Climate Change induced Migration

Trends, Patterns and Impacts of Climate Change induced Migration on Livelihood Situation: A case of Resource-poor Households of the Barind Tract of Bangladesh (A Research of DScE in collaboration with Oxfam GB)

Bangladesh is globally considered to be one of the most affected countries due to climate change. The Third Assessment Report of the IPCC (2001) ranked Bangladesh high in the list of most vulnerable countries, while the Fourth Assessment Report (2007) observed that several evidences of climate change and its impacts are already visible in Bangladesh mainly in the form of country’s average temperature increase, changes in rainfall and precipitation, frequency of severe floods, salinity intrusion, increasing frequency of monsoon depressions and cyclone formation in Bay of Bengal amongst others. While scientists and researchers are extending their efforts worldwide to causally connect some environmental degradation with climate change, it is already widely acknowledged that climate change and environmental degradations will have bigger impacts on internal displacement in many developing countries, including Bangladesh where it is expected to be even worse. In Bangladesh, every year, about half a million of people move to Dhaka city and it is observed that considerable number of these people in recent years are from country’s climate vulnerable regions like the coastal and drought prone district of Bangladesh. It is also expected that by the year 2025, about half of the population in Bangladesh will live in cities and urban areas, out of which a significant number will be climate change induced displaced people. Most of these people are expected to end up living in urban slums with very limited civic facilities. Against this backdrop, it is important to investigate the issues of climate induced migration, with an analysis of major hurdles they face both in cities and also in their place of origins before displacement.

Goal of the study

The overall goal of the study is to understand the nature and extent of climate change induced migration from the drought prone Barind region of Bangladesh and major livelihood hurdles they face.

Objectives of the study

Against this backdrop, the present study aims to set the following objectives:

To understand the nature of rural-urban migration from the Barind region of Bangladesh, including climate change induced migration in the context of changing environment;
To investigate the causes of such migration;
To see how climate change can intensify forced migration from the climate vulnerable Barind region of the country;
To sketch out the life after migration and to identify major hurdles the migrants face living in the urban slums; and
To suggest policy inputs for implementation of the BCCSAP-2009 and other plans and policies.

Time frame: September 2014 to March 2015

Project Leaders:

Dr. A K M Nazrul Islam Md. Touhidul Alam
nazrul2002@yahoo.com touhidul.alam@dscebd.org