On the Regional Rootedness of Population Mobility and Environmental Change

• Main Authors: Felicitas Hillmann, Ernst Spaan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Federal Institute for Population Research 2017-06-01
• Series: Comparative Population Studies
• Subjects: Migration; Environmental Change; Region; Development; Diaspora
• Online Access: http://www.comparativepopulationstudies.de/index.php/CPoS/article/view/267

This article argues that the interplay of changing environmental conditions in the wake of climate change and dynamic migration systems will lead to even more clearly articulated new regional formations. The way regions perceive the risks of climate change, how they cope with and adapt to these risks and their constitution as resilient entities determines the way migration and mobility take place. We focus on the regional dimensions of climate change and broader related developmental trends such as urbanisation and will highlight this nexus for coastal regions. We present two regional case studies, Keta in Ghana and Semarang in Indonesia. Both cities have experienced floods and related environmental risks throughout their histories. The contrasting analysis of the two cases illustrates that similar environmental challenges may have very different effects on the migratory patterns.