place in Hyderabad, India, will go on but will now have a completely different format. Instead of being a fully “live” onsite conference, IPC 2021 will be hybrid, most likely a combination of several in-person sessions in India, while most sessions will be virtual. IPC 2021 will run on and around 5-10 December 2021.
If you are working in population and related fields, you are warmly invited to submit an abstract of recent research for presentation in an oral or poster session. All abstracts must be submitted online via the IPC2021 website, which is scheduled to open for submissions on 01 March 2021. Individuals can submit no more than 2 abstracts. The deadline for submissions has been extended to 15 May 2021.
Submissions must include a short, 200-word abstract and an extended (2-4-page) summary describing the topic including theoretical focus, data, research methods, and expected findings. All submissions will be reviewed by 2 anonymous experts on the topic area. Theme conveners will select abstracts for inclusion in the programme based on reviews and the paper’s relevance/ appropriateness for sessions created in the theme.
Population and Environment is one of the conference’s themes.
For more information on the IPC 2021, please see the Call for Papers.
2021 Managed Retreat Conference. At What Point Managed Retreat? Resilience, Relocation and Climate Justice (Virtual Conference)
Building on the success of the 2019 conference on Managed Retreat, the 2021 conference will address a range of scientific, social, policy and governance issues around managed retreat (also known as strategic realignment and planned relocation). The conference, a major initiative of Columbia University's Earth Institute, will bring together stakeholders from the public, private and nonprofit sectors, together with academics, scientists, and community representatives, to help develop a common understanding of this complex issue, and move the needle toward equitable solutions. A major emphasis will be on issues of environmental justice, in recognition that the people most impacted by decisions around retreat have a key role in these conversations.
For more information, see 2021 Conference homepage:
https://adaptation.ei.columbia.edu/content/2021-conference-homepage
Sustainability Research & Innovation Congress 2021 (Virtual and Onsite)
The Sustainability Research & Innovation Congress 2021 (SRI2021) is the world’s first transdisciplinary gathering in sustainability – it will be a space of fierce advocacy for sustainability scholarship, innovation, collaboration and action.
This annual event unites global sustainability leaders, experts, industry and innovators to inspire action and promote a sustainability transformation. For the first time, the Congress will launch as a hybrid event with a diverse and innovative online program alongside onsite participation. In addition to the 100+ sessions available throughout the day and night, thanks to the global reach of SRI and partners, the SRI2021 Online Package includes exclusive events and services, starting as soon as February 2021.
SRI is a joint initiative of Future Earth and the Belmont Forum. Australia, who hosts the Congress in 2021, has a unique role to play in the global community as a conduit between the Global North and the Global South, indigenous peoples and traditional sustainability practices. The local hosting consortium, led by Future Earth Australia and CSIRO, features academia and government partners from Brisbane and the State of Queensland to meet the breadth of the SRI2021 agenda.
For more information, see https://sri2021.org/
Funding/Study/Work Opportunities
Two Post-doctoral positions (French Institute for Demographic Studies (INED))
The French Institute for Demographic Studies (INED) and the iPOPs Laboratory of Excellence are inviting applications for two post-doctoral positions:
• 1 two-year post-doctoral position in one of Ined's 11 units (10 research units and one mixed service unit)
• 1 one-year post-doctoral position in one of iPOPs' 6 partner research centers
Deadline for applications : 3 March 2021, 12:00 PM (noon), Paris time
The applicant must fulfill the following three criteria :
• The applicant must hold a PhD awarded after 03/03/2017, or have defended their dissertation prior to the start date of the post-doctoral contract (12/15/2021 at the latest) in a discipline related to the population sciences, including demography, economics, epidemiology, history and sociology.
• The applicant must not have been hosted at the requested host research institution during their doctoral research for a total period exceeding six months.
• The applicant must have the endorsement of a mentor who commits to support them throughout their period of employment. Applicants should directly contact researchers at INED or in partner laboratories.
There are no nationality or age requirements.
Full information is available at: https://www.ined.fr/en/research/post-doc/Call-for-applications/
Assistant Professor in "Big Data Analytics for Natural Resources" (Department of Natural Resources (NRS) at ITC/University of Twente)
The Department of Natural Resources (NRS) at ITC/University of Twente in The Netherlands seeks to hire an Assistant Professor with expertise in big data analytics.
The Department of Natural Resources aims to enable society to effectively develop and use geo-information and Earth observation knowledge and technologies for agricultural and environmental sustainability. The activities of the department are expanding to address new opportunities in applying increasing volumes of remotely sensing imagery and ancillary GIS data layers for natural resource management at regional, continental, and global levels. The NRS specialise in using large volumes of image data derived from remote sensing that characterise the physical properties of vegetation and the environment from individual leaves, to landscape/ecosystem, and even global levels. Exploiting and modelling these increasingly large volumes of data to inform end users fills important gaps in our understanding of vegetation condition, biodiversity and environmental monitoring, forest management and food security and contribute to new approaches for upscaling and exploiting these data.
This position will complement and expand existing expertise in the NRS department. The position will be a point of contact with ITC's Centre of Expertise in Big Geodata Science. ITC, and this position, are focused on collaboration to develop high-quality research outputs that demonstrate the societal impact of big data and open science.
A full description of the announcement can be found here.
Deadline: 1 March 2021
Masters Scholarship Opportunities for 2021-2022 (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM))
Masters Scholarship Opportunities for 2021-2022 at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)
MSc Demography and Health
MSc Reproductive and Sexual Health Research
Full scholarships available for low and middle income countries (LMIC). See list of countries here
1. LSHTM Fund Scholarship – deadline February 28th 2021 - 2021-22 LSHTM Fund Scholarship
2. GSK Scholarships for Future Health Leaders – deadline February 28th 2021 -2021-22 GSK Scholarships for Future Health Leaders
For further details of the Masters programmes please see the following links:
MSc Demography and Health MSc D and H
MSc Reproductive and Sexual Health Research MSc RSHR
The 2021 Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program
The Intelligence Community (IC) Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program offers scientists and engineers from a wide variety of disciplines unique opportunities to conduct research in a wide range of topics relevant to the Intelligence Community. The research is conducted by the Postdocs, while working in partnership with a Research Advisor and collaborating with an advisor from the Intelligence Community.
In partnership with the Research Advisor, the Postdoc composes and submits a technical proposal that responds to a research opportunity identified at: https://orise.orau.gov/icpostdoc/current-opportunities.html
Award Details:
· Stipends range from $75,000 to $79,000, depending on research location.
· Annual travel budget of up to $6,000
· Appointments for two years, and option to extend for a third year
· Host institutions receive an annual laboratory budget of up to $5,000.
· Advisors receive a $10,000 stipend and a travel budget of up to $2,000.
Postdoc Eligibility:
· U. S. citizenship required
· Ph.D. received within 5 years of the application deadline
Applications Accepted Jan. 4 - Feb. 26, 2021
For more information, see https://orise.orau.gov/icpostdoc/current-opportunities.html
Literature/New Additions to Database
Property rights and climate migration: Adaptive governance in the South Pacific
Using the Solomon Islands as a case study and drawing on multidisciplinary perspectives, the paper suggests an analytical frame for polycentric property system responses to climate migration.
Author(s): Daniel Fitzpatrick, Rebecca Monsonhttps://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12365
Climate Justice and Food Security
Using an exploratory methodology, including analysis of grant allocation by different funding entities in Bangladesh that are engaged with climate‐resilient development interventions, this study synthesizes the climate change policies, strategies, action plans, and climate finance systems In Bangladesh in line with the different resilience paradigms in spatial, racial, ethnic, and social exclusion perspectives and examines climate justice hypothesis in a resilient food security system.
Author(s): Rahaman, Muhammad Abdur; Rahman, Mohammad Mahbuburhttps://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781119402619.ch15
Atlas of the Human Planet 2020
The 2020 edition of the Atlas of the Human Planet presents policy-relevant examples provided by users of Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) products. Following a call for contribution, 34 showcases cover the domains of disaster risk reduction and crisis management, environment, urbanisation, and sustainable development. They were provided by members of the GEO Human Planet Initiative, the European Commission, international organisations including the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the International Organisation for Migration, the World Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, academia as well as the private sector. Each of the showcases demonstrates the added value of open and free geoinformation and provides policy recommendations for its domain. The Atlas discusses also challenges and limitations of current global data sets and provides an outlook on the upcoming GHSL data release 2020 as well as the plan for a future production of the GHSL data under the umbrella of the Copernicus services.
Author(s): KEMPER Thomas, MELCHIORRI Michele, CARNEIRO FREIRE Sergio Manuel, EHRLICH Danielehttps://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC122364/atlas_of_th…, https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/publication/eur-scientific-and-technical-research-re…
Population effects of increase in world energy use and CO2 emissions: 1990-2019
This paper analyses population effects of increase in world energy use and CO2 emissions between 1990-2019 following a decomposition framework with interaction effects. The analysis has also been carried out for the 44 countries which accounted for most of the increase in world energy use and CO2 emissions during 1990-2019. Population growth was found to have a significant effect on both the increase in energy use and CO2 emissions at the global level, although the contribution of population growth to these increases has varied widely across countries. There is a need for integrating population factors in the sustainable development processes, particularly efforts directed towards environmental sustainability.
https://jpopsus.org/full_articles/population-effects-of-increase-in-world-energy…Measuring net environmental impact from population growth and alternative energy
Existing research on the relationship between economic growth and environmental impact has produced mixed results. Also, there has been a lack of attention on the effect of population, and per capita measures are used rather than total pollution. To address this gap, we analyze the role of population and alternative energy on the environment using total carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) in the United States. We propose a new model integrating population demographics into the Environmental Kuznets Curve, and then apply this framework to an empirical analysis. The effect of population and immigration on total CO2 is estimated, as well as the level of alternative energy use required to overcome increasing environmental pressure. Results suggest population and immigration growth may lead to an increase in total CO2 growth, but alternative energy may lower total CO2 growth after a threshold. Further, immigration and total CO2 growth exhibit a nonlinear relationship.
https://jpopsus.org/full_articles/measuring-net-environmental-impact-from-popula…Disaster vulnerability by demographics?
This article provides a brief overview of the relationship between disaster vulnerability and demographic variables. Population numbers and densities are examined along with using a gender focus as illustrative of individual characteristics. For the most part, people’s and society’s choices create vulnerabilities based on demographics rather than specific demographic characteristics inevitably conferring vulnerability.
Author(s): Ilan Kelmanhttps://jpopsus.org/full_articles/disaster-vulnerability-by-demographics/
Anticipating urbanization-led land cover change and its impact on local climate using time series model: a study on Dhaka city
Urbanization-led changes in natural landscape often result in environmental degradation and subsequently contribute to local climate variability. Therefore, apart from global climate change, Dhaka city’s ongoing rapid urban growth may result in altering future local climate patterns significantly. This study explores transition relationships between urbanization (population), land cover, and climate (temperature) of Dhaka city beginning in 1975 through to forecast scenarios up to 2035. Satellite image, geographic, demographic, and climatic data were analyzed. Change in core urban land cover (area) was regarded as a function of population growth and was modeled using linear regression technique. The study developed and validated a time series (ARIMA) model for predicting mean maximum temperature change where (forecasted) land cover scenarios were regressors. Throughout the studied period, the city exhibited an increasing urbanization trend that indicated persistent growth of core urban land cover in future. As a result, the city’s mean maximum temperature was found likely to increase by around 1.5-degree Celsius during 2016-2035 on average from that of observed 1996-2015 period. It is expected that findings of this study may help in recognizing urbanization-led climate change easily, which is crucial to effective climate change management actions and urban planning.
Author(s): Ripan Debnathhttps://jpopsus.org/full_articles/anticipating-urbanization-led-land-cover-chang…
Heat stress risk and vulnerability under climate change in Durban metropolitan, South Africa—identifying urban planning priorities for adaptation
Using a high-resolution downscaled climate change projections under Representative Concentration (RCP) 8.5, the study aim is to investigate current and projected future heat risk, expressed as a heat stress exposure index using high-resolution climate change projections, and a social vulnerability index, to identify areas of potential future heat stress risk in the Durban (eThekwini) metropolitan area, South Africa.
Author(s): Jagarnath, Meryl; Thambiran, Tirusha; Gebreslasie, Michaelhttps://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-020-02908-x
Displaced by climate and disaster-induced relocations: Experiences of cascading displacement in Fiji and the Philippines
The paper explores the the impacts of climate and disaster-induced relocations in Fiji and the Philippines of communities living on, or neighboring, relocation site land.
Author(s): Johnson, Karlee; Mortensen, Sofie; Gueguen-Teil, Cannelle; Torre, Andreea R.https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/disa.12475