Facing Climate Change: What Drives Internal Migration Decisions in the Karst Rocky Regions of Southwest China

Guoqing Shi,Qiulong LYU,Ziheng Shangguan,Tianhe Jiang

doi:10.3390/su11072142

Abstract

Global climate change and its influence on human migration have caused heated debates. There is no consensus about the role of environmental change in shaping migration decisions. To amass more evidence and develop a deeper understanding of the relations between the environment and migration, this paper seeks to evaluate the importance of various drivers (economic, social, political, demographic, and environmental drivers) and determine the internal mechanism in the decision process. The Likert scale was used as the tool for measuring each respondent’s perception of the drivers, and the within-group interrater agreement index was used to express the survey data and to select the actual driving forces. As a result, economic, social, and political factors were strong forces that promoted migration directly, while demographic and environmental factors were moderate or weak forces that promoted migration indirectly. The migrants’ core consideration was to effectively reduce family risks and sustain their livelihoods by moving to a destination to improve their household income, keep their original social networks, and obtain housing allowances from the local government. Land degradation and meteorological disasters were rooted in the vulnerability and risks of a family, and these factors indirectly influenced the people’s decisions by affecting the socioeconomic drivers. We concluded that isolating the environmental drivers from other drivers underlying migration decisions is difficult. Additionally, the internal mechanism indicated that both environmental and non-environmental factors all have an impact on choice in different ways. Future policies should be aimed at increasing sustainable livelihoods and the social resilience of migrant families at a personal level, balancing the development levels of the original locations and destinations, and strengthening international cooperation to reduce the negative effects of climate change at the regional level.

Highlights

It seems that people in extremely impoverished regions face a dark future when confronting the environmental change resulting from greenhouse gas emissions
Precisely distinguishing environmental factors from all driving forces is likely to be difficult because the motivations of migrants coupled with family characteristics, which are influenced by vulnerability and adaptation strategies, are generally diverse and complex [7]
Different respondents expressed different preferences about these drivers owing to their personal characteristics

Summary

Introduction

It seems that people in extremely impoverished regions face a dark future when confronting the environmental change resulting from greenhouse gas emissions. The mechanism is that climate change causes a series of environmental disruptions, including storms, floods, droughts, land degradation, sea level rise, and so on, resulting in the inability of people with high vulnerability to survive. These people have no choice but to leave their homes [6]. The effect of environmental drivers associated with other drivers can hardly be demonstrated in detail [13] This inadequacy is partly because of the high levels of uncertainty about the nexus between climate change and human society, and partly because it is not clear whether migration means a failure to adapt or if it is an initiative diversification strategy [14].

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Conclusion