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Migration as an Adaptation to Climate Change

Abstract

Environmental change (including climate change) affects natural and socio-economic systems as well as migration patterns. Migration is a part of the cultural habits of various societies and serves as a survival or personal development strategy. If we focus on the relationship between migration and climate change (in terms of changes of temperatures, changes of precipitation patterns, extreme weather events occurrence, etc.), migration could be perceived as a short-term coping strategy or a long-term adaptation strategy. The main aim of the paper is to deal with the relationship between climate change and the migration strategies of various peoples who immigrate as a reaction to changes in their living conditions. Two case studies from South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa demonstrate two different approaches of local communities to tackling the impacts of climate change. The empirical qualitative field research showed that the communities from South Asia perceived climate change as one of the significant factors encouraging migration, while in Sub-Saharan Africa migration on such a substantial scale in relation to climate change did not take place.

Keywords

climate change, environment migration, coping, adaptation, India, Bangladesh, Kenya

PDF Research Article (Czech)

Author Biography

Robert Stojanov

He studied history, geography, and the fundamentals of social sciences at the Faculty of Education at VŠP in Hradec Králové and humanities-oriented environmental studies at the Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University in Brno. He earned a Ph.D. in environmental geography from the Faculty of Science at Ostrava University. In the same year, he received a scholarship for a study stay at Brown University in Providence on the topic of Climate Change Impacts. Currently, he conducts research at the Global Change Research Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences and at the Karel Engliš College, focusing on the societal impacts of global change and adaptation strategies. His specialization includes relationships between the environment, climate change, development, and migration in South Asia, Europe, and Africa (see more at www.stojanov.org).

Barbora Duží

Born in 1976, she studied library and information science at the Silesian University in Opava and environmental studies at Masaryk University in Brno. She is currently pursuing a doctoral program in applied and landscape ecology at Mendel University in Brno. She works at the Global Change Research Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences, focusing on the human factor in global change—how people perceive, interpret, and (fail to) adapt to environmental changes.

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