Do climate uncertainties trigger farmers’ out-migration in the Lower Mekong Region?
Open accessAbstract
Many rural communities in the Lower Mekong region are vulnerable to the climate uncertainty induced by climate change due to high rate of poverty, lack of agricultural technology, and heavy reliance on the environment for their livelihoods. Rural people are likely to migrate to urban areas in response to the climate impacts and thanks to the rises in the number of cities, urban areas, and industrial zones in this region over the last decades. We selected a rural area in Cambodia to examine the link between climate impacts and rural out-migration because the majority of Cambodian territory is located in the Lower Mekong Basin which has experienced long-term climate change. Through an empirical study which consisted of an integrated quantitative and qualitative research approach in Kampong Cham province, we found the temperature showed a significant (α = 0.05) trend of +0.027C°/year, while rainfall showed a non-significative trend, but it had a marked inter-annual variability over the last two decades. The migration trend increased: most farmers' families of small and medium sized farms and who experienced more climate impacts had more family members who migrated. Migration is one of the solutions for farmers trying to maintain their livelihoods and incomes, but mass migration causes gaps in the agricultural and rural labour force. This study implies that enhancing farmers' adaptive capacity in agriculture will contribute to improving the migration landscape.
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Climate change threats are already manifesting in different African countries, negatively affecting lives and livelihoods that are natural resource dependent, such as agriculture and fisheries.
“Climate change threats are already manifesting in different African countries, negatively affecting lives and livelihoods that are natural resource dependent (e.g., agriculture, fisheries) (Azumah and Ahmed, 2023 [5]; Baada et al., 2021 [6]; Nguyen and Sean, 2021 [7]).”
From A Systematic Review of International and Internal Climate-Induced Migration in Africa (2023) · cites this paper as Nguyen and Sean, 2021 [7]
The Theoretical background (page not provided) says climate change harms agriculture-dependent livelihoods and describes drought-related livelihood stress in Ethiopia and poor soil quality in Kenya. It does not address impacts on fisheries, so that example is unsupported by this source. (LLM, conf=0.86)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredIn Cambodia, climate change affects farming systems, manifesting in declined or loss of rice yield, soil infertility, and unharvested and immature crops, impacting farmers' migration to cities.
“Nguyen and Sean (2021) [7], for instance, discovered that climate change affects farming systems-manifesting in declined or loss of rice yield, soil infertility, and unharvested and immature crops impacting farmers' migration to cities in Cambodia.”
From A Systematic Review of International and Internal Climate-Induced Migration in Africa (2023) · cites this paper as Nguyen and Sean (2021) [7]
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- Authors
- Nguyen, T. P. L., & Sean, C.
- Affiliations
- Asian Institute of Technology (TH)
- Cambodia Development Resource Institute (KH)
- Corresponding author
- Nguyen, Thi Phuoc Lai
- Venue
- Current Research in Environmental Sustainability
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2021
- Volume
- 3
- Pages
- 100087
- ISSN
- 2666-0490 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3197850310
- Cited by
- 25
- References
- 47
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 3
- FWCI
- 6.24
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Current Research in Environmental Sustainability (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- DAAD
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Climate Change, Adaptation, Migration
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Climate change impacts on agriculture
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Migration and Labor Dynamics
- Keywords
- climate uncertainty, rural exodus, farmers, climate change impacts, Lower Mekong region, Cambodia, temperature trends, rainfall variability, rural-urban migration, agricultural labor, adaptive capacity, livelihoods
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