Migration and climate change: examining thresholds of change to guide effective adaptation decision-making

Abstract

The implications of environmental change for migration are little understood. Migration as a response to climate change could be seen as a failure of in situ adaptation methods, or migration could be alternatively perceived as a rational component of creative adaptation to environmental risk. This paper frames migration as part of an adaptation response to climate change impacts to natural resource condition and environmental hazards. Thresholds will be reached by communities after which migration will become a vital component of an effective adaptation response. Such changes to migration patterns have the potential to undermine migration policy unless appropriate preparations are undertaken. This paper describes an approach to assist researchers to frame how climate change will influence migration by critically analysing how thresholds of fundamental change to migration patterns could be identified, primarily in relation to two case studies in Nepal and Thailand. Future policy for internal and international migration could be guided by the analysis of such thresholds of non-linear migration and resourced effectively to ensure that socio-economic and humanitarian outcomes are maximised.

Waltz with development: insights on the developmentalization of climate-induced migration

“…12 IPCC 2014). Different forms of mobility form part of an adaptation continuum (Warner 2009;Beardsley and Hugo 2010), i.e. are among the multiple strategies through which communities and households react to crises but also adapt to changes.…”

The role of environmental perceptions in migration decision-making: evidence from both migrants and non-migrants in five developing countries

“…4 To this end, and as elaborated thoroughly in the theoretical section below, we choose the term perceptions to express that we capture not only individuals' exposure to environmental change and, eventually, their willingness to migrate, but also their capability and opportunity to actually do so (see also Most and Starr 1989 Empirically, the corresponding arguments are analyzed with newly collected survey data, which comprise both individuals who migrated and individuals who decided to stay in five countries: Vietnam, Cambodia, Uganda, Nicaragua, and Peru. As indicated, a key strength of these new data is that we integrate individual environmental perceptions with other migrationrelevant determinants at the individual and household levels to provide a more complete picture of the decision to migrate or stay (Adger et al 2015;Hunter et al 2015;Black et al 2011a;Bardsley and Hugo 2010;Hunter 2005;Stark and Bloom 1985). The focus on environmental perceptions fills an empirical gap that was recently identified by Hunter et al (2015: 13).…”

Migration and global environmental change: methodological lessons from mountain areas of the global South

“…-While migration is often understood and framed as a failure to adapt to climate change, it can also be part of positive adaptation strategies (Bardsley and Hugo, 2010;Black et al, 2011b;McLeman and Smit, 2006;Tacoli, 2009). …”