• Message from the chair
• John Pitlick: Guggenheim in the rearview mirror
• Stefan Leyk: Extracting Geospatial Data from Historical Maps 
• Fernando Riosmena: Is Climate Change A Driver of Migration?
• Dylan Lanka: Solifluction Erosion
• Kai Kresek: Perception of Neighborhood Space
• Earth Lab Launches New Professional Certificate in Earth Data Analytics
• Department News

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This course is an all-out, in-depth exploration of why, how, when, and where (from/to) people migrate, especially those moving out of their country of birth. 

We will delve into several theories that aim to understand the economic, social, environmental, and policy "drivers" of different kinds of migration, and how migration stems (or not) from globalization and development processes. We will pay special attention to the current global refugee crisis as well as to the older question of why people oftentimes migrate "illegally." Finally, we will also look at the ways in which migration changes sending areas and destinations. Among these issues, we will address whether the inflow of foreigners has any effects on the economy of destinations (e.g., a negative effect on wages and prices); as well as if migration has any effects on development processes in sending areas. While the course uses several case studies on migrant flows to the United States, it will also provide a more global overview of migration in other parts of the world, including that between the Middle East and Europe and Asia and the Middle East, among others.

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Stefan Leyk and Fernando Riosmena are part of a research team that received a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to conduct research on the distribution and dynamics of the world’s population, including the modelling of urbanization in the United States, Mexico, and India.

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The devastating drought of 2009 in northern Tanzania generated new coping strategies by Maasai people, suggesting that Maasai with more money and social connections are better able than their poorer, less-connected neighbors to endure extreme events such as drought and, potentially, climate change, a team of University of Colorado Boulder researchers has found.

While the findings have implications for climate-change adaptation, they also highlight the institutional barriers that pastoral cultures such as the Maasai now face—especially the increased fragmentation of landscapes.

And that fragmented landscape could foster greater inequality that could threaten pastoralism, which is the most sustainable lifestyle in the semi arid areas in East Africa, the researchers add.

It's widely predicted that climate change will most acutely affect poorer countries, and the poorest people in those poor countries will bear the greatest burden, said Mara J. Goldman, the study's first author.

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