A combined cognitive and spatial model to map and understand climate-induced migration

Abstract

Climate change impacts on populations have increased the number of affected people and climate migrants worldwide. Although the nexus between climate change and migration is not monolithic, analyses of individual-level factors at the local scale that reveal the specific drivers of migration are lacking. Here, we show that people are motivated by individual calculations, prioritizing economic and social factors when deciding to migrate. We use data from 53 structured interviews to decompose the assessment of the decision-making process of people deciding to migrate from a region highly vulnerable to climate change, assessing the internal and external migratory potential. The assessment of migration potential evidenced that potential migrants react and make decisions based on perceptions and preferences among economic, social, environmental, and cultural factors when migrating and value these factors differently. Our spatial multi-criteria model reports disaggregation in that people prioritize economic factors, such as unemployment, job opportunities, and lack of income, over other migration-related factors, while environmental factors are generally considered underlying. Our results demonstrate that migration is not monolithic but a mixture and amalgam of multiple interacting factors, which causes people to migrate or stay in one place despite vulnerability and climate change impacts.