School of Earth and Environment
Untitled Document

Natalie Suckall Natalie Suckall

PostgrResearch Fellow

Telephone number: +44(0) 113 34 37966
Email address: n.suckall@leeds.ac.uk
Room: 9.123

Biography

Project details

Project Title: Climate Change and Migration: Understanding responses in Malawi, Southern Africa

Supervisors: Prof Piers Forster and Dr Evan Fraser - Department of Geography, University of Guelph, Canada

Funding: ESRC/NERC Interdisciplinary Scholarship

Start date: October 2007

Project Outline

Global climate change is likely to lead to changes in agricultural productivity, food security and rural livelihoods, especially in less developed countries. Worst case climate change scenarios of extreme flooding and intense and prolonged drought often discuss the abandonment of uninhabitable spaces as people are forced to leave their homes. Some (controversial) estimates suggest up to 1 billion people may be forcibly displaced from their homes by 2050. However, there exists little empirical evidence to link environmental change to migration.

My research uses data collected from Malawi during 2009 and 2010. Over two field seasons a total of 475 surveys were collected in rural, urban and peri-urban areas. Information about respondents' livelihoods, migration history and planned responses to environmental disaster or decline were collected. Preliminary results from rural areas suggest three things. Firstly, floods and droughts may in some cases lead to decreased out- migration from rural areas as human and financial capital, both essential for migration, are eroded. Secondly, development assistance and disaster relief may act to prevent migration. Thirdly, ties to the village are strong and many people believe they do not possess the 'right' to abandon their village. From the urban data, results suggest that urban-rural linkages are strong and that rural environmental change may also be felt in town causing some migrants to return to their home village.

Understating who will migrate, where they will go, and how long they will stay is a pressing global policy need that must be addressed. Unless the response to climate change is understood and explored in the context of migratory decisions, climate change adaptation policy may be inappropriately directed in both urban and rural areas throughout the world.

Qualifications

  • BSc (hons) Environmental Management and Human Geography, University of North London
  • MA Sustainable Development, University of Leeds