Climate Change, Vulnerability and Migration

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.

S. Irudaya Rajan is Professor, Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India. With more than three decades of research experience, he has coordinated with K. C. Zachariah seven major migration surveys in Kerala since 1998, conducted migration surveys in Goa (2008) and Tamil Nadu (2015) and provided technical support to Gujarat (2010) and Punjab (2011) migration surveys. He is editor of the annual series ‘India Migration Report’ and the editor-in-chief of the journal Migration and Development.

R. B. Bhagat is Professor and Head, Department of Migration and Urban Studies, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. He has served as Consultant to the UNESCO-UNICEF India Initiative on Migration and to the International Organisation of Migration (IOM), and Advisor to the Yale University Project on Climate Change and Communication. His research interests are in population, urbanisation, environment and migration issues.