Migration as a Potential Heat Stress Adaptation Strategy in Australia

Abstract

As the climate changes, natural disasters are becoming more frequent and severe. Some disasters are sudden and briefly devastating. Research shows that, in response, many people emigrate temporarily but return when the danger is past. The effect of slow-onset disasters can be equally disruptive but the economic and social impacts can last much longer. In Australia, extreme heat and the rising frequency of heat waves is a slow-onset disaster even if individual periods of hot weather are brief. This chapter investigates the impact of increasing heat stress on the intention of people living in Australia to migrate to cooler places as an adaptation strategy using an online survey of 1344 people. About 73% felt stressed by increasing heat of which 11% expressed an intention to move to cooler places in response. The more affected people had been by the heat, the more likely they were to intend to move. Tasmania was a preferred destination (20% of those intending to move), although many people (38%) were unsure where they would go. As Australia becomes hotter, heat can be expected to play a greater role in people’s mobility decisions. Knowing the source and destination of this flow of internal migrants will be critical to planning and policy-making.

Human migration on a heating planet: A scoping review

“…A study conducted in Australia found that men were already more likely to be moving because of heat than women, and women were more likely to intend to move in the distant future. Age did not seem to have an influence on their intention [11]. In contrast, a later cross-sectional Australian study indicated a strong age-effect, with heat becoming an important migration factor for people aged 50 and older, though no specific reason was given [7].…”

“…Summary characteristics are provided in Tables 1 and 2 respectively. Studies exploring the impact of heat on migration were based in Australia (n = 4) [11,[26][27][28], Bangladesh (n = 2) [29,30], Brazil [31], Burkina Faso (n = 2) [32,33], China [34], Ghana [35], Indonesia (n = 2) [36], Malaysia [36], Marshall Islands [37], Mexico (n = 1) [38], Pakistan (n = 2) [39,40], Philippines (n = 2) [36,41], Senegal (n = 2) [33,38], South Africa [42], Tanzania [43], Uganda [44] and the United States (n = 4) [37, [45][46][47]. Two studies took a global perspective [48,49], one study focused on Eastern Africa [50], and one on Central America and the Caribbean [51].…”

“…Whilst this study did not apply a study period limitation, all studies were published after 2009, with the majority published in the last five years (n = 28). Study periods ranged from 1944 [53] to 2021 [11,36,65]. For the studies including human participants, the sample size varied from 22 [68] to 2.3 million [42].…”

“…Several studies explored the variation of different age groups and genders on the decision to migrate [7,11,36,41,45]. A study conducted in Australia found that men were already more likely to be moving because of heat than women, and women were more likely to intend to move in the distant future.…”

“…Importantly, during the migratory journey, migrants may be particularly vulnerable to heat exposure [8], and heat extremes upon settling in a destination may disproportionately impact migrants when compared to non-migrants [9,10]. Several adaptation measures to heat are already utilised in some settings, such as energy-intensive air conditioning (AC), ventilation, insulation, and landscape design [11]. Such adaptation measures depend on planning and resources, while many areas at risk of extreme heat are low-resource settings, resulting in inequities between those who are able to adapt or migrate in the face of heat, compared to those who cannot.…”