In 2011, a group of Hong Kong water activists and researchers traveled the length of the Dongjiang (East) River, which stretches from northeast Guangdong Province into Hong Kong’s New Territories, to investigate the challenges facing the watershed. The Dongjiang basin, which provides nearly 80 percent of Hong Kong’s water supply, has suffered water shortages due to the region’s increasing urbanization and industrialization. They found unchecked wastewater discharges—from agriculture, poultry farms, chemical plants, tanneries, and even an open-air quartz quarry—were dangerously degrading  water quality.

Myanmar’s inter-ethnic disputes undermine an otherwise favorable backdrop for a peaceful democratic transition, write Rachel Blomquist and Richard Cincotta in New Security Beat’s most read story last month. Their analysis was published in April 2016, but it presciently foreshadows the current crisis. Through their multi-dimensional assessment of the demographic tension in Myanmar, the authors show that “[t]he path to democracy seems to cut directly through the Rohingya issue.”

Barbuda—an island once full of people—has been rendered completely uninhabitable by Hurricane Irma. Every single resident was evacuated from the island, and some are not planning to return. Climate-induced migration and displacement is not usually this dramatic, but it is not uncommon: Since 2008, UNHCR estimates that an average 21.5 million people each year have been forcibly displaced by weather-related natural disasters, like floods, storms, and wildfires.

“The United States and Russia… have found ways to continue to cooperate in the Arctic—particularly, but not only—through the Arctic Council, despite the difficulties on other issues relating to other parts of the world,” said Ambassador David Balton, deputy assistant secretary for oceans and fisheries at the U.S. Department of State at a recent Wilson Center forum on the Arctic.

Following a series of recent devastating extreme weather events – mudslides in Sierra Leone, flooding in south Asia, and severe storms hitting the Philippines and the Gulf of Mexico, many have called attention to the role of climate change in these disasters. The string of Atlantic hurricanes that has devastated the Caribbean has prompted fresh calls to make nations and communities more resilient to the effects of climate change, and especially to address “loss and damage” in island nations.

“A monster”… “wreaking havoc”… “ripped through” the Caribbean and part of Florida: I heard these words as Hurricane Irma, the strongest Category 5 Atlantic hurricane on record, decimated the entire island of Barbuda and destroyed the four “most solid” buildings on St. Martin. And as I write this from the relative safety of Barbados, Hurricane Maria is on a similar path, leaving similar destruction in its wake. With winds of more than 160 miles per hour, Maria was the strongest storm to make landfall in Dominica. In a matter of hours, it devastated the country, regained its strength, and continued its onslaught on Puerto Rico and beyond.

It is encouraging to see that the United Nations Security Council is beginning to acknowledge the transboundary dimensions of fragility and conflict, as demonstrated by its newly launched Report of the Secretary-General on the situation in the Lake Chad Basin region. The report, which was presented in the Security Council on 13 September 2017, emphasizes the need for regional responses and the enhanced cooperation of different UN and humanitarian agencies as important steps to addressing the unfolding humanitarian crisis. However, while regional responses to address the regional security challenge are desirable, the report would have been stronger if it had highlighted the underlying environmental contributions of the region’s fragility.