"The Impact of Environmental Degradation on Migration Flows across Countries" - Working Paper No. 5/2008 by Tamer Afifi and Koko Warner out now

In the latest working paper the authors try to answer the question whether environmental degradation may contribute to forced migration. A gravity regression model is used to detect the impact of global environmental factors on the migration flows across countries of the world. To the knowledge of the authors, this working paper is the first to include environmental variables in a gravity model, and it is shown that environment has a positive significant impact on migration, which until now has been considered unrelated.

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Professor Úrsula Oswald Spring, the first chairholder of the MRF-Chair on Social Vulnerability at UNU-EHS, provides here thoughts about gender and security issues and shows challenges and opportunities of disaster risk management. Gender is considered as an aspect of social vulnerability, as women all over the world are the centre of not only the family unit, but of the whole society.

Oswald Spring calls therefore for renewed efforts to reduce social vulnerability by critically examining gender specific beliefs that lead to violence and victimization. The publication is a great contribution to understand more about the gender aspects of risk and vulnerability.

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“Groundwater and Human Security Case Studies (GWAHS-CS)”

The new working paper by Fabrice Renaud, Jose Luis Martin-Bodes and Brigitte Schuster contains the results from the Kick-Off Workshop in January 2008 in Bonn. GWAHS-CS is the first practical activity under the “Quo Vadis Aquifers?” umbrella programme and is a collaboration between, among others, UNESCO-IHP, UNU-EHS and UNU-INWEH. Working Paper No. 4 includes the results of three brainstorming sessions which took place after the presentation of four case studies.

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Working Paper No. 3/2008 out now!

UNU-EHS is happy to present the outcomes of the First PhD Scientific Seminar of the WISDOM project. The paper contains summaries of all presentations given by the invited experts as well as by the PhD scholars. In addition the main objectives and results of the seminar are presented. A comprehensive list of all the participants is provided in the appendix.

In March 2008 UNU-EHS organized and hosted a three-day seminar for PhD candidates within the GITEWS project. The overall goal of the PhD seminar was to provide a forum for research exchange.