Organised at the Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS), United Nations University, Bonn, the INQUIMUS workshop 2019 dealt with the dynamic nature of risk in all its dimensions of hazard, exposure and vulnerability.
The organisers pointed out that while the inherent complexity and dynamic nature of risk has been widely acknowledged, the development and application of methods and tools to better understand and assess that complexity has not kept pace yet. Today, the majority of risk assessments are still based on static approaches and often do not represent the inherent complexities (e.g. feedbacks and coupling relationships) and space-time dynamics of risk and its components adequately.
In this context, Marion Borderon from the Working Group on Population Geography and Demography participated in the workshop and presented her work in relation to the session “Dynamics in vulnerability”. Her research on the environment-migration nexus of a rural deprived area of Ethiopia, Africa illustrated the need of investigating the human dimension of global environmental change by exploring emerging and already existing alternative data sources. In the case study of Kersa, Ethiopia she combines comprehensive long-term migration information from the Demographic Surveillance System with environmental data, and specifically addresses the spatial and temporal dynamics of the nexus between human migrations and environmental changes.
The result of the workshop will be available online and a joint commentary based on the inputs, group discussions, and post-workshop engagement of the participants is expected.
