Population, Environment and

Sustainable Development

Photo credit: ©un.org

The research group applies demographic concepts and analytical tools to

empirically assess the complex relationship between population dynamics,
environment and sustainable development. Our approach highlights the
central role human population plays in the global environmental system
both treating it as a determinant of environmental depletion and
addressing the differential impacts of global environmental change on
population dynamics. The empirical studies carried out span across the
global, national and local scales covering historical analysis of past data
and projection exercises into the future.

Key research themes

(i) Demographic differential vulnerability: Based on the population-
centered approach, this theme analyses the differential impacts of global
environmental change (e.g. mortality risk, loss and damage, health) on
subgroups of population. Matching demographic data with environmental
data, we apply existing demographic tools to analyse vulnerability to
environmental change.

(ii) Interactions between human capital and global environmental change:

In collaboration with the group Demography of Education, we explore a
novel research field on how human capital contributes to vulnerability
reduction and to the enhancement of adaptive capacities in the context of
global environmental change. The research agenda also extends to the
assessment of human capital as a driver of sustainable development.
(iii) Application of the demographic metabolism model: We investigate
how the demographic metabolism – aggregate-level change of
composition of a population through generational replacement – explains
and predicts social change, concentrating on sustainable development as
an outcome. Important dimensions of empirical analysis include the role
of human capital (as a key factor in social change through the
demographic metabolism) on social and environmental attitudes,
behaviours, subjective well-being and vulnerability to global
environmental change.

(iv) Climate-induced migration: There is no empirical consensus about the

impacts of climate variability on migration due to data scarcity and to the
lack of comparability of most studies that have been carried out hitherto.
We address this research gap by analysing internal and international
migration flows in the context of climate variability across countries and
over time in collaboration with the Migration group.