The environment, development and health cluster focuses on the ways that human societies are transforming the natural world, and the ways that biophysical changes, political environments, and social inequality together impact human health and well-being. Research in health geography is generally more focused in Canada, including both Indigenous and settler communities, and examines a range of topics including: environmental hazards, risk perceptions, inequalities, air pollution, processes of environmental dispossession, and relations between urban form and children’s health and quality of life. Environmental justice is a prominent theme in the development-oriented research in the cluster, both in Indigenous and settler communities in Canada, as well as in a range of international settings. This involves work on agriculture and food systems, energy systems and resource extraction, environmental repossession, Indigenous knowledge, and water management – all of which increasingly interrelate to climate change at some level.

Faculty members in the EDH cluster employ a range of methodologies and approaches, and have collaborative links with the physical geography, urban studies and Geographical Information Science clusters within the department. They also have active connections to researchers in other departments and faculties across the university and at other universities inside and outside of Canada, and several members work closely with government, private sector, communities and non-profit organizations.