How droughts can leave people with nowhere to go?

The gradual impacts of worsening droughts caused by climate change could force around 145 million people in the Global South to relocate within their own countries by 2050.

Climate Change: drought's devastating impact

A 2018 World Bank report predicted that sub-Saharan Africa would face the largest number of internal migrants, with 86 million, followed by South Asia with 40 million and Latin America with 17 million.

As regions become uninhabitable due to violent storms, water shortages, and agricultural collapse, people will seek more livable places to reside. The greatest displacement will occur in areas where communities depend on rainfed crops. This movement will increase the pressure on urban centers and agricultural areas, depleting their finite resources.

A population on the move consuming dwindling resources due to climate change has become a normal part of the political conversation. Characterized by inadequate rainfall, drying rivers, crop failure, barren soil, and collapsed rural economies, droughts pose non-dramatic but significant climatic hazards.

While communities in drought-prone areas have historically adapted to these conditions, more frequent and severe droughts exacerbated by climate change can overwhelm their ability to cope, resulting in sudden mass displacement. This process may reveal new dimensions of seasonal scarcity linked to monsoonal variations experienced by rainfed farmers in tropical countries.

Internal migration: Growing crisis

As people migrate frequently and off existing routes, bumpy mobility can become routine. Depleted resources in their home regions reduce their ability to negotiate fair contracts, making labor in migrant destinations more precarious. Migrants travelling within national borders can be perceived as a security problem, as their movements become unregulated and unpredictable in response to climate shocks.

Considering those who are forced to relocate due to climate change as 'environmental migrants' can inform the development of protection policies. However, predicting future events based on mathematical models remains challenging due to the limitations of climate science and social sciences to fully understand the impact of climate change on human societies.

Mass migration from African drylands

Drought-induced migration tends to be internal, and those most affected by climate-induced droughts often lack the necessary resources and networks to migrate. Rather than generating mass migration from the African drylands to other continents, future droughts are more likely to cause dislocations through immobility and entrapment.

There are different explanations for the complex causal pathways that lead from droughts to migration, and engaging with these explanations helps to understand the multiple risks associated with drought migrations.

Hydrologists argue that frequent hot and dry years lead to water-stressed river basins, negatively affecting communities that depend on subsistence agriculture. Competing demands on water resources in areas such as Australia and California can also affect population mobility and settlement.

In India, excessive groundwater extraction from private irrigation wells initially boosted the rural economy, but has led to land hardship, indebtedness and forced migration, exacerbating the effects of droughts in drylands. Climate historians emphasize the impact of climate change and extreme weather events on human society, which can be found in various sources of evidence. However, they caution against narrow climate determinism that ignores other causal factors and processes.

Anti-immigrant sentiments rising

Development economists stress the importance of protecting the most vulnerable populations from widespread famine during crises, while social scientists address colonial legacies that can simplify connections between climate and populations. Anthropologists highlight the importance of ecologies in rural and urban spaces and the role of human aspirations in shaping possibilities and meanings around mobilities.

Perceptions linking impending calamities to xenophobic sentiments have been fueled by weather information intended to prepare communities for adversity. As future host populations become anxious about climate migrants, anti-immigrant sentiments are rising.

A historical and contextual understanding of climate mobilities is necessary to support communities in the face of inequality and social polarization.

Investing in adaptation and understanding migration flows is more effective than building fences to keep people out. Not understanding the social implications of droughts in unequal contexts would make it difficult to support communities forced into useless and dangerous movements.

This content is originally published under the Creative Commons license by 360info™. The Ground Report editorial team has made some changes to the original version.

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