Migration is an important strategy for coping with environmental variability and change, but it can also place additional stress on ecosystems. Policymakers and practitioners are not always fully aware of these threats, nor fully prepared to manage them through appropriate interventions. Conservation professionals in the field therefore have a key role to play in reducing the harmful impacts that migration can have on the environment, and in mitigating any tensions that may emerge between migrant and host communities.

In a study published in Science Advances, Mesfin M. Mekonnen and Arjen Y. Hoekstra estimate that over 4 billion people, approximately two-thirds of the world’s population, face severe water scarcity for at least one month out of the year – far greater than previous estimates of between 1.7 billion and 3.1 billion. The authors examined global water scarcity data from 1996 to 2005 on a monthly basis and at a more localized resolution to show how water scarcity affects different places at different times of year.

The year is 2022. Strong El Niño and La Niña events in successive years have drastically reduced wheat yields in India and Australia and increased the range of certain pests and plant pathogens in the Western Hemisphere. Moreover, a drought across North America has reduced corn and soybean yields significantly. Global commodity prices are up 262 percent over long-term averages. These price increases are compounding other social and economic challenges, contributing to social unrest in several food-importing nations.

DURBAN, South Africa — Arguably the most elegant aspect of an inelegant subject is how this city of 3.2 million residents, South Africa’s second largest, is solving monumental water and waste challenges in its jammed informal settlements.

The ongoing violence in Syria exhibits the potential for water problems – a historic drought, in this case – to exacerbate existing social and political problems and contribute to humanitarian crises. In a recently released infographic, Circle of Blue combined data from the European Commission Joint Research Center’s Global Conflict Risk Index and the World Resources Institute’s Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas to identify 10 hotspots around the world where water “could play a role in developing or exacerbating humanitarian crises” in 2016.

Around the world, urbanization and climate change are transforming societies and environments, and the stakes could not be higher for the poor and marginalized. The 2015 UN climate conference in Paris (COP-21) highlighted the need for coordinated action to address the profound injustice of the world’s most disadvantaged people bearing the greatest costs of climate impacts. Among those at the COP were mayors from around the world advocating for the important role of cities in these efforts.

January 7, 2016 could hardly have been worse in this thunderously beautiful, water-parched, and economically reeling nation of 55 million residents at the bottom of Africa.

Ask Agnes Namukasa about sustainably managing fisheries in Kachanga, the lakeshore landing site she calls home in Uganda’s Masaka District, and you will soon learn about toilets. From her perspective, community members won’t address conflict between government enforcers and fishers, competition among neighboring villages, or pollution threatening aquatic ecosystems until they can first organize to address their most pressing daily needs. And in Kachanga, where chronic childhood diarrhea and a host of other illnesses stem from poor sanitation, those essentials include public latrines.