Abstract
This essay briefly describes the current state of population-environment research, highlighting some key developments that have occurred over the past 25 years and drawing on Handbook chapters to illustrate the state of the field now. With this as foundation, the essay then identifies and discusses promising directions for future research: (1) develop a more holistic account of population-environment interrelations by combining population size, composition, and components of change; (2) build bridges between the literature on climate change and the literature on pollution and other hazards; (3) incorporate social, economic, and cultural domains into a multidimensional conceptualization of the natural and social environment; (4) utilize a comparative perspective to better understand how and why population-environment interrelations vary from place to place; (5) further develop the tools needed to accomplish all of these tasks. Major advances over the past 25 years notwithstanding, there is still room for fresh ideas and innovation.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Axinn, W. G., & Fricke, T. (1996). Community context, women’s natal kin ties, and demand for children: Macro-micro linkages in social demography. Rural Sociology, 61, 249–271.
Axinn, W. G., Fricke, T. E., & Thornton, A. (1991). The microdemographic community-study approach: Improving survey data by integrating the ethnographic method. Sociological Methods & Research, 20, 187–217.
Bilsborrow, R. E. (1987). Population pressures and agricultural development in developing countries: A conceptual framework and recent evidence. World Development, 15, 183–203.
Blumenstock, J., Cadamuro, G., & On, R. (2015). Predicting poverty and wealth from mobile phone metadata. Science, 350, 1073–1076.
Browning, C. R., Calder, C. A., Ford, J. L., Boettner, B., Smith, A. L., & Haynie, D. (2017). Understanding racial differences in exposure to violent areas: Integrating survey, smartphone, and administrative data resources. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 669, 41–62.
Bruederle, A., & Hodler, R. (2018). Nighttime lights as a proxy for human development at the local level. PLoS One, 13, e0202231.
Call, M., Gray, C., & Jagger, P. (2019). Smallholder responses to climate anomalies in rural Uganda. World Development, 115, 132–144.
Elliott, J. R., & Smiley, K. T. (2019). Place, space, and racially unequal exposures to pollution at home and work. Social Currents, 6, 32–50.
Entwisle, B. (2007). Putting people into place. Demography, 44, 687–703.
Entwisle, B., Rindfuss, R. R., Guilkey, D. K., Chamratrithriong, A., Curran, S. R., & Sawangdee, Y. (1996). Community and contraceptive choice in rural Thailand: A case study of Nang Rong. Demography, 33, 1–11.
Entwisle, B., Walsh, S. J., Rindfuss, R. R., & Chamratrithirong, A. (1998). Landuse/Landcover (LULC) and population dynamics, Nang Rong, Thailand. In D. Liverman, E. F. Moran, R. R. Rindfuss, & P. C. Stern (Eds.), People and pixels: Using remotely sensed data in social science research (pp. 121–144). National Academy Press.
Entwisle, B., Verdery, A. M., & Williams, N. (2020). Climate change and migration: New insights from a model of out-migration and return migration. Forthcoming in the American Journal of Sociology.
Hauer, M. E. (2017). Sea level rise induced migration could reshape the United States population landscape. Nature Climate Change, 7, 321–325.
Hopewell, M. R., & Graham, J. P. (2014). Trends in access to water supply and sanitation in 31 major sub-Saharan African cities: An analysis of DHS data from 2000 to 2012. BMC Public Health, 14, 208.
Humphrey, J. L., Reid, C. E., Kinnee, E. J., Kubzansky, L. D., Robinson, L. F., & Cloughtery, J. E. (2019). Putting co-exposures on equal footing: An ecological analysis of same-scale measures of air pollution and social factors on cardiovascular disease in New York City. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16, 4621.
Jagger, P., & Perez-Heydrich, C. (2016). Land use and household energy dynamics in Malawi. Environmental Research Letters, 11, 125004.
Klineberg, E. (2015). Heat wave: A social autopsy of disaster in Chicago (2nd ed.). University of Chicago Press.
Kravitz-Wirtz, N., Teixeira, S., Hajat, A., Woo, B., Crowder, K., & Takeuchi, D. (2018). Early-life air pollution exposure, neighborhood poverty, and childhood asthma in the United States, 1990-2014. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 15, 1114.
Liu, J., Ouyang, Z., Tan, Y., Yang, J., & Zhang, H. (1999). Changes in human population structure: Implications for biodiversity conservation. Population and Environment, 21, 45–58.
Logan, J. R., Issar, S., & Zengwang, X. (2016). Trapped in place? Segmented resilience to hurricanes in the Gulf Coast, 1970–2005. Demography, 53, 1511–1534.
Los, S. O. (2015). Testing gridded land precipitation data and precipitation and runoff reanalyses (1982–2010) between 45 S and 45 N with normalised difference vegetation index data. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 19, 1713–1725.
McDonald, R. I., Green, P., Balk, D., Fekete, B. M., Revenga, C., Todd, M., & Montgomery, M. (2011). Urban growth, climate change, and freshwater availability. PNAS, 108(15), 6312–6317.
Moran, E. F., Brondizio, E. S., & VanWey, L. (2005). Population and environment in Amazonia: Landscape, household dynamics. In B. Entwisle & P. C. Stern (Eds.), Population, land use, and environment (pp. 106–134). The National Academies Press.
Murphy, L., Bilsborrow, R., & Pichón, F. (1997). Poverty and prosperity among migrant settlers in the Amazon rainforest frontier of Ecuador. Journal of Development Studies, 34, 35–65.
National Research Council. (1993). Population and land use in developing countries: Report of a workshop. The National Academies Press.
Pebley, A. R. (1998). Demography and the environment. Demography, 35, 377–389.
Raker, E. J. (2020). Natural hazards, disasters, and demographic change: The case of severe tornadoes in the United States, 1980–2010. Demography, 57, 653–674.
Riosmena, F., Nawrotzki, R., & Hunter, L. (2018). Climate migration at the height and end of the Great Mexican Emigration Era. Population and Development Review, 44, 455.
Sellers, S., & Gray, C. (2019). Climate shocks constrain human fertility in Indonesia. World Development, 117, 357–369.
VanLandingham, M. J. (2017). Weathering Katrina: Culture and recovery among Vietnamese Americans. Russell Sage.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Entwisle, B. (2022). Reflections on the Past, Present, and Future of Population-Environment Research. In: Hunter, L.M., Gray, C., Véron, J. (eds) International Handbook of Population and Environment. International Handbooks of Population, vol 10. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76433-3_23
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76433-3_23
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-76432-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-76433-3
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)