“How can you live here?” LMU Munich interviewed Dr. Emlyn Yang and reported the STORIES project with the attractive title. The article was published as a highlight on the cover page of LMU’s homepage on 28 September 2022. An introduction video was also released on the same day at LMU’s Youtube channel. Article: https://www.lmu.de/en/newsroom/news-overview/news/how-can-you-live-here-.html Video: https://youtu.be/RtslGDovmEU

Narrow valleys, mighty rivers, deep snow, and a harsh climate: For over 600 years, the people in the Tea Horse Road area in the mountainous highlands of southeast Tibet have come to terms with their region being regularly afflicted by flooding and landslides. They have learned to cope with these natural hazards. This is valuable knowledge in times of climate change, in which many regions of the world are confronted with extreme weather events, torrential rainfall, and flooding — and with the strength and frequency of these occurrences constantly increasing.

Liang Emlyn Yang has undertaken to collect this treasure trove of knowledge. The Munich-based geographer from the “Human-Environment Relations” Research and Teaching Unit at LMU studies the consequences of climate change. Now he has chosen a rather different perspective from which to analyze the problem. At the heart of his research is not the question as to the negative effects of global warming, the vulnerability of societies, the risks and the losses. Instead, he is focusing on the ability of people to cope with change. He is looking at the social resilience of a population that lives in regions threatened in this way – in flood plains, on riverbanks, in coastal zones. How have societies there managed to survive, develop, and grow — despite the recurring destructive natural disasters? And what lessons can we learn for the future from these areas?

A German version of the article was published in the EINSICHTEN magazine. https://www.lmu.de/de/newsroom/newsuebersicht/news/wie-koennt-ihr-hier-leben-.html