Climate Change, Vulnerability and Migration


Book Description

This book highlights how climate change has affected migration in the Indian subcontinent. Drawing on field research, it argues that extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, cyclones, cloudbursts as well as sea-level rise, desertification and declining crop productivity have shown higher frequency in recent times and have depleted bio-physical diversity and the capacity of the ecosystem to provide food and livelihood security. The volume shows how the socio-economically poor are worst affected in these circumstances and resort to migration to survive. The essays in the volume study the role of remittances sent by migrants to their families in environmentally fragile zones in providing an important cushion and adaptation capabilities to cope with extreme weather events. The book looks at the socio-economic and political drivers of migration, different forms of mobility, mortality and morbidity levels in the affected population, and discusses mitigation and adaption strategies. The volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of environment and ecology, migration and diaspora studies, development studies, sociology and social anthropology, governance and public policy, and politics.




Migration and Meteorology


Book Description

Migrant insect pests represent a constant threat to crops and to health in many parts of the world. In Africa alone, over $100 million is spent annually on the control of a half dozen species of locust. One of the key problems in combating migrant pests is that the insect can disappear for months at a time and reappear with catastrophic effect. With the aid of aircraft and radar, it has been possible to map the movements of migrant pests. The research in this book, carried out on an international scale, has shown that migrant pests can travel longer distances than previously suspected and that their movements are related to the dynamics of the winds and weather systems. These findings throw new light on the flight behavior of the insects as well as on the ecological and evolutionary aspects of flight migration and suggest new options for controlling pests, especially locusts and grasshoppers. In surveying the achievements in this area, the author provides the biologist with an introduction to the relevant aspects of meteorology.




Technical Notes


Book Description




Bird Migration


Book Description

E. GWINNER! The phenomenon of bird migration with its large scale dimensions has attracted the attention of naturalists for centuries. Worldwide billions of birds leave their breeding grounds every autumn to migrate to areas with seasonally more favor able conditions. Many of these migrants travel only over a few hundred kilo meters but others cover distances equivalent to the circumference of the earth. Among these long-distance migrants are several billion birds that invade Africa every autumn from their West and Central Palaearctic breeding areas. In the Americas and in Asia the scope of bird migration is of a similar magnitude. Just as impressive as the numbers of birds are their achievements. They have to cope with the enormous energetic costs of long-distance flying. particularly while crossing oceans and deserts that do not allow replenishment of depleted fat reserves. They have to appropriately time the onset and end of migrations. both on a daily and annual basis. And finally. they have to orient their migratory movements in space to reach their species- or population-specific wintering and breeding grounds, irrespective of the variable climatic conditions along their migratory routes.




Stormy Weather


Book Description

Climate change is predicted to dislocate millions of people in regions already vulnerable to economic, political and environmental disruption. Already some communities, notably Pacific Islanders, are under direct threat of displacement due to climate-related factors. Stormy Weather looks at the effects of climate change as experienced by the people of Tuvalu, a tiny, picturesque Pacific nation. It looks at how the international community should respond to climate-related migration in Asia, the Pacific and Africa, and argues that Australia—in a region in which 60 per cent of the world’s population lives and where the human implications of climate change will be played out—has a particular interest in ensuring that this new challenge is met.




Climate and Human Migration


Book Description

The first comprehensive review of the interaction between climate change and migration; for advanced students, researchers and policy makers.




Weather, Migration and the Scottish Diaspora


Book Description

Why did large numbers of Scots leave a temperate climate to live permanently in parts of the world where greater temperature extreme was the norm? The long nineteenth century was a period consistently cooler than now, and Scotland remains the coldest of the British nations. Nineteenth-century meteorologists turned to environmental determinism to explain the persistence of agricultural shortage and to identify the atmospheric conditions that exacerbated the incidence of death and disease in the towns. In these cases, the logic of emigration and the benefits of an alternative climate were compelling. Emigration agents portrayed their favoured climate in order to pull migrants in their direction. The climate reasons, pressures and incentives that resulted in the movement of people have been neither straightforward nor uniform. There are known structural features that contextualize the migration experience, chief among them being economic and demographic factors. By building on the work of historical climatologists, and the availability of long-run climate data, for the first time the emigration history of Scotland is examined through the lens of the nation’s climate. In significant per capita numbers, the Scots left the cold country behind; yet the ‘homeland’ remained an unbreakable connection for the diaspora.




Migration and Meteorology


Book Description

Migrant insect pests represent a constant threat to crops and to health in many parts of the world. In Africa alone, over $100 million is spent annually on the control of a half dozen species of locust. One of the key problems in combating migrant pests is that the insect can disappear for months at a time and reappear with catastrophic effect. With the aid of aircraft and radar, it has been possible to map the movements of migrant pests. The research in this book, carried out on an international scale, has shown that migrant pests can travel longer distances than previously suspected and that their movements are related to the dynamics of the winds and weather systems. These findings throw new light on the flight behavior of the insects as well as on the ecological and evolutionary aspects of flight migration and suggest new options for controlling pests, especially locusts and grasshoppers. In surveying the achievements in this area, the author provides the biologist with an introduction to the relevant aspects of meteorology.




Climate Change and Migration


Book Description

Climate change and migration are major concerns in the MENA region, yet the empirical evidence on the impact of climate change and extreme weather events on migration remains limited. Information is broadly lacking on how households in vulnerable areas perceive changes in the climate, how they are affected by extreme weather events, whether they benefit from community and government programs to help them cope with and adapt to a changing climate, and how these conditions influence the decision of household members to migrate, either temporarily or permanently. This introductory chapter summarizes briefly the main results of the study which relied on existing data as well as focus groups and new household surveys collected in 2011 in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Syria, and Yemen. The results suggest that households do perceive important changes in the climate, and that many households are being affected by extreme weather events resulting in losses in income, crops, and livestock. The coping and adaptation strategies used by households to deal with weather shocks are diverse, but also limited, with most households not able to recover from the negative impact of weather shocks. The ability of community level responses and government programs to support households is also very limited. Finally, while climate change is not today the main driver of migration flows, it does appear to contribute substantially to these flows, so that worsening climatic conditions are likely to exacerbate future migration flows.