Thinking about habitability through the exploration of thresholds and tipping points in climate migration - Maria Franco Gavonel | Cyberseminar on the Habitability concept

[Marion Borderon]

Dear colleagues,

To continue our reflection on habitability, we are lucky today to have two contributions from researchers who, like David O'Byrne, are involved in the HABITABLE project -  Linking Climate Change, Habitability and Social Tipping Points: Scenarios for Climate Migration.

We will start the day with Maria F Gavonel's (University of York) paper 'Thinking about habitability through the exploration of thresholds and tipping points in climate migration'.

Maria’s statement focuses on the relationship between the concepts of habitability and social tipping points – namely, tipping points in climate migration.  Habitability is defined as the capacity of a social-ecological system (SES) to sustain the lives and livelihoods of its human population, and it accounts for the possibility that environmental change could be life-threatening directly or indirectly.

Maria proposes that two thresholds can be considered as indicators of habitability in the context of climate migration (see the figure "Habitability and its thresholds" in the paper). As environmental conditions deteriorate, the demand for adaptive measures increases, and there is a nonlinear increase in in-situ adaptation. The paper suggests policy recommendations for each level of habitability, and it concludes that the concept of habitability can provide a more granular understanding of the relationship between SES and climate change.

 I wonder if we could also go further with a finer description in mobility and migration. Could for example thresholds not only concern the “quantity” of out-migration but also its nature (short vs long term, short vs long distance, etc)?

I highly recommend you to read Maria’s statement and I look forward for a lively discussion!

Marion 

[Marion Borderon]

HI all, sorry for this, I forgot to attach Maria Gavonel's statement to the previous email. Here it is! 

You will also find it posted here: https://populationenvironmentresearch.org/cyberseminars ) 

Thank you, 

Marion 

[Maria Franco Gavonel]

Dear Marion,

Many thanks for your kind introduction.

I do agree that thresholds in climate migration can be fine-tuned to account also for the type of migration. I think this would largely depend on data availability. For instance, in the case of HABITABLE, the longitudinal survey will indeed allow us to look at different types of migration. The challenge would be to check if we are able to detect discontinuities (nonlinear changes) on specific types of migration. For instance, we may find them among long-term migrants, but not among short-term migrants. If this is the case, splitting migration rates by type would actually facilitate the detection of a nonlinear change. 

Happy to discuss further!

Maria

--
The Population-Environment Research Network (PERN) Cyberseminar Discussion List
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "PERNSeminars - List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to pernseminars...@ciesin.columbia.edu.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/ciesin.columbia.edu/d/msgid/pernseminars/b9571c9c-0312-4cca-a9f4-0ea63d7db820n%40ciesin.columbia.edu.

[Maria Franco Gavonel]

Dear Marion,

Many thanks for your kind introduction.

I do agree that thresholds in climate migration can be fine-tuned to account also for the type of migration. I think this would largely depend on data availability. For instance, in the case of HABITABLE, the longitudinal survey will indeed allow us to look at different types of migration. The challenge would be to check if we are able to detect discontinuities (nonlinear changes) on specific types of migration. For instance, we may find them among long-term migrants, but not among short-term migrants. If this is the case, splitting migration rates by type would actually facilitate the detection of a nonlinear change. 

Happy to discuss further!

Maria