The latest Intersections issue looks at the social impacts of global climate change and examines how people living in the low elevation coastal zones are adapting to global sea level rise by migrating. These living spaces are increasingly hit by storms and floods forcing people to find strategies to cope with these environmental threats. For many coastal populations, migration has become one means of adaptation and survival.

Download the issue No. 7/2009 here.

The InterSecTions No.6 “Living with Vulnerability” draws the reader's attention to look at vulnerable groups with a new lens—a lens that requires a pragmatic approach to vulnerability which is dynamic and may resist technological change. The title chosen by the author Prof. Bohle also invites the reader to view the vulnerable as agents reacting to and shaping their own resilience.

Download the issue No. 6/2007 here.

The present issue of InterSecTions is a special one. Control, Adapt or Flee: How to Face Environmental Migration? is the first issue which is written by a team: Fabrice Renaud, Janos J. Bogardi, Olivia Dun and Koko Warner. All authors are staff members of UNU-EHS. The interdisciplinary characteristics of InterSecTions are well emphasized when one looks at the academic background of the authors having degrees in so different areas as soil science, civil engineering, refugee studies and economics.

Download the issue No. 5/ 2007.

UNU-EHS is proud to present the new issue of InterSecTions, written by Professor Dr. Bharat H. Desai. He gives an excellent and thought provoking account of creeping institutionalization of the global environmental governance. His “story” is not only proving that environment is as much a legal as a security issue. It goes well beyond the fields of his legal expertise as he analyses the creeping institutionalization from the point of view of psychology of the state actors. The reader can follow page by page how the growing environmental awareness is being translated into multilateral actions, treaties including the “thickening web” of Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) and the “softness of hard law”.

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In this essay, Dr. Rechkemmer outlines how global governance and UN reform endeavours hold both challenges and opportunities for improving the environment and enhancing human security. In this context, the state of the environment can be defined as a challenge or even a threat for the collective security, while the Millennium Development Goals clearly refer to environmental sustainability as a key component of human security and stability. The author urges us to emphasize the strong links between these two dimensions in the ongoing institutional reform process. He argues that a holistic consideration of the security relevant aspects of environmental problems would not only help to mainstream the environmental concerns into the international political agenda and strengthen the corresponding institutions, but also enhance human security for all.

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The concept of human security has evolved in recent years. Human security puts the individual, its environment and livelihood at the centre of debate, analysis and policy. Safeguarding it, requires a new approach and a better understanding of many interrelated variables – social, political, economic, technological and environmental – factors that determine the impacts on human security. There are manifold challenges to human security. The United Nations University (UNU) Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) was created to assess the vulnerability and coping capacity of societies facing natural and human-induced hazards in a changing environment.

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Creeping environmental deteriorations – even if their consequences entail economic loss as well as a direct threat to the survival of human societies – are among the hidden and forgotten disasters. As knowledge-based awareness raising of political decision makers, the public, scientists and the media is one of the most prominent tasks of UNU-EHS, the present issue of InterSecTions, the publication series of UNU-EHS, is dedicated to address one of the most menacing ‘hidden disasters’ currently affecting human security, namely land degradation. InterSecTions is being published and presented at the UN World Conference on Disaster Reduction (January 2005 in Kobe, Hyogo, Japan), where all these target groups shall gather.

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The publications series of UNU-EHS, ‘InterSecTions’, aims to contribute to the achievements of these objectives. Its name includes interdisciplinarity, the key scientific feature of all endeavours of the Institute.