With the advance of climate change and environmental changes threatening livelihoods, their impacts on migration and displacement are receiving increasing attention in research, politics, and civil society. The issue is complex and multi-dimensional, with environmental changes affecting human mobility in diverse ways. The three reports in this series thus evaluate the evidence base for policymaking, and provide entry points for responses in the field of climate change adaptation.

This first report reviews the literature’s key findings to date and provides an overview of theoretical and empirical research into the linkages between environmental stressors – including climate change – and human mobility.

This literature review provides an overview of theoretical and empirical research into the linkages between environmental stressors – including climate change – and human mobility. Migration in response to changes in the environment is not new, indeed it is part of the story of human inhabitation of our planet. Early theorists of migration considered the environment as a causal factor in the late nineteenth century, but research efforts to better understand the complexities of this linkage are much more recent (the first publications date back to the 1980s). However, increased understanding of the likely impacts of climate change from the 1990s – fueled by alarmist predictions about the possible impacts on human migration - has led to a surge in research into the environment-migration nexus since the 2000s.

This review takes stock of this evolution, by providing a structured analysis of key findings, including an overview of the diverse methodological challenges facing researchers. It begins by retracing the evolution of research on environment-migration linkages, situating research within its wider political context. It has become increasingly clear from this research that migration related to environmental factors is multi-causal, and that a range of other factors need to be taken into account, including at the “micro” level of individual and household decisions. Environmental stressors do not necessarily lead to migration, and indeed there is a growing realisation that some of the people most vulnerable to environmental changes will be those who are unable to move