CLIMATE CHANGE INDUCED MIGRATION: AN EVIDENCE-BASED STUDY IN THE SELECTED DISTRICTS OF NORTH BIHAR

Abstract

Climate change induced livelihood losses and resulting outmigration is a common strategy of affected communities post disaster. However, little evidences are supported empirically in this regard. The thesis systematically studies the case of climate-induced migrants and their hot-spots in India and particularly, in Bihar. There are three objectives in this thesis. Objective 1 aims to see the plausible relationship among climatic variation, disasters and bilateral migration across Indian states. Objective 2 deals with analysing the relationship among climatic variability, flood hazards and out-migration across districts in Bihar. Objective 3 of the study is aimed to collect the evidences of climate induced migration in the selected districts of North Bihar. Further, the partial segment of the objective 3 also deals with revealing people’s mobility decisions given the situation of floods through a choice based pictogram experiment. The study made an attempt to structure the debate regarding climate change induced mobility in context of developing countries and in South Asia. For doing so, the study employs both secondary and primary data. Quantitative methodologies such as Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood (PPML) for sub-national level analysis (India), panel data modelling for district level analysis (Bihar), logistic regression for primary survey analysis (in selected districts) is used to check the relationship between climate variability, flood hazards and migration. Findings of the first objective highlight that both temperature and rainfall variability significantly affect the bilateral migration across Indian states. The agriculture-dependent states and states with low level of development (captured using HDI) are more likely to face the problem of out-migration driven by climatic variations and disasters. This internal migration is seasonal, temporary and often short-distance in nature. However, repeated exposure of the vulnerable population to disasters ultimately may lead to permanent migrations. The findings partially validates NELM (1985) wherein, migration may happen due to non-economic factors such as climate led multidimensional crises.