Migration and Global Environmental Change

Final Report of the ‘Migration and Global Environmental Change’ project, led by the UK Government Office for Science

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The ‘Migration and Global Environmental Change’ project intended to examine how profound changes in environmental conditions such as flooding, drought and rising sea levels will influence and interact with patterns of global human migration over the next 50 years. Around 350 leading experts and stakeholders from 30 countries worldwide contributed to the report.

The report’s main findings are that:

  • Millions will be ‘trapped’ in vulnerable areas and unable to move, particularly in low-income countries. Migration is costly, and with environmental conditions such as drought and flooding eroding people’s livelihoods, migration – particularly over long distances – may be less possible in many situations. This creates high risk conditions.
  • People will increasingly migrate towards environmentally vulnerable areas. Rural to urban migration is set to continue, but many cities in the developing world are already failing their citizens with flooding, water shortages and inadequate housing. Preliminary estimates show that up to 192 million more people will be living in urban coastal floodplains in Africa and Asia by 2060, through both natural population growth and rural-urban migration.
  • However, migration can transform people’s ability to cope with environmental change, opening up new sources of income which help them become stronger and more resilient. For instance, 2009 remittances to low income countries were at $307 billion, nearly three times the value of overseas development aid. These kinds of income flows may actually make it possible for households, particularly in low income countries, to stay in situ for longer.

In summary, the report finds that environmental change will affect human population movement specifically through its influence on a range of economic, social and political drivers. However, because of the range of factors influencing the decision to migrate, environmental threats will rarely be the sole driver of migration, nor will the policy challenges be limited to people moving away from areas of risk.

A extended Executive Summary is available on this website.

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Publication Date:
Fri 28 Oct 2011
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