About

Erika S. Weinthal is the John O. Blackburn Distinguished Professor in the Division of Environmental Social Systems at Duke University. She serves as the Director of Graduate Studies of the University Program in Environmental Policy and is a professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy. Additionally, she holds a professorship in Environmental Policy at Duke Kunshan University and is an affiliate of the Duke Initiative for Science & Society as well as the Duke Center for International Development. Her work is centered on environmental policy, with a focus on the social systems that influence environmental decision-making and policy implementation.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Law
• Sociology
• Geography
• Engineering ethics
• Public administration
• Ecology
• Environmental science
• Geology
• Soil science
• Agronomy
• Environmental engineering
• Engineering
• Development economics
• Environmental ethics
• Business
• Economic growth
• Economics

Selected publications

• Critical minerals governance in Bolivia: Prior consultation, rights, and international standards

  Environment and Security · 2025-11-04 · 1 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  The transition to green energy has highlighted the geopolitical strategic importance of countries that produce critical minerals such as lithium. Countries with this potential mineral wealth face many of the same socioeconomic and environmental challenges as areas where other mining activities take place. We argue that despite the prevalence of growing global standards in the extractives sector such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, domestic governance mechanisms that privilege prior consultation are necessary to further accountability and transparency, prevent conflict, and ensure that benefits from critical mineral mining reach communities. Bolivia has the largest known lithium reserves in the world. Since 2010 Bolivia has implemented a state-led lithium extraction and is beginning to implement contracts between its state-owned company, Yacimientos de Litio Bolivianos, and foreign investors. This article explores the implementation of prior consultation in Bolivia’s lithium sector through examining the views of communities living around the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia. Interviews were conducted with community leaders and members to gauge the extent to which prior consultation is taking place in compliance with international standards and Bolivian law and whether the concerns of local communities are being addressed, especially pertaining to environmental protection and sustainable livelihoods.

  PublisherDOI

• The U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement—Implications for global climate governance and security

  Environment and Security · 2025-03-01 · 3 citations

  article
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• The Politicization of Water: How Water Fell Hostage to Israeli Jordanian Politics

  WORLD SCIENTIFIC eBooks · 2025-03-01

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Climate Security

  2025-12-02

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter surveys the evolution of the climate security field that emerged from the broader environmental security field with roots in global environmental politics and other traditional social science disciplines. Since the IPCC published its first findings concerning global warming, social science scholars have sought to understand the security implications of a changing climate and examine the climate-conflict nexus. As the climate security field has matured over the 21st century, it has become more intellectually diverse. The term climate security has evolved into a meta-concept to capture the many complex linkages between climate change and security, most notably the ways in which climate change could affect global stability. This chapter examines early studies that focused on the types of direct and indirect causal relationships that existed between climate change and violent conflict. The chapter then explores how the field has moved from a national security framing to one that engages with human security, vulnerability, livelihoods, and other concepts such as water security, food security, and environmental peacebuilding.

  PublisherDOI

• Water, conflict, and peace: a decade of developments

  Water International · 2025-11-17

  articleOpen access

  This article examines the evolving relationship between water, conflict, and peace over the past decade. It analyses transboundary disputes, ranging from the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam to the Helmand River alongside attacks on water infrastructure in Ukraine, Gaza, and Syria, leaving millions without access to safe water. Despite advancements in international legal frameworks to protect water and access to water services, the analysis underscores persistent gaps in implementation and enforcement. The article identifies priority areas for strengthening water protection and cooperation: consolidating legal norms, enhancing accountability mechanisms, integrating scientific approaches, adopting inclusive governance, and embedding water security in peacebuilding efforts.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Critical mineral mining in the energy transition: A systematic review of environmental, social, and governance risks and opportunities

  Energy Research & Social Science · 2024-07-21 · 74 citations

  reviewSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Climate change, conflict, and urban migration

  Environment and Security · 2024-08-04 · 6 citations

  articleSenior author

  The adverse effects of man-made climate change and protracted conflict intensify rural-to-urban migration in many developing countries. This article examines the impacts of climate and conflict migration on urban environments and on migrants themselves. To trace the distinctive pathways by which climate change and conflict drive migration as well as shared challenges for urban planning and services, we employ qualitative case studies of Jordan, Pakistan, and Honduras informed by interviews and secondary literature. These countries are chosen as they exemplify the compounding, cumulative impacts of climate change and conflict on urban expansion and the challenges in providing adequate public services in these contexts. Across all three cases, climate hazards threaten rural livelihoods and agricultural productivity, increasing rural to urban migration, while civil conflict and gang violence further induce urban migration, both internally and across borders. In Jordan, we assess the impacts of increasing water scarcity and conflict-driven refugee flows on infrastructure and public services. Pakistan’s experience highlights the impacts of rapid-onset natural disasters, severe water scarcity, and enduring refugee flows from Afghanistan on environmental quality and pollution within cities. In Honduras, we analyze how increasing droughts and hurricanes, combined with gang presence in cities, affect migrants in terms of increased violence and negative physical and mental health impacts. Together, these cases illuminate the need for context-specific proactive policy measures that address the independent and interrelated ways that climate change and conflict lead to migration and the subsequent profound impacts on urban development and human well-being.

  PublisherDOI

• Catastrophes, confrontations, and constraints: how disasters shape the dynamics of armed conflicts

  International Affairs · 2024-01-08 · 7 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Journal Article Catastrophes, confrontations, and constraints: how disasters shape the dynamics of armed conflicts Get access Catastrophes, confrontations, and constraints: how disasters shape the dynamics of armed conflicts. By Tobias Ide. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. 2023. 304pp. Pb.: £43.00. Isbn978 0 26254 555 6. Available as e-book. Erika Weinthal Erika Weinthal Duke University, US Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 100, Issue 1, January 2024, Pages 436–438, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiad316 Published: 08 January 2024

  PublisherDOI

• Failing septic systems in Lowndes County, Alabama: citizen participation, science, and community knowledge

  Local Environment · 2023-10-24 · 4 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The United Nations has estimated that 2.8 million individuals across the world will not have access to safely managed sanitation in 2030. In the accounting of global sanitation access, local inequities often are invisible to those counting, especially given that many of these counters are physically distant and often external to communities suffering from lack of access. Lowndes County, Alabama, a predominantly-Black county in rural Alabama (USA), provides a window into the social, racial, and environmental injustices that are present in the rural American South. Our survey of household sanitation access in Lowndes County, implemented by a collaboration of an academic institution, a local environmental justice organisation, and residents, shows that community members in the county are aware of the problems associated with failing septic systems. Producing data that can make publicly visible the lack of access to sanitation will, however, remain a challenge until institutional and structural barriers are overcome.

  PublisherDOI

• Rights, resilience, and water in turbulent times

  Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2023-03-07 · 1 citations

  book-chapterSenior author

  This chapter reviews the human right to water, how it has been formulated and advanced over time, and the challenges associated with its implementation. It argues that in the face of climate change and growing turbulence, the right to water must expand to capture the voice of marginalized peoples and the more-than-human. Otherwise, a narrow view of the right to water and an increasing commodification of water will continue to cater to those with relatively more financial resources and generate social protests and discontent. The chapter calls for more research to expand the right to water, such as by incorporating legitimate Indigenous participation in water management. Furthermore, it encourages scholars of global environmental politics to develop critical research agendas that use mixed methods to yield insights into how the right to water can be implemented equitably.

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Frequent coauthors

• Avner Vengosh

  31 shared

• Pauline Jones Luong

  State Street (United States)

  28 shared

• Jeannie L. Sowers

  University of New Hampshire at Manchester

  22 shared

• Matthew J. Hoffmann

  13 shared

• Steven J. Bernstein

  VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System

  12 shared

• Marc Jeuland

  Duke University

  11 shared

• Blake Hudson

  10 shared

• Neda Zawahri

  Cleveland State University

  8 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Public Policy

  Columbia University

  2004

• M.A., Public Policy

  University of California, Berkeley

  1999

• B.A., Political Science

  University of California, Berkeley

  1995