The Population, Development and Environment Project studies the dynamics of population change, and the determinants and consequences of population trends in the context of global change. The project consists of (1) an ongoing activity to produce and improve international population projections, as well as serving as in-house demographic expertise for other IIASA projects, and (2) fixed-term studies of population, development and environment interactions. Through a combination of multidisciplinary descriptive analysis and interdisciplinary modeling, these activities aim to achieve a better understanding of the highly complex population, development and environment interactions in specific cases.
Public and scientific interest in population as one of the key factors of global change has increased significantly. This is based on the understanding that the size and distribution of people is a central variable in the struggle for sustainable development. International research organizations respond to this challenge by assigning priority to population research. In October 1993, 56 national academies of science issued a `joint statement on population by the World Scientific Academies' which says "Humanity is approaching a crisis point with respect to the interlocking issues of population, environment, and development," and urges intensified scientific work on this interdisciplinary issue.
In sharp contrast to the strong emphasis on more research and action on this issue, very few scientific institutions have actually embarked on research in this field. IIASA is one of the few that has conducted such research. In terms of interdisciplinary in-house research centered around strong population expertise, IIASA seems to be unique at the moment. A rapidly increasing number of institutions, however, are in the process of defining a research agenda in this field and frequently turn to IIASA's Population Project for advice.
Over the past five years IIASA has acquired a strong international reputation in four aspects of the population-environment field, and in at least two of them it has taken over the leadership: conceptualization of population and environment issues; modeling and indepth study of population-environment interactions in specific cases (mostly the Mauritius study); analysis of population in relation to specific global environmental problems such as methane, land use, food, etc., and alternative world population projections considering ecological aspects.
These IIASA activities are addressed to three groups of people: fellow demographers, where the project maintains its high professional standing; scientists from other disciplines, particularly those working on global change; and policy-makers in those countries studied in detail. There are several good reasons for carrying out interdisciplinary population research at IIASA in the future: (1) Any serious study of global change must consider population as one of the major driving forces; (2) IIASA is one of the very few places with existing in-house research groups on population and environment; and (3) IIASA can build on its good international reputation and extensive existing network in the field.
The basic objective of this IIASA project is to contribute the best demographic expertise and methodology to the analysis of global change problems. In this it sees its role as an interface between demographers and natural scientists, with the responsibility of informing the global environmental change community about the most recent demographic thinking concerning likely future population trends and the determinants of fertility, mortality and migration. The project accepts the challenges arising from new natural science research and solicits demographic and interdisciplinary work on these issues.
There are two more specific research objectives: (1) to produce, discuss and update new sets of world population scenarios for use in global change research; and (2) to conduct specific case studies to better understand the highly complex mechanism by which population parameters and environmental change interact.
The planned activities fall into two broad categories: (1) continuing the ongoing work on global population projections, which includes the exchange of data and close interaction with other IIASA projects that use population in their analyses; and (2) performing two or three country case studies presently planned and proposed to start in 1995 on population, development and environment interactions.
A major activity during 1994 was the final preparation and publication of the book,The Future Population of the World. What Can We Assume Today? edited by W. Lutz (London: Earthscan) in time for the September 1994 World Population Conference in Cairo. The basic approach was to invite a distinguished group of experts to produce background papers and define possible alternative future paths for fertility, mortality and migration. In a final section these alternative assumptions were then converted into alternative future population scenarios for 12 world regions. In 1995, work will begin on the country-specific application of the 12 regional scenarios. Alternative population scenarios have already been produced for European countries under a Council of Europe project. The next region to be studied in 1995 will be North Africa. Plans are also being made to produce country specific projections by education and place of residence (rural/urban).
In collaboration with the Population Council, the United Nations and the World Bank, an international workshop will be organized (tentatively scheduled for late 1995), to compare and evaluate all existing global population projections. It is planned to publish the proceedings of this workshop as a supplementary volume to Population and Development Review.
The first half of 1995 will therefore be devoted to preparing the background materials for the workshop, while the second half will be concerned with editing the volume and studying the implications of the meeting for IIASA's world population scenarios.
More specifically, this task in 1995 consists of several distinct activities. The issue of probabilistic projections will be given more attention in collaboration with IIASA's Methodology of Decision Analysis Project. In collaboration with IIASA projects that use population data (e.g., Environmentally Compatible Energy Strategies, Water Resources, Transboundary Air Pollution, etc.), an effort will be made to unify the regional definitions so as to allow all IIASA projects to directly use the population data.
In all these activities, population dynamics will not be viewed independently (as was traditionally the case), but rather in close interaction with socioeconomic development and the environment. In 1995 an attempt will also be made to make global household projections, which seem to be more relevant to environmental issues than sheer population numbers, because households are usually the consuming units.
The Project's previous study of the island of Mauritius was a very specific case that enabled developing one approach. It is not, however, representative for much of the rest of the world and it is now necessary to study those population and environment interactions in larger and more complex countries. Specifically, it is planned to include at least one case study country that has arid conditions, and one with a rain forest. At present, detailed plans are being made for an interdisciplinary study on Egypt, mostly focusing on the population-water relationship, in close collaboration with IIASA's Water Resources Project, one on southern Mexico, studying the interactions between people and the rain forests (in collaboration with the Mexican Ministry of Social Development), and one on rural-urban relationships for a specific region of China in collaboration with IIASA's new project on Modeling Land-Use and Land-Cover Changes. As these studies will also need to rely on external funding, it is presently not clear which are feasible. Should one of more of the country case studies be started, 1995 will largely be devoted to establishing a solid database and improving local contacts.
Work on producing a more general educational tool that demonstrates the population, development and environment interactions will, however, continue irrespective of the decision on further country case studies. This software will be user-friendly and developed using the "Windows" system in order to avoid problems of hardware incompatibility. A functional model should exist by the end of 1995.
Finally, an important additional in-house task for the Population Project will be to provide a service to other IIASA projects using population data in their work. Efforts will be made to disseminate and implement the IIASA world population scenarios that have many advantages over the UN and World Bank projections.
Leader of the Population Project's activities is Wolfgang Lutz, with a research team presently consisting of: Gustav Feichtinger (part-time), Anne Goujon, Landis MacKellar, Warren Sanderson, Serguei Scherbov (part-time), Babette Wils and Hassan Youssif.
Intensive external collaboration will continue with the Technical University of Vienna and the East-West Center in Honolulu, with whom IIASA will conduct a joint workshop on population and environment in February 1995. In the demographic field, intensive working relations in 1995 will exist with the Population Council (in organizing the population projection workshop). For the case studies, intensive collaboration will be established with the Cairo Demographic Center, the American University in Cairo, and the El Collegio de Mexico.