TREND IN CLIMATE CHANGE-INDUCED MIGRATION: A BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS

Abstract

Literature argues that numerous climatic factors contribute to migration decisions. To understand the complex interplay between climate change impacts and migration-decision, we need to analyse how the factors affect the said decision. This bibliometric review aims to analyse the climate change and migration literature and assess future research opportunities for exploring climate-induced migration. This review considers 4658 documents extracted from Scopus by performing a search with the words 'migration', 'climate change', 'climatic hazard' and 'coastal region' covering journal articles, review papers, book chapters, books, and conference papers from 2011 to 2020. This study applied VOSViewer for analysis. Results reveal that climate change is a dominant driver of migration, and the literature is deeply rooted in the United States and the United Kingdom. The lexical network shows that the developed countries which are less vulnerable to climatic hazards produce more co-authored documents. Furthermore, in the migration discourse, the co-authors from developed countries have strong ties exhibiting migration and climate change research, mainly concentrated among the collaborative framework of developed countries’ researchers. Therefore, more research on migration and climate change issues in collaboration with the global south and north is highly demanding, providing further insights into the existing research arena.