Environmental Security: Approaches, Issues and Actors

This book offers a comprehensive survey of the distinctive theoretical approaches, fundamental issues and key actors that are central to the contemporary field of environmental security studies. Through a series of chapters written by leading experts, this volume provides readers with an overview of environmental security studies, an arena of considerable policy and research attention that has evolved quickly over the past several decades. The relationships linking climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution to different ways of thinking about, and optimizing, security are broadly relevant, complex and intensifying. Contributors to this volume provide authoritative analyses of competing and complementary theoretical approaches; key issues including food water and energy; and the actions and aspirations of multilateral, national and sub-national actors. This book has been carefully designed to benefit anyone interested in environmental and climate security. It is especially valuable as required reading for students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Beyond that it serves as a reliable resource for established researchers in the field, as well as advocates, policymakers, security professionals, climate change and other environmentalists, and members of the public.

Table of Contents:
Environmental Security Studies: An Introduction 1. Analyst, Theory and Security: A Framework for Understanding Environmental Security Studies 2. Environmental Scarcity and Conflict 3. Environmental Security and ‘Resource Wars’ 4. A Political Ecology of Environmental Security in the Anthropocene 5. Environmental peace building 6. The Intersection Between Human Security and Climate Change: When Environmental Threats Become "Fake News" 7. Military Damage in War and Adaptation 8. Gender and Environmental Security 9. The Water-Security Nexus between Conflict and Cooperation 10. Climate Security 11. Environmental Security and Sustainable Development 12. Conflict, Climate and Crisis: Rethinking Food Security in a Fragile World 13. Energy Security: Developments, Challenges and Opportunities 14. Climate Security and International Organizations: EU, NTO and OSCE 15. Environmental and Climate Security in Key States 16. Non-State Actors and Environmental Security

About the Author :
Rita Floyd is Professor of International Security and Ethics at the University of Birmingham, UK, and a co-editor in chief of International Affairs. She has published widely on securitization theory, security theory, environmental and climate security, including four monographs, and most recently Teaching Security Studies, 2025. Richard A. Matthew is a Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy at the University of California at Irvine. He directs UCI’s Alec Glasser Center for the Power of Music and Social Change, the Climate and Urban Sustainability Program, and the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation’s Climate Change and Security Program. His research examines links among climate change, conflict, public health and migration, and using music to mobilize youth around climate change, peacebuilding and sustainable urban redevelopment. He has worked extensively in Africa and South Asia.

Review :
"Environmental Security remains the most comprehensive volume on the topic, with contributions from leading thinkers in the field collectively providing a comprehensive and critical overview of key issues and debates." Professor Jon Barnett, The University of Melbourne "Environmental security is increasingly invoked but rarely addressed as systematically and expertly as in this text. The topics and authors are carefully selected to properly represent this diverse subject area and the refreshing of this process for this second edition ensures that this important book more than maintains its currency." Peter Hough, Professor of International Relations, Middlesex University, London "This timely book provides an important in-depth analysis and overview of the field of environmental and climate security and is an essential guide for both novice and established scholars and practitioners working on climate security." Judith Nora Hardt, Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin