Demographic differential vulnerability to climate-related disasters

This special issue of the Vienna Yearbook of Population Research is the product of a thematic conference focused on demographic differential vulnerability to natural  disasters in the context of climate change adaptation, organized jointly by the IUSSP Scientific Panel on Climate Change, the College of Population Studies, Chulalongkorn University, and IIASA's World Population Program (POP) in 2014. The seminar was the concluding meeting of an ERC (European Research Council) Advanced Investigator Grant awarded to POP Program Director Wolfgang Lutz in 2008 on the topic “Forecasting societies’ adaptive capacity to climate change.” 

Selected conference participants were invited to contribute their on-going research on vulnerability and adaptation to climate change, to take stock of what scientific progress has been made to date, and to discuss priorities for future research. The 9 fully peer reviewed papers are themed around 4 major subjects:

• Differential mortality from extreme climate events
• Spatial patterns of social vulnerability to weather and climate extremes
• Differential risk perceptions and climate actions
  
• Forecasting future societies’ vulnerability and adaptive capacity through the lens of human capital

In addition, distinguished demographers around the world were also invited to contribute to Demographic Debate section on "Why are so few demographers working on population and climate change?". The 6 debate pieces provide indept analysis of the underrepresentation of the study on population and climate change in demography and discuss the potentials of demographers in making contribution in this field.

Guest editors of this special issue were POP Scientist Raya Muttarak and POP collaborator Leiwen Jiang.

Publication Details

Muttarak, R. and Jiang, L. (2016) Vienna Yearbook of Population Research 2015. Verlag der Oesterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna, Austria.

Last edited: 04 October 2016