“Political demography is a discipline whose time has come,” said Rob Odell of the National Intelligence Council at a gathering of demographers and researchers in New Orleans. “You can sense this inherent dissatisfaction” with a lot of analytical and predictive tools in international relations, he said, and “political demography provides policymakers a way to think about long-term trends.”

India is one of the most water-challenged countries in the world, from its deepest aquifers to its largest rivers. Groundwater levels are falling as farmers, new urban residents, and industries drain wells and aquifers. What water is available is often severely polluted, and the future may only be worse, with the national supply predicted to fall 50 percent below demand by 2030.

Though the bull market for metals and energy may be ending, global food prices remain stubbornly high. The inflation-adjusted FAO Food Price Index is down from the near historic heights of 2007-08 and 2011 but still higher than at any point in the previous 30 years, putting a brake on several decades of progress in reducing world hunger.

There is widespread agreement, and untold publications, that argue urbanization is the defining issue of our time. There are more cities, both large and small, and more people living in those cities than anytime in human history.

Population projections undergird many important policy decisions, from the U.S. government’s Feed the Future program to the Sustainable Development Goals. But they’re not as straightforward as they appear. Demographers often base their estimates on complicated assumptions that aren’t obvious to the end user.

Climate change and conflict – what’s the relationship? In a recently completed set of field-based studies for USAID, the Foundation for Environmental Security and Sustainability set aside “yes-or-no” questions about whether climate change causes conflict and replaced them with pragmatic and politically informed questions about how climate change is consequential for conflict in specific fragile states.

From the Roman poet Juvenal’s observations about bread and circuses to Marie Antoinette’s proclamation, “let them eat cake!” the link between food and political stability is well established in pop culture. In academic and policy circles, however, it’s a source of considerable debate.