Inequalities and environmental changes in the Mekong region: A systematic mapping

How do accelerating environmental changes impact inequalities and how do rising inequalities affect in reverse environmental dynamics? This paper is built on a systematic mapping (2019-2021) studying the relationship between those two crucial aspects in five Mekong Countries: Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. 14570 scientific and grey literatures were collected and screened by title and abstract, and full text. 2355 items (1978-2020) are included for the systematic mapping. Overall, articles that directly discuss inequalities in relation with environmental changes are rare and recent. Three domains are dominant: resource access and right issues (967 items); climate change and disaster impacts (533 items); and a growing interest on pollution (299 items). Gaps in knowledge are identified in various realms. A repository is built with an open access to all abstract selected references to support further research and projects on sub-topics of the inequality environmental change nexus, and support science-based policy decisions.