ABSTRACT
Demographic changes represent specific challenges for long-term sustainability policies and governance: current population dynamics will have significant effects in the distant future, yet estimates of future demographic trends are only partially reliable. The impact of demographic changes on society and the environment is frequently the subject of debate within science and politics, as are possibilities to control population development in terms of ‘demographic sustainability’. However, it is generally difficult to determine the connection between demography and sustainability itself, since the problems associated with population dynamics are complex, and include ecological, economic and societal aspects.
