Environmental Security

Topics
Regions
Experts
Programs
- Transnational Threats
- Regional Security
- Effective Institutions

Expanding populations, shifting consumption patterns, growing energy use, and the mounting resource demands of modern society are imposing potentially unsustainable strains on the global environment. Stimson research and analysis on environmental security explores the risks that rising stresses on global ecosystems and shared natural resources could compromise economic development, fuel social conflicts, and undermine political stability. Stimson's work encompasses issues including climate pressures on water supplies and food security; natural disasters and environmental refugees; and collective institutions for cooperative environmental governance.

Current Research

Fresh Water Resources

Policymakers face a host of overlapping demographic, socio-economic, and environmental challenges as they strive to fulfill the world's growing water needs. Global climate change threatens to exacerbate these strains, generating both chronic pressures on water availability, such as shifting precipitation patterns, and acute crises, such as floods and droughts. In
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Himalayan Plateau

The Himalayan mountains are frequently called Asia's water tower. But glacial melting from global warming, black carbon deposition from air pollution, and deforestation of mountain slopes increasingly endanger Himalayan hydrological systems and the rivers they sustain. Changing river flows, in turn, may compromise the hydropower prospects and dam projects that already
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Regional Capacity Building

In collaboration with partners in the US scientific and policy communities, Stimson's Environmental Security program works to support developing country efforts to measure, monitor, and assess emerging environmental trends and to identify, evaluate, and address their policy ramifications. The program particularly seeks to promote international scientific cooperation to
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Governing the Global Commons

Environmental security challenges frequently concern spaces extending beyond or existing outside the sovereign jurisdiction of nation states, areas such as the Arctic, the Atmosphere, and the Oceans. Stimson's work on the global commons analyzes the national and international policies and institutions that have evolved to address these issues and considers alternative
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