Vulnerable Deltas in Southeast Asia: Climate Change, Water Pollution, and Socio-Economic Transformation
East-West Center researchers, with support from the Henry Luce Foundation, recently launched a project to address the multidimensional vulnerabilities facing three major deltas in Southeast Asia. These include the Chao Phraya Delta in Bangkok to Suphan Buri, Thailand; the Mekong Delta in An Giang Province, Vietnam to Phnom Penh, Cambodia; and the Mahakam Delta in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. In collaboration with the Wilson Center’s China Environment Forum (CEF), Chulalongkorn, Srinakharinwirot, Khon Kaen, Gadjah Mada, An Giang Universities, the Asian Vision Institute, and other local partners in Southeast Asia we will expand and deepen existing research networks to explore climate, environmental, social and infrastructure threats to deltas.
Southeast Asia Transitions Webinar Series
In recent decades, people living in Southeast Asia have witnessed major shifts from predominantly subsistence agriculture to industrializing economies, with attendant changes in migration, crop production systems, and major infrastructure (roads, dams, industrial estates). This series of four webinars explored how communities in the region are experiencing the economic, social, and cultural dislocations of these transformations. The series focused on forests, rivers, documentarians and writers.
Click here to watch the full webinar series on YouTube
Changes in Rice Farming in Mainland Southeast Asia
interviews farmers in Northern Thailand.
Ongoing changes in the global economy as well as environmental changes mean that both the incentives for growing rice and the ways in which rice is produced will require novel socioeconomic, environmental, and technological adaptations. To help address these challenges, East-West Center researchers are conducting a collaborative study on changes in rice farming in mainland Southeast Asia. Researchers will examine one of the most intriguing agricultural-development questions in the region—how have fewer, older farmers with fewer agricultural laborers and smaller farms managed to more than double rice production over the past 20 years?
Population and the Generational Economy
Throughout the world, including Asia and the Pacific, rapid demographic change is having an important impact on national economies. To improve the analysis of the economic impact of population change, research teams in more than 90 countries have developed a new set of economic accounts, National Transfer Accounts (NTA), that estimate how people at every stage of life acquire and use economic resources to support themselves, their families, and—through public programs—others in their societies. These new data add an important dimension to estimates of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and other measures of national economies.
HIV Policy Analysis, Research, and Training
Center researchers work with national partners throughout Asia and with colleagues from regional and international agencies to improve understanding of national HIV epidemics and help policymakers achieve the maximum impact in countering epidemics with the limited available resources.
Addressing Drought in Hawaii and the US-Affiliated Pacific Islands
East-West Center researchers are collecting and analyzing statewide information on drought in Hawai'i across multiple sectors. They are working with partners at the US Department of Agriculture Forest Service and the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa to pilot Drought Knowledge Exchange projects in which researchers collaborate with land managers to co-produce site-specific drought information.
Rise of China and the Strategic Environment in Northeast Asia
Research explores Chinese foreign policy, the North Korea nuclear weapons crisis, and China's relations with Japan and Taiwan. One focus is on tensions arising from disputed claims in the South China Sea.
Mapping Forest Dynamics after 25 Years of Community Management in the Middle Hills of Nepal
Multi-disciplinary research is analyzing forest transitions and associated socioeconomic variables in Nepal, where an innovative system of community forest management has received worldwide recognition but little documentation.
Climate, Health, and Migration from the Marshall Islands
The aim of the Marshall Islands Climate and Migration Project is to improve climate information delivery to the health sector in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) and to inform health service providers in Hawai’i about migration, health, and climate change in the Pacific Islands region. The Pacific RISA (Regional Integrated Science and Assessment) program team is working with the Marshall Islands Ministry of Health and Human Services, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the University of Hawai’i Sea Level Center on this project.
Exposure to Air Polution and Health Effects in Urban Vietnam
The East-West Center has initiated a project to promote air quality management in the future smart cities of Vietnam. The goal is to create a multi-disciplinary action-research network.
North Pacific Arctic Conference
addresses the North Pacific Arctic Conference.
The annual North Pacific Arctic Conference brings together a diverse group of Arctic specialists, officials, researchers, practitioners, policymakers, private-sector representatives, and Indigenous Peoples and other community leaders for wide-ranging discussions on Arctic issues. Proceedings from each year’s conference are published in a book-length volume as part of the Arctic in World Affairs series, and 2020 NPAC Fellows produced a special series of web articles called Voices of the Future.
All Current Research Projects
Archived Research Projects
Vulnerable Deltas in Southeast Asia: Climate Change, Water Pollution, and Socio-Economic Transformation
East-West Center researchers, with support from the Henry Luce Foundation, recently launched a project to address the multidimensional vulnerabilities facing three major deltas in Southeast Asia. These include the Chao Phraya Delta in Bangkok to Suphan Buri, Thailand; the Mekong Delta in An Giang Province, Vietnam to Phnom Penh, Cambodia; and the Mahakam Delta in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. In collaboration with the Wilson Center’s China Environment Forum (CEF), Chulalongkorn, Srinakharinwirot, Khon Kaen, Gadjah Mada, An Giang Universities, the Asian Vision Institute, and other local partners in Southeast Asia we will expand and deepen existing research networks to explore climate, environmental, social and infrastructure threats to deltas.
Southeast Asia Transitions Webinar Series
In recent decades, people living in Southeast Asia have witnessed major shifts from predominantly subsistence agriculture to industrializing economies, with attendant changes in migration, crop production systems, and major infrastructure (roads, dams, industrial estates). This series of four webinars explored how communities in the region are experiencing the economic, social, and cultural dislocations of these transformations. The series focused on forests, rivers, documentarians and writers.
Click here to watch the full webinar series on YouTube
Changes in Rice Farming in Mainland Southeast Asia
interviews farmers in Northern Thailand.
Ongoing changes in the global economy as well as environmental changes mean that both the incentives for growing rice and the ways in which rice is produced will require novel socioeconomic, environmental, and technological adaptations. To help address these challenges, East-West Center researchers are conducting a collaborative study on changes in rice farming in mainland Southeast Asia. Researchers will examine one of the most intriguing agricultural-development questions in the region—how have fewer, older farmers with fewer agricultural laborers and smaller farms managed to more than double rice production over the past 20 years?
Population and the Generational Economy
Throughout the world, including Asia and the Pacific, rapid demographic change is having an important impact on national economies. To improve the analysis of the economic impact of population change, research teams in more than 90 countries have developed a new set of economic accounts, National Transfer Accounts (NTA), that estimate how people at every stage of life acquire and use economic resources to support themselves, their families, and—through public programs—others in their societies. These new data add an important dimension to estimates of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and other measures of national economies.
HIV Policy Analysis, Research, and Training
Center researchers work with national partners throughout Asia and with colleagues from regional and international agencies to improve understanding of national HIV epidemics and help policymakers achieve the maximum impact in countering epidemics with the limited available resources.
Addressing Drought in Hawaii and the US-Affiliated Pacific Islands
East-West Center researchers are collecting and analyzing statewide information on drought in Hawai'i across multiple sectors. They are working with partners at the US Department of Agriculture Forest Service and the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa to pilot Drought Knowledge Exchange projects in which researchers collaborate with land managers to co-produce site-specific drought information.
Rise of China and the Strategic Environment in Northeast Asia
Research explores Chinese foreign policy, the North Korea nuclear weapons crisis, and China's relations with Japan and Taiwan. One focus is on tensions arising from disputed claims in the South China Sea.
Mapping Forest Dynamics after 25 Years of Community Management in the Middle Hills of Nepal
Multi-disciplinary research is analyzing forest transitions and associated socioeconomic variables in Nepal, where an innovative system of community forest management has received worldwide recognition but little documentation.
Climate, Health, and Migration from the Marshall Islands
The aim of the Marshall Islands Climate and Migration Project is to improve climate information delivery to the health sector in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) and to inform health service providers in Hawai’i about migration, health, and climate change in the Pacific Islands region. The Pacific RISA (Regional Integrated Science and Assessment) program team is working with the Marshall Islands Ministry of Health and Human Services, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the University of Hawai’i Sea Level Center on this project.
Exposure to Air Polution and Health Effects in Urban Vietnam
The East-West Center has initiated a project to promote air quality management in the future smart cities of Vietnam. The goal is to create a multi-disciplinary action-research network.
North Pacific Arctic Conference
addresses the North Pacific Arctic Conference.
The annual North Pacific Arctic Conference brings together a diverse group of Arctic specialists, officials, researchers, practitioners, policymakers, private-sector representatives, and Indigenous Peoples and other community leaders for wide-ranging discussions on Arctic issues. Proceedings from each year’s conference are published in a book-length volume as part of the Arctic in World Affairs series, and 2020 NPAC Fellows produced a special series of web articles called Voices of the Future.