Climate Extremes Impacts And Migration In South Asia: The Concept And Local Experts' Knowledge And Perception

The paper deals with concept of environmentally-induced migration and case study from South Asia with a special focus on Bangladesh, India and Maldives. We investigate how livelihood activities of local population are affected by climate extremes. In this context, migration usually represents a proactive adaptation strategy responding to combination of real and perceived environmental change. We examine perception of environmental factors by wide range local expert community conducting field research and interviews with experts in four regions in South Asia - provinces of South-West Bangladesh, Indian Rajasthan and Assam, and Maldives. Our research activities from 2008 to 2013 enabled us to compare perception of livelihood conditions and climate change consequences. Our results confirm that the climate extremes are perceived by local experts as one of the key factors of population movements in some regions, especially in Bangladesh and migration could be viewed as pro-active coping/adaptation strategy. However people in other regions prefer different adaptation strategies, such as in Maldives.