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Accepted (AM)Open Access (License Unspecified), Open
Journal article
Climate shocks and rural-urban migration in Mexico: exploring nonlinearities and thresholds
Climatic change, v 140(2), pp 243-258
01 Jan 2017
PMID: 28435176
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Adverse climatic conditions may differentially drive human migration patterns between rural and urban areas, with implications for changes in population composition and density, access to infrastructure and resources, and the delivery of essential goods and services. However, there is little empirical evidence to support this notion. In this study, we investigate the relationship between climate shocks and migration between rural and urban areas within Mexico. We combine individual records from the 2000 and 2010 Mexican censuses (n = 683,518) with high-resolution climate data from Terra Populus that are linked to census data at the municipality level (n = 2321). We measure climate shocks as monthly deviation from a 30-year (1961-1990) long-term climate normal period, and uncover important nonlinearities using quadratic and cubic specifications. Satellite-based measures of urban extents allow us to classify migrant-sending and migrant-receiving municipalities as rural or urban to examine four internal migration patterns: rural-urban, rural-rural, urban-urban, and urban-rural. Among our key findings, results from multilevel models reveal that each additional drought month increases the odds of rural-urban migration by 3.6%. In contrast, the relationship between heat months and rural-urban migration is nonlinear. After a threshold of similar to 34 heat months is surpassed, the relationship between heat months and rural-urban migration becomes positive and progressively increases in strength. Policy and programmatic interventions may therefore reduce climate induced rural-urban migration in Mexico through rural climate change adaptation initiatives, while also assisting rural migrants in finding employment and housing in urban areas to offset population impacts.
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Details
- Title
- Climate shocks and rural-urban migration in Mexico: exploring nonlinearities and thresholds
- Creators
- Raphael J. Nawrotzki - University of MinnesotaJack DeWaard - University of MinnesotaMaryia Bakhtsiyarava - University of MinnesotaJasmine Trang Ha - University of Minnesota
- Publication Details
- Climatic change, v 140(2), pp 243-258
- Publisher
- Springer Nature
- Number of pages
- 16
- Grant note
- ACI-0940818 / National Science Foundation funded Terra Populus project (NSF Award); National Science Foundation (NSF) R24 HD041023 / Minnesota Population Center U.S. Consulate General Toronto 0940818 / Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC); Direct For Computer & Info Scie & Enginr; National Science Foundation (NSF); NSF - Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Urban Health Collaborative
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000392425900011
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-84995757380
- Other Identifier
- 991021966750004721
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InCites Highlights
Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:
- Web of Science research areas
- Environmental Sciences
- Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences