We started the last top 10 post tracking the dramatic battle over Iraq’s Mosul Dam and the most popular of August took a closer look. Cameron Harrington and I explain that this isn’t the first time water has played a major role in the fighting, while also exploring ways it could be a peacemaker.

Other popular posts followed the headlines as well: ECSP Director Roger-Mark De Souza highlighted food security at the first ever U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, DC, and Sarah Meyerhoff explained some of the demographic and gender dynamics that make Gaza’s youth especially vulnerable to conflict.

Guest contributors Robert Engelman, Luisa Veronis, Jim Jarvie, Richard Friend, and Monica Duffy Toft also wrote top posts, explaining new thinking on family planning and sustainable development, environmental refugees, resilience and governance, and political demography.

1. What Can Iraq’s Fight Over the Mosul Dam Tell Us About Water Security? Cameron Harrington and Schuyler Null

2. Family Planning and Environmental Sustainability Assessment Aims to Shed Light on Pop-Environment Link, Robert Engelman

3. Africa’s Trifecta: Food Security, Resilience, and Demographics at the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, Roger-Mark De Souza

4. Challenging Patriarchy: The Changing Definition of Women’s Empowerment, Donald Borenstein

5. The Intergenerational Cycle of Malnutrition: How Gender and Social Status Doom Many Mothers and Newborns, Sarah Meyerhoff

6. Somali Refugees Show How Conflict, Gender, Environmental Scarcity Become Entwined, Luisa Veronis

7. Sexual Violence Beyond the Warzone, and the Relationship Between Child Marriage and Fragile States, Sarah Meyerhoff

8. Don’t Forget About Governance: The Risk of Tunnel Vision in Chasing Resilience for Asia’s Cities, Jim Jarvie and Richard Friend

9. The Missing Link in Understanding Global Trends? Demography, Monica Duffy Toft

10. Accelerating a Cycle of Violence: Tallying the Damage to Gaza’s Youth, Sarah Meyerhoff