Dr. Liang Emlyn Yang
Lecturer and Research Associate (third-party funds)
Research and Teaching Unit Human Environment Relations
Further Information
Dr. Liang Emlyn Yang (杨也明) is a Senior Researcher and Lecturer at the Chair of Human Geography, Department of Geography, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich (LMU). He is also an Affiliated Research Associate (Visiting Scholar) at the Harvard-China Project on Energy, Economics, and Environment at Harvard University.
Research
Dr. Yang’s research explores the resilience of human-social systems to climate change impacts. He is particularly interested in how societies build and sustain resilience against environmental and climate threats. Another interest is in the assessment and modeling of resilience achievement, progress and potentials. His work emphasizes successful cases, demonstrates significant progress, and showcases the wide array of solutions, technologies, and strategies that enables resilient development. He frames climate resilience through a hopeful lens that underscores human potential, adaptability, and innovation, and fosters a narrative of optimism of human-climate relations against the backdrop of risk and crisis discourses. Besides the specific and technical work, Dr. Yang attempts to understand the fundamental, conceptual and theoretical issues of “resilience systems”.
Dr. Yang employs a diverse set of methodologies, including household surveys, expert interviews, stakeholder network analysis, agent-based modeling, geo-information system and data-driven machine learning. His research spans multiple global regions, including China, Vietnam, Thailand, Pakistan, Nepal, and Germany, with a historical perspective on social resilience over the past 5,000 years.
Publications
Dr. Yang has authored over 70 peer-reviewed publications covering climate change modeling, risk, vulnerability, adaptation, resilience, urbanization, floods, sustainability, and historical geography. He was the lead editor of Socio-Environmental Dynamics along the Historical Silk Road (Springer, 2019) and contributed to seven chapters of the German textbook China – Geographien einer Weltmacht (Springer, 2023). Dr. Yang has been leading the editing or co-editing five journal Special Issues, including the two currently active ones:
- Global Environmental Change – "Resilience Rising: Thriving Amid Climate Challenges" (Submission deadline: June 30, 2025)
- Environmental Science and Policy – "Enhancing Climate-Resilient Development in Emerging Asian Regions" (Submission deadline: September 30, 2025)
A full list of his publications is available on Google Scholar and ResearchGate.
Other roles and responsibilities
Dr. Yang has been (Co-) Principal Investigator of eight international research projects, and convener or co-convener of over 10 international conferences, meetings and workshops. Dr. Yang has served as editorial members of the international journals Water-Energy Nexus, Journal of Risk Analysis and Crisis Response. He also served as an expert reviewer of the IPCC AR6 WGII and peer-reviewer of over 20 scientific journals including Nature Communications, Global Environmental Change, Scientific Report, Environmental Research Letters, Urban Climate. Since over 10 years, he has been active members in the European Geosciences Union (EGU), Association of American Geographers (AAG), China Society of Natural Resources, and the German Society for Geography (DGFG).
- Principle Investigator of the ERC Starting Grant – STORIES (www.erc-stories.com) that focuses on the spatial-temporal dynamics of flood resilience. The project explores how human societies develop, maintain and enhance its resilience to floods in the Mekong basin with a historical perspective.
- Work Package Leader of the COAST-SCAPES project that is funded by the EU Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change (Horizon Europe). The project aims to re-shape European coastal landscapes with climate-resilient interventions. It involves 31 international research partners with an overall budget of 8.92 million Euro.
- Co-Principle Investigator (with Matthias Garschagen) of the FReCom project funded by the Sino-German Mobility Programme (NSFC-DFG). The project compares flood risk management and resilience building at community level in rapidly growing cities in China and Germany.
- Convener and Organizer (jointly with Matthias Garschagen and Haifeng Jia) of the International Climate Resilience Conference in Munich during October 26-29, 2025. www.climateresilience.info.
- Leading-Guest-Editor of a Special Issues at the journal Global Environmental Change – “Resilience Rising: Thriving Amid Climate Challenges” (Submission deadline on 30 June 2025)
- Leading-Guest-Editor of a Special Issues at the journal Environmental Science and Policy - “Enhancing Climate-Resilient Development in Emerging Asian Regions: Achievements, Progress and Potential” (Submission deadline on 30 September 2025).
- Founder and Manager of the active international researchers’ community of climate resilience with over 2380 members in Google Group.
- Young Member of the LMU-Munich Center for Advanced Studies (CAS) since 2023.
- Leading Convener and Organizer of the EGU25 session on May 01 and a Splinter meeting on April 27. Welcome to join us if you will be in Vienna then.
Teaching & Supervision
Emlyn Yang is involved in teaching activities in human geography at MSc level at LMU Munich. From the winter semester in 2020, he led the course of Applied Simulation Modelling. He contributed to the joint teaching of the lecture and practice courses on Trend Assessment, Scenario and Modelling from 2021. Over the past years, he has assisted various teaching tasks in the University of Hamburg and Kiel University.
Dr. Yang is supervising 6 doctoral students since 2022 and has co-supervised 4 master students.
Biography
Before joining LMU in 2019, Emlyn Yang worked as a postdoc researcher for the Graduate School “Human Development in Landscapes” and the ROOTS Cluster of Excellence at Kiel University, funded by the German Excellence Initiative. He obtained his PhD (2014) in Integrative Geography from the University of Hamburg in Germany under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Jürgen Scheffran. Before that, he studied land use and regional planning in the Southwest University in Chongqing, China, and finished a master program in Geography from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. He has extended fieldwork experience in China, Pakistan, Vietnam and short stays in a number of other countries, including the UK and US.
Beyond academia, he has served as an external researcher at the MIT Climate CoLab and Project Drawdown, a fellow and mentor at the EU Climate-KIC, and a consultant for the World Future Council on regenerative urban development in China.
Updated on 05 March 2025.
Further Information
Dr. Liang Emlyn Yang (杨也明) is a Senior Researcher and Lecturer at the Chair of Human Geography, Department of Geography, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich (LMU). He is also an Affiliated Research Associate (Visiting Scholar) at the Harvard-China Project on Energy, Economics, and Environment at Harvard University.
Research
Dr. Yang’s research explores the resilience of human-social systems to climate change impacts. He is particularly interested in how societies build and sustain resilience against environmental and climate threats. Another interest is in the assessment and modeling of resilience achievement, progress and potentials. His work emphasizes successful cases, demonstrates significant progress, and showcases the wide array of solutions, technologies, and strategies that enables resilient development. He frames climate resilience through a hopeful lens that underscores human potential, adaptability, and innovation, and fosters a narrative of optimism of human-climate relations against the backdrop of risk and crisis discourses. Besides the specific and technical work, Dr. Yang attempts to understand the fundamental, conceptual and theoretical issues of “resilience systems”.
Dr. Yang employs a diverse set of methodologies, including household surveys, expert interviews, stakeholder network analysis, agent-based modeling, geo-information system and data-driven machine learning. His research spans multiple global regions, including China, Vietnam, Thailand, Pakistan, Nepal, and Germany, with a historical perspective on social resilience over the past 5,000 years.
Publications
Dr. Yang has authored over 70 peer-reviewed publications covering climate change modeling, risk, vulnerability, adaptation, resilience, urbanization, floods, sustainability, and historical geography. He was the lead editor of Socio-Environmental Dynamics along the Historical Silk Road (Springer, 2019) and contributed to seven chapters of the German textbook China – Geographien einer Weltmacht (Springer, 2023). Dr. Yang has been leading the editing or co-editing five journal Special Issues, including the two currently active ones:
- Global Environmental Change – "Resilience Rising: Thriving Amid Climate Challenges" (Submission deadline: June 30, 2025)
- Environmental Science and Policy – "Enhancing Climate-Resilient Development in Emerging Asian Regions" (Submission deadline: September 30, 2025)
A full list of his publications is available on Google Scholar and ResearchGate.
Other roles and responsibilities
Dr. Yang has been (Co-) Principal Investigator of eight international research projects, and convener or co-convener of over 10 international conferences, meetings and workshops. Dr. Yang has served as editorial members of the international journals Water-Energy Nexus, Journal of Risk Analysis and Crisis Response. He also served as an expert reviewer of the IPCC AR6 WGII and peer-reviewer of over 20 scientific journals including Nature Communications, Global Environmental Change, Scientific Report, Environmental Research Letters, Urban Climate. Since over 10 years, he has been active members in the European Geosciences Union (EGU), Association of American Geographers (AAG), China Society of Natural Resources, and the German Society for Geography (DGFG).
- Principle Investigator of the ERC Starting Grant – STORIES (www.erc-stories.com) that focuses on the spatial-temporal dynamics of flood resilience. The project explores how human societies develop, maintain and enhance its resilience to floods in the Mekong basin with a historical perspective.
- Work Package Leader of the COAST-SCAPES project that is funded by the EU Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change (Horizon Europe). The project aims to re-shape European coastal landscapes with climate-resilient interventions. It involves 31 international research partners with an overall budget of 8.92 million Euro.
- Co-Principle Investigator (with Matthias Garschagen) of the FReCom project funded by the Sino-German Mobility Programme (NSFC-DFG). The project compares flood risk management and resilience building at community level in rapidly growing cities in China and Germany.
- Convener and Organizer (jointly with Matthias Garschagen and Haifeng Jia) of the International Climate Resilience Conference in Munich during October 26-29, 2025. www.climateresilience.info.
- Leading-Guest-Editor of a Special Issues at the journal Global Environmental Change – “Resilience Rising: Thriving Amid Climate Challenges” (Submission deadline on 30 June 2025)
- Leading-Guest-Editor of a Special Issues at the journal Environmental Science and Policy - “Enhancing Climate-Resilient Development in Emerging Asian Regions: Achievements, Progress and Potential” (Submission deadline on 30 September 2025).
- Founder and Manager of the active international researchers’ community of climate resilience with over 2380 members in Google Group.
- Young Member of the LMU-Munich Center for Advanced Studies (CAS) since 2023.
- Leading Convener and Organizer of the EGU25 session on May 01 and a Splinter meeting on April 27. Welcome to join us if you will be in Vienna then.
Teaching & Supervision
Emlyn Yang is involved in teaching activities in human geography at MSc level at LMU Munich. From the winter semester in 2020, he led the course of Applied Simulation Modelling. He contributed to the joint teaching of the lecture and practice courses on Trend Assessment, Scenario and Modelling from 2021. Over the past years, he has assisted various teaching tasks in the University of Hamburg and Kiel University.
Dr. Yang is supervising 6 doctoral students since 2022 and has co-supervised 4 master students.
Biography
Before joining LMU in 2019, Emlyn Yang worked as a postdoc researcher for the Graduate School “Human Development in Landscapes” and the ROOTS Cluster of Excellence at Kiel University, funded by the German Excellence Initiative. He obtained his PhD (2014) in Integrative Geography from the University of Hamburg in Germany under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Jürgen Scheffran. Before that, he studied land use and regional planning in the Southwest University in Chongqing, China, and finished a master program in Geography from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. He has extended fieldwork experience in China, Pakistan, Vietnam and short stays in a number of other countries, including the UK and US.
Beyond academia, he has served as an external researcher at the MIT Climate CoLab and Project Drawdown, a fellow and mentor at the EU Climate-KIC, and a consultant for the World Future Council on regenerative urban development in China.
Updated on 05 March 2025.