Bogumil Terminski Environmentally-Induced Displacement ... - Cedem

In addition to permanent changes in the environment, natural disasters have become anincreasingly important threat to human flourishing. The great natural disasters witnessed overthe last decade – like the 2004 tsunami wave, Hurricane Katrina (2005), the earthquake in2005 and devastated floods in 2010 in Pakistan, 2008’s Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar., the2010 earthquake in Haiti, and the earthquake-induced tsunami in Japan (2011) – forcedseveral million people to temporary or permanently migrate. Extensive studies of theconsequences of major natural disasters for population mobility constitute, in recent years, aparticularly important and worthy course of research.Investigation into the social consequences of environmentally-induced displacement has takena truly interdisciplinary character in recent years. The analyses in this area are carried out onthe ground of at least a dozen areas of expertise. The results of in-depth analysis (carried outby climatologists, hydrologists, ecologists, and specialists in natural disasters) provide us witha scientifically verifiable and objective basis for the studies and projections to be formulatedlater in the fields of demography and population studies (as well as migration studies),political science, international relations, and public international law. The practical results ofsuch inquiry are difficult to overestimate at present. Detachment from the consideration ofreal problems of real people (conducted, for example, on the basis of political science) seemsboth reckless and devoid of scientific validity. Analyzing the specific context of that issue it isworth mentioning a few strands of research carried out on the social consequences ofenvironentally-induced displacement.Various studies from the field of climatology have recently had a particularly significantimpact on the field of environmentally induced displacement. In their analysis of the potentialfor climate change in different parts of the world, they include the possible impacts on humanliving conditions. Researchers in the discipline of ecology focus in turn on the broad impactof environmental processes on complex ecosystems. Their area of interest includes, forexample, the adaptability of various mammalian species to sudden environmental changes in aspecific territory. It is the limited ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions whichappears to be a root cause of migration in animals and humans.