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1. An unstable, stable nation? : climate, water, migration and security in Syria from 2006-2011 / Francesco Femia and Caitlin Werrell -- 2. Post-disaster reconstruction strategies : a case study in Taiwan / Yung-Fang Chen -- 3. Human amplification of climate hazards : 2010 floods in Pakistan / Inam Rahim and Henri Rueff -- 4. Climate hazards and health in Asia / Ilan Kelman and Tim Colbourn -- 5. Evolving a multi-hazard focused approach for arid Eurasia / Masato Shinoda -- 6. Climate change and security : major challenges for Yemen's future / Helen Lackner -- 7. Climatic hazards in the Himalayan region / Prajjwal Panday -- 8. China's natural and constructed hazard regimes / Troy Sternberg -- 9. Temporal and spatial distributions of dust storms in middle Asia : natural and anthropogenic factors / Leah Orlovsky.[et al.] -- 10. Climate hazards in Asian drylands / Troy Sternberg -- 11. Climate change : rethinking the local for policy and practice / Lena Dominelli.

Nomadic or mobile pastoralism has long been a sustainable livelihood in a diverse range of countries because of herders' ability to move and manage risk in marginal landscapes where domesticated animals efficiently convert limited ecological productivity into sustenance. However, today pastoralism is being seriously affected by new environmental and social forces exemplified by climate change and government policy restricting movement and other practices. Changing climates have a significant influence on pastoralists who pursue environmentally dependent livelihoods. In Oman, a 0.6 degrees Celsius annual temperature increase and a 21% decrease in precipitation from 1990 to 2008 have intensified water scarcity and increased evapotranspiration in the pastoral interior of the country, resulting in catastrophic storm episodes and reduced ecological productivity. In Oman and in Mongolia too what might seem to a non-pastoralist an unused site is nevertheless an important part of the overall pastoral economy and land tenure systems. Adapted from the source document.

Describes the 2008 United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues which highlights the threats that changes in climate & bio-cultural resources are posing to the survival of peoples of the developing world. Representatives of mobile & nomadic peoples discussed the ways in which extreme weather events, reduced biodiversity, & new livestock diseases are jeopardizing the viability of their livelihoods & causing increased tribal conflict. The obligation for government & non-governmental organizations to acknowledge the special needs of mobile peoples is discussed. Adapted from the source document.

"This volume investigates how mining affects societies and communities in Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan. As ex-Soviet states, Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan share history, culture and transitions to democracy. Most importantly, both are mineral-rich countries on China's frontier and epi-centres of resource extraction. This volume examines challenges communities in these countries encounter on the long journey through resource exploration, extraction and mine closure. The book is organised into three related sections which travel from mine licensing and instigation to early anticipation of benefit through the realisation of social and environmental impacts to finite issues such as jobs, monitoring, dispute resolution and reclamation. Most originally, each chapter will include a final section entitled 'Notes from the Field' that presents the voice of in-country researchers and stakeholders. These sections will provide local contextual knowledge on the chapter's theme by practitioners from Mongolia and Central Asia. The volume thereby offers a distinctively grounded perspective on the tensions and benefits of mining in this dynamic region. Using Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan as case studies, the volume reflects on the evolving challenges communities and societies encounter with resource extraction worldwide. The book will be of great interest to students and scholars of mining and natural resource extraction, corporate social responsibility and sustainable development."

This article examines how climate change, drought, environmental conditions, and natural resource management contributed to instability in Syria and Egypt leading up to the events of 2011. It further examines the Failed States Index and the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index as two popular indices and predictive tools utilized by foreign policy and security analysts, to determine how (or if) climate and natural resource variables were well-integrated into those indices prior to the Arab uprisings. The article concludes that climate events in China, Russia, and Syria in the years prior to the Arab uprisings interacted with existing water and food insecurities, as well as natural resource mismanagement, to create conditions that contributed to insecurity and unrest in the two countries. The article's findings also show that the indices and predictive tools used by analysts to examine state fragility and the likelihood of state fragility, respectively, did not include sufficient attention to these natural resource dynamics.

The developing field of Mongolian International Studies offers a diverse range of research topics. A review of recent articles reflects an emphasis on geo-politics, particularly evolving relations with its superpower neighbours. Whilst state-to-state engagement with China and Russia predominates, regional countries (Japan, Korea) and the US and Europe are examined within the 'Third Neighbour' policy. Trade and economics are also studied, from Oyu Tolgoi and mining to the role of the IMF and international agencies. Currently lacking is a focus on human-driven engagement that reflects Mongolian livelihoods, spirituality and community environments. Such social and cultural dynamics are essential to both pastoral and rural livelihoods and to understanding the nation. In 2020-2022 international academic endeavours enabled Mongolian herder representatives to participate in a global drylands exchange network with dryland residents in thirteen countries. The process provided an exceptional opportunity to present Mongolian perspectives to pastoralists and academics from Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. This grounded Mongolian livelihoods and situated rural dynamics in a global context. Here we report key engagements and findings as Mongolian herders shared lives and practices in the context of this international pastoral/drylands project. Moving beyond the political/economic rubric, as this project did, delivers a more representative and complete comprehension of Mongolia to the global international studies community.

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is the largest infrastructure scheme in our lifetime, bringing unprecedented geopolitical and economic shifts far larger than previous rising powers. Concerns about its environmental impacts are legitimate and threaten to thwart China's ambitions, especially since there is little precedent for analysing and planning for environmental impacts of massive infrastructure development at the scale of BRI. In this paper, we review infrastructure development under BRI to characterise the nature and types of environmental impacts and demonstrate how social, economic and political factors can shape these impacts. We first address the ambiguity around how BRI is defined. Then we describe our interdisciplinary framework for considering the nature of its environmental impacts, showing how impacts interact and aggregate across multiple spatiotemporal scales creating cumulative impacts. We also propose a typology of BRI infrastructure, and describe how economic and socio-political drivers influence BRI infrastructure and the nature of its environmental impacts. Increasingly, environmental policies associated with BRI are being designed and implemented, although there are concerns about how these will translate effectively into practice. Planning and addressing environmental issues associated with the BRI is immensely complex and multi-scaled. Understanding BRI and its environment impacts is the first step for China and countries along the routes to ensure the assumed positive socio-economic impacts associated with BRI are sustainable.