It has been long recognized that changes in the environment can influence human movement patterns and behaviour. Human migration in response to change in environment has been one of the considered strategies of the vulnerable households, to move away from the area of risk . For nomadic and pastoralist communities, seasonal movement is an essential part of their livelihood. Migration induced by climate change was noted as early as 1990, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which emphasized: “[T]he greatest single impact of climate change could be on human migration”, with millions of people displaced by shoreline erosion, coastal flooding and severe drought. Since then there have been various estimates which report that climate change will be one of the key drivers of population movement and displacement. The work done on climate change, migration, and adaptation broadly falls under two categories:
(i) one that does not consider migration as adaptation but rather an outcome of failure to adapt, or (ii) second, which promotes migration as an important adaptation strategy. The estimates cited above reaffirm the first broad category, wherein the figures have certain underlying assumptions that presume that migration reflects the failure to adapt to changes in physical environment. This position reflects a negative connotation, wherein, migration is a forced option. Predominance of this point of view is also exemplified in the absence of mobility as an adaptation strategy in the cases collected under the UNFCCC database on distribution of different kinds and combinations of local coping strategies and adaptation practices (UNFCCC, 2014; Aggarwal and Perrin, 2009). The second category of work has opposite and positive view on migration, as it considers migration as a chief adaptive response to socio-economic, cultural, and environmental change. It also highlights that migration, when planned and voluntary, can serve as an essential coping strategy for addressing climate stress.