Springer Science and Business Media LLC

The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, enacted in 2000, is a $7.8 billion federal/state investment in restoring the Florida Everglades ecosystem. The plan is a negotiated compromise between divergent interests in south Florida and promises to provide water and flood control for urban and agricultural users while maintaining a priority commitment to the natural system when allocating water “produced” by the 30-year project. The environmental community calls for independent scientific review of un-tested technologies, early and substantial hydrologic benefits to the remaining Everglades, including Everglades National Park, and strong programmatic regulations of the federal project to ensure that ecological restoration remains its primary purpose in spite of inherently conflicting interests at the state and local level.

The vast majority of conflicts in Africa occur in biodiversity hotspots, threatening efforts to conserve protected natural environments and endangered species. This research contributes to the sparse literature on conflict exposure and environmental conservation behaviors by examining the factors that moderate this relationship. Analyzing data from a population-representative survey of households in a conflict-affected region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, we examine the effect of conflict exposure on two harmful behaviors: hunting and/or farming in a protected environmental area. We find that exposure to conflict-related abuses—measured a number of different ways—is strongly associated with an individual’s likelihood to engage in harmful environmental practices. We also found that individuals with lower resilience scores had higher odds of engaging in harmful environmental practices, and that owning land was associated with lower odds of hunting or farming in protected areas. These findings suggest that programs promoting pro-conservation livelihoods may help mitigate trends to exploit the natural environment in post-conflict situations.

Uncertainty around long-term droughts and water scarcity has been increasing as the impacts of El Nino cycles are felt globally. Understanding how the effects of these events are manifested on the ground in communities is particularly important if governments and associated agencies are to respond appropriately. Using a qualitative approach, this paper examines the impacts of drought on two rural towns in Victoria, Australia, and explores what lessons can be drawn from local experiences. The research suggests that previous responses to drought by governments have been largely ineffectual and as such, we question whether there is a need to reshape institutional understandings of what adapting to drought might mean. This research, therefore, seeks to further the discussion surrounding drought impacts and the myriad of challenges associated with it by drawing on locally situated knowledge to inform future decision-making in this evolving field of study.

The premise of affirmative action in the Sixties was that it was a temporary intervention necessary to help blacks overcome the legacy of slavery and segregation. Three decades later, affirmative action encompasses many other groups and has spread to a wide variety of programs. The growth, diversity, and increasing prosperity of non-black affirmative action groups, however, raises questions about the future role of race and ethnic preferences.

Rapid growth and globalization of the domestic economy have dramatically accelerated urbanization in China, resulting in significant environmental impacts and challenges for sustainable development. Using a multistate model accounting for distributional aspects of age, sex, education, and migration in rural and urban regions, we estimate the magnitude of urbanization in China through 2030 and examine some major associated sustainability issues. Results indicate that: (1) for a range of assumptions, China’s urban population will nearly double from 2000 to 2030; (2) the labor force will constitute a larger share of total population in urban areas than rural due to internal migration of younger workers—this appears particularly true for the mega-urban metropolises of Beijing and Shanghai; (3) rural populations will experience more aging than urban; and (4) level of education among China’s rural labor force will remain low, which could pressure China’s industrial structural transition from an agricultural to a service-based economy.

Disaster research has drawn attention to how natural hazards transform local organizational dynamics and social inequalities. It has yet to examine how these processes unfold together over time. We begin to fill this gap with a county-level, longitudinal analysis that examines how property damages from natural hazards correlate not only with local shifts in poverty a year later but also counts of for-profit as well as bonding and bridging social capital organizations. Results show that poverty and all organizational types tend to increase with local hazard damages. They also show that poverty tends to increase most where the number of bonding social capital organizations is also increasing. This pattern suggests a Janus-faced dynamic in which bonding, or more inwardly focused, organizations that arise after disaster may end up inadvertently marginalizing those in more dire need.

Climate change and attendant weather events are global phenomena with wide-ranging implications for migration and health. We argue that while these issues are inherently interrelated, little empirical or policy attention has been given to the three-way nexus between climate vulnerability, migration, and health. In this Review, we develop a conceptual model to guide research on this three-way nexus. In so doing, we apply our conceptual model to a range of case studies, including Bangladesh, Mexico, Myanmar, and the USA. They illustrate that climate vulnerability-migration-health interlinkages are context specific, varying by political, economic, demographic, social, and environmental factors unique to each population and place. Even so, the case studies also demonstrate that overarching themes amenable to policy can be identified. Global organizations and researchers from a multiplicity of disciplinary backgrounds have strong imperatives and unique but often overlooked capacity to innovate and experiment in addressing climate vulnerability-migration-health interlinkages. We call for research and policy focus on these issues and suggest targeted efforts to begin mitigating migration and health issues associated with global climate change.