*For any media requests, please email me directly.
Commentaries & guest essays
- Gulf AgTech for investment, not food security (August 21, 2024). Wilson Center MENA360°
- Desert solar—A spectacular fiction, not a spectacular future (2024). MERIP Middle East Report
- No, the Saudis haven’t stopped pumping Arizona groundwater (March 28, 2024). Arizona Capitol Times
- Gulf sport geopolitics and Western cultural hegemony (January 23, 2024). AspeniaOnline
- We can’t engineer our way out of the water crisis in the Southwest US (March 1, 2023). New Scientist
- Arizona is in a race to the bottom of its water wells, with Saudi Arabia’s help (December 26, 2022). The New York Times
- Global sport and Gulf’s sovereign wealth funds (2022). AspeniaOnline
- The new geopolitics of sports in 2022 (2021). The World in 2022, Italian Institute for International Political Studies
- The Gulf’s sovereign wealth fund cities (2021). AspeniaOnline
- German pigs, and the autocrats who loved them (2020). Los Angeles Review of Books
- Sports and heritage in the UAE (December 15, 2018). LSE Middle East Centre Blog
- Gulf nationalism and invented traditions (August 3, 2018). LSE Middle East Centre Blog
Podcasts & radio
- From date palms to alfalfa: How Arizona became fertile ground for Saudi farms (AZPM Tapped)
- Water, water everywhere — But you have to stop and think (Freakonomics Radio)
- Saudi agribusiness thirsty for Arizona’s dwindling water (The World)
- Prof Natalie Koch explores the relationship between Arizona and Saudi Arabia in “Arid Empire” (Voices of the Middle East and North Africa)
- Natalie Koch, Arid Empire: The Entangled Fates of Arizona and Arabia (New Books Network)
- A tale of two deserts: Are Saudi cows to blame for Arizona’s water crisis? (NHPR Outside/In)
- Saudi Arabia’s Thirst for Arizona’s Water (On Shifting Ground with Ray Suarez)
- Desert Politics from Arizona to Arabia, with Natalie Koch (The Gateway)
- The tangled fates of Arizona and Arabia (The Landscape, The Center for Western Priorities)
- After oil: The challenge and promise of getting the world off fossil fuels (The Conversation Podcast)
- New book ‘Arid Empire’ by Natalie Koch explores ties between Saudi and Arizona farmers that go back nearly a century (KJZZ)
- Spatializing authoritarianism (New Books in World Affairs, New Books Network)
- Food as a weapon? The geopolitics of food and the Qatar–Gulf rift (Security Dialogue)
- Spectacular cities (BBC Radio 4, Thinking Allowed)
- Trophy Hunting (UVA Global Inquirer)
- How global sporting events run on bribes & help dictators (Cracked)
- Critical geographies of sport: Space, power, and sport in global perspective (New Books Network)
Articles & interviews
- Wo das Zeitalter des Öls begann (Where the age of oil began) (Die Zeit)
- Trees of the Gulf: Olive trees and a Mediterranean diet in the desert (Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington)
- Trump faithful see God’s hand in assassination escape (Agence France Presse)
- Trump family reshapes Republican Party in its own image (The Straits Times)
- How sports are making Saudi Arabia look better than ever (Newsweek)
- Follow the money (Cyclist Magazine)
- The sweet science and the sovereign fund (The Baffler)
- El mundo del deporte se reconfigura al compás del cambio geopolítico (El País) (English)
- Tackling climate change in the birthplace of oil (New York Times)
- Explainer: What is behind the Arizona-Saudi groundwater controversy? (Al-Monitor)
- The seduction of desert spectacles: Talking “Arid Empire” with Natalie Koch and Andrew Curley (Public Books)
- As Arizona looks to desalination as a drought solution, questions mount over its feasibility for the state (Fox10 Phoenix)
- Saudi alfalfa sparks tension in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert (The Hill)
- Yes, a Saudi Arabian company uses water from Arizona and California to grow alfalfa (KUSA 9 News) (VerifyThis)
- In the midst of Arizona’s historic drought, a Saudi company is tapping into its groundwater (Fast Company)
- Natalie Koch untangles the weirdly connected environmental fates of Arizona and Saudi Arabia (Lit Hub’s Keen On)
- Facing drought, western states seek to deny groundwater to foreigners (Stateline, Pew Charitable Trusts)
- Critics say big businesses are taking advantage of Arizona’s outdated water law (Arizona Family 3TV/CBS 5)
- The colonization of deserts from Arabia to Arizona (Counterpunch)
- Arid lands, imperial ambitions: Desert knowledge exchange cloaked imperial goals, argues a political geographer (Science)
- Natalie Koch on arid empire, camel colonialism, and desert imaginaries (Terrain)
- Why are Saudi farmers pumping Arizona groundwater? A conversation with Natalie Koch (High Country News)
- Saudi farms are sucking Arizona’s groundwater dry. The state’s new AG vows to stop them (12 News, NBC Arizona)
- Can Attorney General Kris Mayes stop the Saudi cows eating Arizona’s water? (The Arizona Republic)
- How alfalfa cows and a Saudi owned farming operation became villains of western water woes (San Diego Union-Tribune)
- Why are Saudi farmers pumping Arizona groundwater? A conversation with Natalie Koch (High Country News)
- The dilemmas around holding COP28 in the UAE (Fair Planet)
- Öljy palloa pyörittää (The oil makes the ball spin) (X, Finland)
- Natalie Koch on Authoritarianism and Cults of Personality (Agora, GW IERES Illiberalism Studies Program)
- Arizona farmers grew Saudi Arabia’s farming empire. Now, the monarchy has a chunk of the state’s water (12 News, NBC Arizona)
- Auf der Arabischen Halbinsel fehlt das Gefühl der “Umweltbürgerschaft” (IASS-Potsdam) (English) (energieZukunft)
- How Dubai is pushing back its encroaching deserts (BBC Future Planet)
- Политическая география Центральной Азии: границы, ресурсы, политика, экология. Интервью с Натали Кох (Central Asian Analytical Network)
- Le softpower qatari dopé par le PSG ? (SoFoot)
- Scholar discusses link between sport and ‘soft power’ (Gulf Times)
- Geographical Review Preview: Deep Listening: Practicing Intellectual Humility in Geographic Fieldwork
- Реформы и их имитация: куда движутся экономики прикаспийских стран (RBK Daily)
- The Sochi Syndrome (Open Democracy)
Talks
