Contexts of reception, post-disaster migration, and socioeconomic mobility
Abstract
Current theories conceptualize return migration to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina as an individual-level assessment of costs and benefits. Since relocation is cost prohibitive, return migration is thought to be unlikely for vulnerable populations. However, recent analyses of longitudinal survey data suggest that these individuals are likely to return to New Orleans over time despite achieving socioeconomic gains in the post-disaster location. I extend the “context of reception” approach from the sociology of immigration and draw on longitudinal data from the Resilience in the Survivors o...
Source: Population and Environment - September 24, 2014 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
Change in visible impervious surface area in southeastern Michigan before and after the “Great Recession:” spatial differentiation in remotely sensed land-cover dynamics
We examined how those patterns of association were affected by the “Great Recession” in southeastern Michigan, a region with a low overall growth prior to the recession but with a high degree of internal heterogeneity and social segregation. We used an innovative application of available Landsat imagery and spatial autoregressive methods to relate the rates of change in visible impervious surface area (VISA) before (i.e., 2001–2005) and after (i.e., 2006–2011) the Great Recession to four factors that characterize tract-level variability in socioeconomic characteristics based on the Census data. Then, using a differ...
Source: Population and Environment - September 21, 2014 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
Climate-related migration in rural Bangladesh: a behavioural model
Abstract
Research into the climate change and migration nexus has often focussed solely on how people move in response to the impacts of variability and change in climate. This notion often ignores the nature of migration as a tried and tested livelihood choice amid a variety of socio-economic and environmental opportunities and limitations. This paper closely looks at the behavioural aspects of migration decision-making in Bangladesh in the context of changes in its economy, and, increasingly, exposure to the impacts of climate variability and change. We find that villagers in areas particularly affect...
Source: Population and Environment - September 1, 2014 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
Temporal variation in the relationship between environmental demands and well-being: a panel analysis of developed and less-developed countries
This study assesses the degree to which the relationship between the environmental demands of countries (measured as ecological footprint per capita) and well-being (measured as life expectancy) has changed over the last several decades (1961–2007) and whether the nature and extent of these changes differ between developed and less-developed countries. Pooled ordinary least squares regression results indicate that decoupling has occurred among developed countries, where the relationship between ecological footprint and life expectancy weakened substantially over time, becoming negative in later years. In less-developed c...
Source: Population and Environment - September 1, 2014 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
Empirical research on international environmental migration: a systematic review
Abstract
This paper presents the findings of a systematic review of scholarly publications that report empirical findings from studies of environmentally-related international migration. There exists a small, but growing accumulation of empirical studies that consider environmentally-linked migration that spans international borders. These studies provide useful evidence for scholars and policymakers in understanding how environmental factors interact with political, economic and social factors to influence migration behavior and outcomes that are specific to international movements of people, in highli...
Source: Population and Environment - September 1, 2014 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
Using satellite remote sensing and household survey data to assess human health and nutrition response to environmental change
Abstract
Climate change and degradation of ecosystem services functioning may threaten the ability of current agricultural systems to keep up with demand for adequate and inexpensive food and for clean water, waste disposal and other broader ecosystem services. Human health is likely to be affected by changes occurring across multiple geographic and time scales. Impacts range from increasing transmissibility and the range of vectorborne diseases, such as malaria and yellow fever, to undermining nutrition through deleterious impacts on food production and concomitant increases in food prices. This paper ...
Source: Population and Environment - September 1, 2014 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
Environmental quality and fertility: the effects of plant density, species richness, and plant diversity on fertility limitation
Abstract
The relationship between the environment and population has been of concern for centuries, and climate change is making this an even more pressing area of study. In poor rural areas, declining environmental conditions may elicit changes in family-related behaviors. This paper explores this relationship in rural Nepal looking specifically at how plant density, species richness, and plant diversity are related to women’s fertility limitation behavior. Taking advantage of a unique data set with detailed micro-level environmental measures and individual fertility behavior, I link geographically w...
Source: Population and Environment - September 1, 2014 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
Long-term dynamics of household size and their environmental implications
Abstract
Little is known about the environmental implications of long-term historical trends in household size. This paper presents the first historical assessment of global shifts in average household size based on a variety of datasets covering the period 1600–2000. Findings reveal that developed nations reached a threshold in 1893 when average household size began to drop rapidly from approximately 5.0 to 2.5. A similar threshold was reached in developing nations in 1987. With the notable exceptions of Ireland, and England and Wales in the early 1800s, and India and the Seychelles in the late 1900s...
Source: Population and Environment - September 1, 2014 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
Climate variability and human migration in the Netherlands, 1865–1937
Abstract
Human migration is frequently cited as a potential social outcome of climate change and variability, and these effects are often assumed to be stronger in the past when economies were less developed and markets more localized. Yet, few studies have used historical data to test the relationship between climate and migration directly. In addition, the results of recent studies that link demographic and climate data are not consistent with conventional narratives of displacement responses. Using longitudinal individual-level demographic data from the Historical Sample of the Netherlands and climate ...
Source: Population and Environment - August 27, 2014 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
Scalar considerations in carrying capacity assessment: an Australian example
Abstract
Regional resource self-sufficiency has been proposed as a way to improve food security by lessening the demand on long-distance transport. An online tool, the Carrying Capacity Dashboard, was developed for Australian conditions in order to gauge self-sufficiency at three different scales: regional, state and national. It allows users to test a variety of societal behaviours such as diet, biofuel production, farming systems and ecological protection practices. Analysis developed from the Dashboard tests the effects of various resource consumption patterns on land carrying capacity. Findings reveal...
Source: Population and Environment - July 30, 2014 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
Gender, democracy, development, and overshoot: a cross-national analysis
Abstract
The crux of sustainability concerns hinges on humanity’s overshoot of our global carrying capacity, which we currently exceed by about 50 %. Overshoot of the earth’s natural resource bases militates against our current and future prospects for sustainability. Despite the theoretical and practical impetus to examine these dynamics, there is a dearth of empirical sociological research that analyzes overshoot. The paper fills this gap by offering a structural equation model of each nation’s relative contributions to overshoot. The model tests key theorizations in the environmental sociology, ...
Source: Population and Environment - July 27, 2014 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
Environmental influences on African migration to Canada: focus group findings from Ottawa-Gatineau
Abstract
There is limited empirical evidence of how environmental conditions in the Global South may influence long-distance international migration to the Global North. This research note reports findings from seven focus groups held in Ottawa-Gatineau, Canada, with recent migrants from the Horn of Africa and francophone sub-Saharan Africa, where the role of environment in migration decision-making was discussed. Participants stated that those most affected by environmental challenges in their home countries lack the financial wherewithal to migrate to Canada. Participants also suggested that internal ru...
Source: Population and Environment - July 12, 2014 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
Land grabbing: a preliminary quantification of economic impacts on rural livelihoods
Abstract
Global demands on agricultural land are increasing due to population growth, dietary changes and the use of biofuels. Their effect on food security is to reduce humans’ ability to cope with the uncertainties of global climate change. In light of the 2008 food crisis, to secure reliable future access to sufficient agricultural land, many nations and corporations have begun purchasing large tracts of land in the global South, a phenomenon deemed “land grabbing” by popular media. Because land investors frequently export crops without providing adequate employment, this represents an effective ...
Source: Population and Environment - July 8, 2014 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
Spatio-temporal migration patterns to and from an upland village of Mindanao, Philippines
Abstract
Movement of groups of people is closely linked to environmental, agricultural and cultural change. Gaining an understanding of these changes in a local context is a vital prelude to the construction of a viable predictive model. We carried out a study in the Philippines to better understand the association between migration and these types of changes at a village scale and to build a picture of how the associations changed in time and space. The study area was located in the uplands of Mindanao. Migration to the village began in the late 1970s. As of 2010, the population is made up of indigenous ...
Source: Population and Environment - June 27, 2014 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
Climate change and internal migration intentions in the forest-savannah transition zone of Ghana
Abstract
Migration is at the centre of demographic research on the population–environment nexus. Increasing concerns about the impacts of environmental events on human population are fuelling interest on the relationship between migration and environmental change. Using data from the Climate Change Collective Learning and Observatory Network Ghana project, we employ binary logistic regression to examine migration intentions of households in response to major community stressors including climate-related ones. The results indicate that the type of community stressor that affects households most does no...
Source: Population and Environment - June 1, 2014 Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research
