The asymmetric environmental consequences of population change: an exploratory county-level study of land development in the USA, 2001-2011
AbstractIn this exploratory study, we decompose population growth and decline into their constituent elements to examine how demographic change drives environmental change. Using the example of land development, the analysis integrates county-level measures of births, deaths, in-migration, and out-migration with data on built-up land area from the National Land Cover Database for the years 2001 –2006 and then 2006–2011. Drawing from human ecology and environmental demography, we hypothesize that the components of population change will have asymmetric impacts on the construction of the built environment as a form of la...
Source: Population and Environment - March 28, 2017 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
Post-disaster fertility: Hurricane Katrina and the changing racial composition of New Orleans
AbstractLarge-scale climate events can have enduring effects on population size and composition. Natural disasters affect population fertility through multiple mechanisms, including displacement, demand for children, and reproductive care access. Fertility effects, in turn, influence the size and composition of new birth cohorts, extending the reach of climate events across generations. We study these processes in New Orleans during the decade spanning Hurricane Katrina. We combine census data, ACS data, and vital statistics data to describe fertility in New Orleans and seven comparison cities. Following Katrina, displacem...
Source: Population and Environment - March 27, 2017 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
Investigating important interactions between water and food security for child health in Burkina Faso
AbstractFailures in either water systems or food systems, or a combination of system failures, could provide the underlying explanation for continued high levels of malnutrition in many regions. We focus on child health and offer the first spatially explicit analysis of the interaction between water source and food insecurity on children ’s health in Burkina Faso, an African nation that continues to struggle with poor children’s health. We combine data from the 2010 Demographic and Health Survey, a small USAID water quality survey collected from community wells, and remotely sensed imagery. Results suggest that, in a f...
Source: Population and Environment - March 27, 2017 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
Household air pollution as a silent killer: women ’s status and solid fuel use in developing nations
AbstractHousehold air pollution is a leading cause of death globally, as 4.3 million people die prematurely each year from illness attributable to use of solid fuels (WHO2016a). Many studies contend that gender inequalities are likely to greatly shape the global distribution of solid fuel use and its negative health consequences. We conduct an analysis of 91 developing nations using structural equation models on the prevalence of female indoor air pollution deaths among women and the ratio of female to male indoor air pollution deaths. The results illustrate that women ’s status is a robust predictor of solid fuel use, a...
Source: Population and Environment - March 19, 2017 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
Women ’s land ownership and participation in decision-making about reproductive health in Malawi
AbstractGiven the centrality of land to rural livelihoods and the high rates of fertility in Africa, there is a need for more research that explores the intersection between gendered patterns of land ownership and reproductive health outcomes. Drawing on a household bargaining framework, I hypothesize that women ’s land ownership should be associated with increases in women’s decision-making in multiple domains in the household including financial decision-making (the focus of bargaining literature), but also decision-making about reproductive health. Using the 2010 Malawi Demographic Health Survey (DHS ), I find women...
Source: Population and Environment - March 7, 2017 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
Fertility after natural disaster: Hurricane Mitch in Nicaragua
AbstractThis investigation evaluates the effect of Hurricane Mitch on women ’s reproductive outcomes throughout Nicaragua. This research aim is achieved by analyzing a unique Nicaraguan Living Standards Measurement Study panel dataset that tracks women’s fertility immediately before and at two time points after Hurricane Mitch, combined with satellite-derived municipali ty-level precipitation data for the 10-day storm period. Results show higher odds of post-disaster fertilityin municipalities receiving higher precipitation levels in the immediate post-Hurricane Mitch period. However, fertility normalizes between disas...
Source: Population and Environment - February 12, 2017 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
A qualitative investigation of childbearing and seasonal hunger in peri-urban Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
(Source: Population and Environment)
Source: Population and Environment - February 1, 2017 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
Natural resource collection and desired family size: a longitudinal test of environment-population theories
AbstractTheories relating the changing environment to human fertility predict that declining natural resources may actually increase the demand for children. Unfortunately, most previous empirical studies have been limited to cross-sectional designs that limit our ability to understand links between processes that change over time. We take advantage of longitudinal measurement spanning more than a decade of change in the natural environment, household agricultural behaviors, and individual fertility preferences to reexamine this question. Using fixed effect models, we find that women experiencing increasing time required t...
Source: Population and Environment - January 26, 2017 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
Climate and marriage in the Netherlands, 1871 –1937
AbstractEnvironmental factors such as climate variability can place significant constraints on demographic behavior in a range of settings. However, few studies investigate the relationships between demography and climate in historical contexts. Using longitudinal individual-level demographic data from the Historical Sample of the Netherlands (HSN) and climate and economic data from 1871 to 1937, we examine the effects of climate variability on marriage. This analysis reveals that marriage increases with negative environmental conditions such as cold temperatures, riverine flooding, and high rye prices. These findings are ...
Source: Population and Environment - January 19, 2017 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
Heterogeneous climate effects on human migration in Indonesia
AbstractWe examine the effect of anomalous temperatures, rainfall levels, and monsoon timing on migration outcomes in Indonesia. Using panel data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey and high-resolution climate data, we assess whether intra- and inter-province moves are used as a response to climatic shocks. We evaluate the relative importance of temperature, rainfall, and monsoon timing for migration. Only temperature and monsoon timing have significant effects, and these do not operate in the direction commonly assumed. Estimated effects vary according to individuals ’ gender, membership in a farm household, and loca...
Source: Population and Environment - October 19, 2016 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
Climate variability and migration in the Philippines
This study investigates the effects of climatic variations and extremes captured by variability in temperature, precipitation, and incidents of typhoons on aggregate inter-provincial migration within the Philippines using panel data. Our results indicate that a rise in temperature and to some extent increased typhoon activity increase outmigration, while precipitation does not have a consistent, significant effect. We also find that temperature and typhoons have significant negative effects on rice yields, a proxy for agricultural productivity, and generate more outmigration from provinces that are more agriculturally depe...
Source: Population and Environment - October 7, 2016 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
Exploring short-term and long-term time frames in Australian population carrying capacity assessment
AbstractTime frames are vital determinants in carrying capacity assessment modelling, but their quantification can be problematic. A strictly literal definition of sustainable carrying capacity implies calculating the maximum number of people a landscape can support in perpetuity. However, the concept of perpetuity, representing infinite time, renders the concept impractical, if not impossible, to quantify; so a more pragmatic approach can be to perform assessments for a range of time frames in order to establish potential trends. One Australian-orientated model, the Carrying Capacity Dashboard, was developed to begin expl...
Source: Population and Environment - October 4, 2016 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
Shifting environmental concern in rural eastern Oregon: the role of demographic and place-based factors
AbstractPublic opinion can impact the success of natural resource management policies and programs. In this case study, we assess the degree to which demographic and place-based factors are associated with changing public opinions on climate change, wolves, renewable energy, and land development regulations in rural northeast Oregon. Based on cross-sectional telephone survey data collected in 2011 and 2014, our observations suggest declining support for eliminating wolves, increased support for renewable energy, and increasingly favorable views of regulations that limit development in rural landscapes. We find that while d...
Source: Population and Environment - September 19, 2016 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
Climatic conditions and human mortality: spatial and regional variation in the United States
AbstractPrevious research on climatic conditions and human mortality in the United States has three gaps: largely ignoring social conditions, lack of nationwide focus, and overlooking potential spatial variations. Our goal is to understand whether climatic conditions contribute to mortality after considering social conditions and to investigate whether spatial non-stationarity exists in these factors. Applying geographically weighted regression to a unique nationwide county-level dataset, we found that (1) net of other factors, average July temperatures are positively (detrimentally) associated with mortality, while Januar...
Source: Population and Environment - September 16, 2016 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
Climigration? Population and climate change in Arctic Alaska
Abstract
Residents of towns and villages in Arctic Alaska live on “the front line of climate change.” Some communities face immediate threats from erosion and flooding associated with thawing permafrost, increasing river flows, and reduced sea ice protection of shorelines. The term climigration, referring to migration caused by climate change, originally was coined for these places. Although initial applications emphasized the need for government relocation policies, it has elsewhere been applied more broadly to encompass unplanned migration as well. Some historical movements have been attributed to c...
Source: Population and Environment - June 22, 2016 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
