“There was drought so we had to share the little water brought a long distance from irrigation canals to the field. This delay in rice planting is resulting in a late harvest,” explains Ratna Darai, 47, a farmer in Daraipadhera, Nepal, during an interview with The Third Pole reporter Ramesh Bhushal. An erratic monsoon means an uncertain harvest in a nation where agricultural production is not on pace with population growth. Water insecurity is a major driver of conflict and uncertainly in the world’s most populous continent.

“Population-related data from census, surveys, and other administrative data can and must be used for adaptation to climate change,” says José Miguel Guzmán in this week’s podcast from the launch of The Demography of Adaptation to Climate Change. As the devastation from Typhoon Haiyan shows, population density, poverty levels, and even building construction quality can have a huge impact on how vulnerable a particular area is to extreme weather, flooding, and other effects of climate change.

“Maps are inherently compelling because they contain a high resolution of information and most people have really been trained since grade school on how to read a map,” says Population Action International mapping specialist Gina Sarfaty in this week’s podcast.

“If I ask you to consider the image in your mind of a migrant girl, probably you – like me – have a vision of a girl embarking from a rural village on a trek to the city,” says Mark Montgomery of the Population Council in this week’s podcast. But, “Is that what the empirical realities show?”

Perhaps not: “It is far more common for urban and migrant girls to come from other cities and towns than it is for them to come from rural villages,” he explains.