Migration, environmental degradation and climate change: towards a model from the perspective of regional analysis

Abstract

Climate change contributes to complicate the scenery of ecological and environmental degradation at the global scale, while increasing the risks for human populations in different ways. Migration is seen as a realistic option, often unique, to face up different climatic scenarios and loss of environmental quality. The present paper proposes a model with several indicators to identify regions with pull and push potential for human migration (immigration and emigration) from the perspective of regional development analysis. No empirical evidence is presented here, but rather an approach to be instrumented for such purposes. Typologically, the methodology in this article could be considered as exploratory, descriptive and documentary, conforming a paper whose vocation is to clarify some regional analysis techniques for future implementation.