Climate hazards are the world’s most widespread, deadliest and costliest natural disasters. Knowledge of climate hazard dynamics is critical since the impacts of climate change, population growth, development projects and migration affect both the impact and severity of disasters. Current global events highlight how hazards can lead to significant financial losses, increased mortality rates and political instability. This book examines climate hazard crises in contemporary Asia, identifying how hazards from the Middle East through South and Central Asia and China have the power to reshape our globalised world. In an era of changing climates, knowledge of hazard dynamics is essential to mitigating disasters and strengthening livelihoods and societies across Asia. By integrating human exposure to climate factors and disaster episodes, the book explores the environmental forces that drive disasters and their social implications. Focusing on a range of Asian countries, landscapes and themes, the chapters address several scales (province, national, regional), different hazards (drought, flood, temperature, storms, dust), environments (desert, temperate, mountain, coastal) and issues (vulnerability, development, management, politics) to present a diverse, comprehensive evaluation of climate hazards in Asia. This book offers an understanding of the challenges climate hazards present, their critical nature and the effort needed to mitigate climate hazards in 21st-century Asia. Climate Hazard Crises in Asian Societies and Environments is vital reading for those interested and engaged in Asia’s development and well-being today and will be of interest to those working in Geography, Development Studies, Environmental Sciences, Sociology and Political Science.

This book, focuses on South and Southeast Asia, upgrades our understanding of the influence of multiple sociopolitical and governance factors on climate change and risks. Moving beyond science and technology-oriented discussions on climate change, it argues that the real solutions to climate change problems lie in societies, governance systems, non-state actors, and the power and politics underpinning these systems. It presents a range of detailed conceptual, empirical, and policy-oriented insights from different nations of South and Southeast Asia, including India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Vietnam, Maldives, and Bhutan. The chapters bring forth critical discussions of climate change, covering a diverse range of topics including livelihoods, gender, community perspectives, relocation, resilience, local politics, climate change communication, governance, and policy responses. By investigating climate change vulnerabilities and as well as offering feasible solutions to the states and other non-state actors in responding to climate change and risks, this book deepens our existing knowledge of the social and political dimensions of climate change. With interdisciplinary perspectives, this book will appeal to all students, researchers, and scholars of environmental studies, geography, disaster studies, sociology, policy studies, development studies, and political science. It provides valuable reading to practitioners, policymakers, and professionals working in related fields.

The apocalyptic visions of climate change that are projected in the media often involve extreme weather events, disasters and mass migration of poor people. This book takes a critical look at this notion, drawing on research in Bangladesh, a country located at the heart of debates on climate change and migration. This book argues that rather than leading to dramatic events, climatic and environmental impacts often cause incremental changes in people’s habitats and livelihoods, making them migrate in search of better places and income. With or without climate change, climatic and environmental factors can impoverish people, and drive displacement and migration, especially in the global South. These influences, including disasters, need not necessarily make people move, but instead sometimes trap the poorest and the most vulnerable people in their places exposed to hazards or make them migrate to even riskier places, such as crowded and flood-prone urban slums. This book argues that restrictions placed on people’s mobility options could increase their vulnerability and favours proactive migration policies. This timely contribution explains the climate-hazard-migration nexus in an accessible, engaging language for students of geography, development studies, politics and environmental studies, as well as humanitarian and development practitioners and policymakers.

This book focuses on the challenges of living with climate disasters, in addition to the existing gender inequalities that prevail and define social, economic and political conditions. Social inequalities have consequences for the everyday lives of women and girls where power relations, institutional and socio-cultural practices make them disadvantaged in terms of disaster preparedness and experience. Chapters in this book unravel how gender and masculinity intersect with age, ethnicity, sexuality and class in specific contexts around the globe. It looks at the various kinds of difficulties for particular groups before, during and after disastrous events such as typhoons, flooding, landslides and earthquakes. It explores how issues of gender hierarchies, patriarchal structures and masculinity are closely related to gender segregation, institutional codes of behaviour and to a denial of environmental crisis. This book stresses the need for a gender-responsive framework that can provide a more holistic understanding of disasters and climate change. A critical feminist perspective uncovers the gendered politics of disaster and climate change. This book will be useful for practitioners and researchers working within the areas of Climate Change response, Gender Studies, Disaster Studies and International Relations.

Focusing on the fundamental reasons underlying the lasting crisis of the Yemeni Civil War, this book frames contemporary Yemen and assesses prospects beyond the conflict, identifying the factors which will determine its future internal and international characteristics. Building on Helen Lackner’s profound experience in Yemen, this volume discusses Yemen’s history and state formation, the main political institutions emerging since the Republic of Yemen was established and their role in the war, including the significance of current fragmentation. The volume goes on to discuss climate change, including the water scarcity issue, in the context of resource constraints to economic development and the role of migration. Rural and urban life, as well as the impact of international development and humanitarian aid, are also covered, together with Yemen’s international relations – its interaction with its neighbours as well as Western states. Looking forward, it suggests the type of policies able to give Yemenis the conditions needed for a reasonable standard of living. Thanks to analysis of determining events, the book will appeal to politicians, diplomats, humanitarian organizations, security analysts, researchers on the Middle East and those generally interested in Yemen. It will also be an essential text for students of international relations, political economy, failing states, development studies and contemporary Middle Eastern history.

This book critically discusses the vulnerabilities and local adaptation actions of the traditional marine fishers of the tsunami-hit coastal regions of South India to climate change and risks, with an emphasis on their local institutions. Thereby, it offers a comprehensive account of the ways in which marine fishers live and respond to climate change. The Coromandel coastal regions of South India are known for their rich sociocultural history and enormous marine resources, as well as their long history of vulnerability to climate change and disasters, including the 2004 tsunami. By drawing cases from the tsunami-hit fishing villages of this coast, this book demonstrates that indigenous knowledge systems, climate change perceptions, sociocultural norms, and governance systems of the fishers influence and contest the local adaptation responses to climate change. By foregrounding the real picture of vulnerability and adaptation actions of marine fishers in the face of climate change and disasters, this book also challenges the conventional understanding of local institutions and fishers' knowledge systems. Underlining that adaptation to climate change is a sociopolitical process, this book explores the potentials, limits, and complexities of local adaptation actions of marine fishers of this coast and offers novel insights and climate change lessons gleaned from the field to other coasts of India and around the world. This book will be of great interest to students, scholars, and policymakers in climate change, fisheries, environmental sociology, environmental anthropology, sustainable livelihoods, and natural resource management.

Growing debates around governance are taking place among academic, policy-making, and practice-based communities. In light of the increasing focus on governance, this book presents and discusses governance as a framework that is able to both conceptualize and contextualize risks and disasters as currently experienced and managed into social systems. Contributions offer a variety of perspectives, experiences and socio-cultural contexts which have identified the challenges, opportunities and critiques of promoting governance. Part I explores approaches, models, and keywords as applied to risk and disaster governance theory. Part II investigates practices of risk governance and associated issues by focusing on disaster risk reduction policy and practice. Finally, Part III explores practices of disaster governance and associated issues, by focusing on disaster recovery experiences. This book highlights cutting-edge recent theoretical and empirical trends and is a valuable resource for students, academics, practitioners and policy-makers interested in risk and disaster governance.

This volume explores the role of water in the Middle East's current economic, political and environmental transformations, which are set to continue in the near future. In addition to examining water conflict from within the domestic contexts of Iraq, Yemen and Syria-- all experiencing high levels of instability today--the contributors shed further light on how conflict over water resources has influenced political relations in the region. They interrogate how competition over water resources may precipitate or affect war in the Middle East, and assess whether or how resource vulnerability impacts fragile states and societies in the region and beyond. Water and Conflict in the Middle East is an essential contribution to our understanding of turbulence in this globally significant region.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the leading international body for assessing the science related to climate change. It provides policymakers with regular assessments of the scientific basis of human-induced climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation. This IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land (SRCCL) is the most comprehensive and up-to-date scientific assessment of the multiple interactions between climate change and land, assessing climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems. It assesses the options for governance and decision-making across multiple scales. It serves policymakers, decision makers, stakeholders, and all interested parties with unbiased, up-to-date, policy-relevant information. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Climate change and urbanization are two of the greatest challenges facing humanity in the 21st century, and their effects are converging in dangerous ways. Cities contribute significantly to global warming, and as the world further takes a rural-urban population tilt, the next few decades pose a great challenge in addressing global disparities in the access and allocation of carbon. This book explores the ways in which cities, through their spatial development, contribute to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and looks at the ways in which rapidly urbanizing cities in low- and middle-income countries can be planned to reduce overall GHG emissions. The book considers key questions such a: What should be the appropriate economies of scale for cities in a country? What is the most favourable rate of urbanization? What should be the most suitable spatial pattern for a city? And what are appropriate regulatory, economic or governance mechanisms to achieve a low-carbon society? These issues are explored through data analysis of over 156 developing countries and through a specific case study of India. India acts as an interesting example of how societies undergoing rural-to-urban transformations could become green within the planetary boundaries while systematically addressing national and local urban governance. The research concludes with a future pathway that is committed to low-carbon and high-equity spatial development, and will find pertinence to researchers and practitioners alike. This book provides a new tool for policymakers, planners and scholars to rationally and equitably account for global carbon space, prioritize low-carbon strategies for national urbanization and planning individual cities, in addition to recommending an urban governance framework inclusive of green agenda.