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Summary Environmental change influences population movements at various temporal and spatial scales. Yet individual decisions to migrate involve multiple motivations including perceived environmental risks and economic opportunities. We analyze how perceptions of environmental risks affect migration decisions and future migration intentions. We use cross-sectional household survey data (N = 5,450) from populations engaged in migration in net out-migration areas in four coastal areas in Ghana, Bangladesh, and India to examine ex post-migration motivations and ex ante-future migration intentions. The data include variables on previous migration, migration intentions, well-being, food insecurity, and perceived long-term environmental degradation. The results show that few households identified environmental risks as the primary driver for past migration decisions. Perceived increased severity of drought and household insecurity both reduce stated future migration intentions. Hence, perceptions of environmental risks, including future potential changes, are significant in altering aggregate migration flows from source areas in low-lying coastal regions.

It is widely suggested that migration is a key mechanism linking climate change to violent conflict, particularly through migration increasing the risks of conflict in urban destinations. Yet climate change also creates new forms of insecurity through distress migration, immobility and vulnerability that are prevalent in urban destination locations. Here we examine the extent and nature of human security in migration destinations and test whether insecurity is affected by length of residence and environmental hazards. The study develops an index measure of human security at the individual level to include environmental and climate-related hazards as well as sources of well-being, fear of crime and violence, and mental health outcomes. It examines the elements of human security that explain the prevalence of insecurity among recent and established migrants in low-income urban neighbourhoods. The study reports on data collected in Chattogram in Bangladesh through a survey of migrants (N = 447) and from qualitative data derived using photo elicitation techniques with cohorts of city planners and migrants. The results show that environmental hazards represent an increasing source of perceived insecurity to migrant populations over time, with longer-term migrants perceiving greater insecurity than more recent arrivals, suggesting lack of upward social mobility in low-income slums. Ill-health, fear of eviction, and harassment and violence are key elements of how insecurity is experienced, and these are exacerbated by environmental hazards such as flooding. The study expands the concept of security to encompass central elements of personal risk and well-being and outlines the implications for climate change.

The science of resilience suggests that urban systems become resilient when they promote progressive transformative change to social and physical infrastructure. But resilience is challenged by global environmental risks and by social and economic trends that create inequality and exclusion. Here we argue that distortionary inequality and precarity undermine social processes that give access to public infrastructure and ecosystems thereby undermining urban resilience. We illustrate how inequality and precarity undermine resilience with reference to social exclusion and insecurity in growing urban settlements in the Asia-Pacific region. Inequality and exposure to environmental risks represent major challenges for governance that can be best overcome through inclusion and giving voice to marginalised populations.

This paper examines how global trade shapes and intensifies disasters. Juxtaposing three basic, everyday consumer goods – a t‐shirt, a brick, and a tea bag – with disasters manifesting in their respective global supply chains, it highlights how climate change, local environmental degradation, and carbon emissions are dynamically shaped by consumption. Analysis of data collected in South and Southeast Asia reveals that local environmental degradation linked to international trade interacts with global climate change and the policies intended to mitigate it, influencing how and where disasters manifest. Underpinning this analysis is the physical and conceptual presence of the container. With more and more of the natural environment packaged and redistributed for global trade, the container thinking that underpins these logistics is increasingly imbricated in environmental processes. Indeed, as this paper aims to show, the container logic that frames analysis of these processes – linked to and drawn from the logistics of global trade – serves as both obfuscator and actor in the global landscape of environmental risk.

Low-lying atoll islands are especially threatened by anticipated sea-level rise, and migration is often mentioned as a potential response of these island societies. Further, small island states are developing population, economic and adaptation policies to plan the future. Policies, such as raising of islands or land reclamation, require a long-term vision on populations and migration. However, population and migration systems in small island settings are poorly understood. To address this deficiency requires an approach that considers changing environmental and socio-economic factors and individual migration decision-making. This article introduces the conceptual model of migration and explores migration within one small island nation, the Maldives, as an example. Agent-based simulations of internal migration from 1985–2014 are used as a basis to explore a range of potential demographic futures up to 2050. The simulations consider a set of consistent demographic, environmental, policy and international migration narratives, which describe a range of key uncertainties. The capital island Malé has experienced significant population growth over the last decades, growing from around 67,000 to 153,000 inhabitants from 2000 to 2014, and comprising about 38 percent of the national population in 2014. In all future narratives, which consider possible demographic, governance, environmental and globalization changes, the growth of Malé continues while many other islands are effectively abandoned. The analysis suggests that migration in the Maldives has a strong inertia, and radical change to the environmental and/or socio-economic drivers would be needed for existing trends to change. Findings from this study may have implications for national development and planning for climate change more widely in island nations.

Purpose of Review South Asia is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, owing to the high dependency on climate-sensitive livelihoods and recurrent extreme events. Consequently, an increasing number of households are adopting labour migration as a livelihood strategy to diversify incomes, spread risks, and meet aspirations. Under the Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA) initiative, four research consortia have investigated migration patterns and their inherent linkages to adaptation to climate change in climate hotspots. This article synthesizes key findings in regional context of South Asia. Recent Findings The synthesis suggests that in climate-sensitive hotspots, migration is an important livelihood diversification strategy and a response to various risks, including climate change. Typically, one or more household members, often young men, migrated internally or internationally to work in predominantly informal sectors. Remittances helped spatially diversify household income, spread risks, and insure against external stressors. The outcomes of migration are often influenced by who moves, where to, and what capacities they possess. Summary Migration was found to help improve household adaptive capacity, albeit in a limited capacity. Migration was mainly used as a response to risk and uncertainty, but with potential to have positive adaptation co-benefits.

Mobility is a key livelihood and risk management strategy, including in the context of climate change. The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced long standing concerns that migrant populations remain largely overlooked in economic development, adaptation to climate change, and spatial planning. We synthesize evidence across multiple studies that confirms the overwhelming preponderance of in-country and short distance rather than international migration in climate change hotspots in Asia and Africa. The emerging findings highlight the critical importance of addressing immobility and the intersecting social determinants that influence who can move and who cannot in development policy. This evidence suggests a more focused climate mobilities research agenda that includes understanding multiple drivers of mobility and multi-directional movement; intersecting social factors that determine mobility for some and immobility for others; and the implications for mobility and immobility under climate change and the COVID-19 recovery.

Planned relocation has been shown to have significant impacts on the livelihoods and wellbeing of people and communities, whether the resettlement process is inclusive or coercive. For states, planned relocation represents risks to those communities but also to government investments and political legitimacy. Evaluations of relocations commonly focus on the risks and benefits of government interventions while overlooking the consequences of not intervening. Here we develop a conceptual framework to examine the factors that influence government decision-making about whether or not to undertake planned relocation of populations in the context of environmental change. The study examines planned relocation decisions and non-decisions by government agencies in West Bengal in India for communities seeking relocation due to coastal flooding. It focuses on three localities facing river erosion losing significant land areas in small islands and communities where populations recognize the need for public intervention, but where there has been a diversity of responses from the state authorities. Data are derived from interviews with key respondents involved in planning and implementing relocation and with residents affected by those government decisions (n = 26). These data show that government action is explained by a combination of risk aversion within political systems to avoid perceived negative consequences, and a lack of government accountability. The empirical cases demonstrate the uneven application of action and inaction and the consequent uneven distribution of potential outcomes on populations. The study suggests that while there may be a growing demand for planned relocation in places affected by environmental change, its implementation is likely to be uneven, with profound socioeconomic implications for those living in such localities.

Deltas exemplify trends of great acceleration in the Anthropocene, including the shape of demographic and mobility transitions. The human core of the Anthropocene involves three principal phenomena: Increased human health evident at the population scale; movement of people to urban settlements; and growth in aggregate populations. Based on this research, it is argued that continued evolution is central for successful pathways towards a sustainable Anthropocene. Human settlement, movement and migration as a response to accelerating economic and environmental challenges are considered. There is evidence that environmental change is an important driver of where people live and move within deltas. Consequently, governments have much agency in the allocation of resources towards responses to current and future challenges and will therefore have a strong influence on future sustainability.

Studies of climate change at specific intervals of future warming have primarily been addressed through top-down approaches using climate projections and modelled impacts. In contrast, bottom-up approaches focus on the recent past and present vulnerability. Here, we examine climate signals at different increments of warming and consider the need to reconcile top-down and bottom-up approaches. We synthesise insights from recent studies in three climate-sensitive systems where change is a defining feature of the human-environment system. Whilst top-down and bottom-up approaches generate complementary insights into who and what is at risk, integrating their results is a much-needed step towards developing relevant information to address the needs of immediate adaptation decisions.

The coastal areas of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna delta are acknowledged hotspots of environmental and social concerns. This reflects a large, mainly rural population of 56.7 million, which is exposed to a range of natural hazards exacerbated by climate change, sea-level rise and subsidence. There are high levels of poverty and limited social well-being, including poor access to education, health, drinking water, and sanitation facilities. A spatial assessment of social vulnerability can indicate which communities are more susceptible to environmental hazards, while a temporal assessment may indicate how such vulnerability is changing due to development and other drivers. This study provides the first analysis of social vulnerability across the entire coastal delta within Bangladesh and India. It uses consistent and common secondary data at the sub-district level for two time periods: 2001 and 2011. These are used to construct a socio-economic vulnerability index across the region using Principal Component Analysis. Three main conclusions emerge. Firstly, there is a cross-shore social vulnerability gradient across the whole delta, with more vulnerable people living near the coast. Here, the benefits of access to marine fisheries are not apparent. Secondly, non-agricultural development and economic expansion have reduced the vulnerability significantly, showing its benefits. Lastly, despite general positive development trends, shocks due to major cyclone landfall appear to have enhanced vulnerability in the impacted areas. Further comprehensive analysis across the whole delta is recommended to improve our understanding of the common threats and possible solutions.

This thesis examines spatial mobility in relation to livelihood portfolios and capital assets among rural households during the 2010-2013 drought in semi-arid Northeast Brazil. Spatial mobility is a strategy adopted by rural households to respond to the impacts of climatic events in marginal regions around the globe. Permanent and seasonal forms of migration have been widely documented in the African Sahel and in Southeast Asia, but less attention has been given to South America. Moreover, little consideration has been given to the way climatic events impact on local forms of temporary mobility, including diurnal activity patterns and circular mobility. The distinctive socioeconomic and physical context of Northeast Brazil provides a unique setting to explore these relationships. On the one hand, the settlement pattern provides greater spatial choice. On the other hand, a robust welfare system reduces vulnerability to external stressors such as climatic events. At the same time, semi-arid Northeast Brazil suffers from cyclical droughts, including an intense and prolonged drought for the majority of 2010-2013. Such slow-onset climatic events represent a major threat to marginal communities relying on rain-fed agricultural systems. This study presents an empirical account of the impacts of the recent drought on spatial mobility and livelihood strategies in three rural localities in the State of Ceara. The methodology is multifaceted including, analysis of aggregate regional data on migration and climate, a survey of rural households, key-informant interviews, and the application of a new toolkit designed to capture the space-time signature of local circulation patterns. Nested within a regional case-study, these data were complemented by a macro approach which examines the broad socioeconomic and climatological context of the region. A robust conceptual model was developed to guide the research, situating household livelihood strategies in a framework defined by access to five broad groups of assets, within the wider socioeconomic and physical context, and tracing changes in the spatiotemporal dimensions of mobility resulting from the drought. At the aggregate level, the study uses census data and indirect estimates to link population dynamics to climatic events in the Northeast Region and in the State of Ceara. At the micro level, the study couples an intensive survey with field observation to examine household access to five forms of capital which mediate livelihood strategies among smallholder farmers. Analysis revealed four distinctive types of households, which differed in asset endowment and livelihood strategies: welfare-dependent, mixed livelihood, non-farming and commercial livestock-oriented. Differences between the four types were reflected in the way they were impacted by climatic events, and in the strategies employed to respond to the hardship. The study also sought to compare household perceptions of changes in the local climate against scientific climatological data. Respondents showed clear awareness of the 2010-2013 drought but a poor understanding of the true dynamics of climate variability in the region. It also sought to establish the significance of climatic events among other external factors impacting livelihoods by examining perceptions of community issues. Respondents ranked climate variability and drought below other factors such as crime, access to credit and markets, unemployment and poverty. However, the recent drought appears to have exacerbated these problems which suggest that climatic events impact indirectly as well as directly on everyday aspects of residents’ lives and livelihoods. The study employed conventional techniques to capture permanent and seasonal migration, but developed a new toolkit (MISTIC - Mobility in Space and Time among Individuals and Communities) to measure more nuanced variations in temporary mobility and local circulation. The toolkit captured both production- and consumption-related mobility using a participant-centred approach that identified duration, frequency and spatial patterns. The findings revealed that permanent and seasonal migration were both prevalent among households, but differed in rationale, composition and destinations Permanent moves were selective of young adults motivated primarily by employment opportunities rather than being a response to drought. Permanent migration was mainly rural-urban. Seasonal migrants were predominantly mature males engaged in off- and non-farm work in response to climate variability, and generated more diverse flows, especially to rural destinations. However, the greatest impact of the 2010-2013 drought was on diurnal and circular mobility, with customary patterns of production- and consumption-related activities shifting markedly in intensity, timing and spatial distribution. The two household types with fewer assets, Welfare-dependent and Mixed-livelihood, recorded the most significant changes, with fewer and shorter trips to fetch water from local dams, visit distant relatives, and attend farmers’ markets. However, access to social capital gained importance for all household types increasing trips associated to friends and religious activities. The findings revealed that the welfare system in Brazil, compared to other countries, has direct implications on livelihoods, and on the movement of individuals who could otherwise have engaged in seasonal or permanent migration due to climatic events. As a result, in contrast to findings elsewhere, shifts in local mobility became a more prevalent response to the drought.

It is widely recognised that environmental events may trigger permanent and seasonal migration but less attention has been given to the way they shape the everyday mobility that shapes household livelihood strategies. This dearth of attention can be traced to a lack of statistical data, the difficulties of collecting information on local space-time trajectories and the absence of sound statistical measures by which to express them. We review prior work on the migration-environment nexus and trace the development of methods that aim to capture and measure temporary population movement. We identify nine discrete dimensions of mobility and introduce the Mobility in Space and Time among Individuals and Communities (MISTIC) toolkit that is designed to capture the spatio-temporal patterns of household everyday mobility using a flexible, participant centred approach that facilitates data recording and subsequent analysis. We illustrate application of the toolkit using data from 90 smallholder, subsistence households in semi-arid rural Northeast Brazil. The empirical evidence reveals systematic changes in the frequency and duration of both production and consumption-related movements in response to the 2010-2013 drought.