Human mobility and environmental change

Xu et al. review applications of urban mobility behaviour data and propose a temporal bipartite network that reveals mobility patterns between people and places. It helps to track urban inequalities in social mixing, facility access and adaptation.

Climate change is projected to affect migration patterns, mortality, and fertility in the most vulnerable places in the global tropics. An analysis of population growth and exposure to climate extremes in twenty-nine tropical countries shows that heat and drought lead to altered population distributions but not to depopulation.

This study releases a very high-resolution migration dataset that reveals trends that shape daily life: rising moves into high-income neighborhoods, racial gaps in upward mobility, and wildfire-driven moves.

In China, interventions such as numerical data on energy consumption and savings, as well as rank ordering information on energy use, improved residents’ understanding of energy conservation according to a randomized controlled experiment.

Migration centres in China show reduced levels of pollution discharge due to improved treatment efficiency in urban areas, according to analyses of spatial patterns of migration and subsequent environmental disturbances.

Mid- to high-latitude developed countries are projected to experience increased migration inflows, and low-latitude countries with low development status are likely to see increasing migration outflows, based on climate indices, migration and socio-economic data, and a statistical approach.

Drought and cold in northern China during the 2.8 ka cold event contributed to the collapse of the Western Zhou Dynasty and subsequent significant southward migration, according to analyses of stalagmite records from Northeast and Southeast China.

Millions of people each year are forcibly displaced due to floods. Mester et al. show that measures of human development and rural areas are more important than GDP per capita in explaining the varying vulnerability to such displacement.

Migration responses to climate are demographically heterogeneous. Accounting for age and education greatly improves predictions, with demographic-specific effects often an order of magnitude larger than population wide averages.

Coastal migration under sea level rise is more likely in higher- than in lower-income contexts. Key determinants of migration include flood risk, response efficacy, self-efficacy, place attachment, and age. Important trade-offs exist between migration and in-situ flood adaptation.

In Vietnam, providing text-based information about exposure to projected sea level rise increases respondents stated likelihood of migration, with maps prompting more targeted responses, according to a large-scale survey experiment.

In Malaysia, awareness of environmental consequences affects environmental responsibility, and perceived severity of flood, which in turn influences the intention of individual households to migrate, according to an analysis that uses survey data and statistical analysis.

In Fiji, partial relocation shapes the wellbeing and lives of individuals, even ten years after relocating, and differences exist between those who relocated and those who did not, according to an analysis that uses participative tool with statistical analysis to explore narratives of communities.

In developing countries, flood fatalities and displacement impact people’s decision to migrate away, or toward flood zones, and in developed countries, people move away from flood areas, according to an analysis that uses a statistical approach and social and climate data.

Planned relocations reduce communities’ risk of future coastal floods, but they do not eliminate it entirely – especially under high emissions scenarios and for moves with small-island destinations, according to an analysis that combines data on relocation sites and inundation projections.

This study examines the impact of destructive wildfires on human migration in the contiguous United States, showing that only the most extreme events affected existing migration trends. Migration in response to wildfire building destruction was rare, while immobility was a more common response.

Hydrological risks drive migration more than socioeconomic factors. Vulnerable groups often stay in high-risk areas or migrate nearby. The study reveals an S-shaped migration pattern influenced by settlement resilience and adaptability.

Governmental readiness - a capacity of state actors to manage disaster risks - is critical for reducing human displacement due to weather-related events regardless of country income, according to an analysis combining country readiness index and human displacement data for 92 countries from 2010 to 2020.

Limited comparative evidence exists on the impacts of climatic factors on internal migration. Here, using a harmonized census-based dataset, the authors find that drought and aridity substantially increase internal migration, with considerable heterogeneity across regions, age groups and education levels.

Afghan phone records show that high-casualty events trigger the most internal displacement.