The state of environmental migration 2014: a review of 2013

This is the fourth edition of IOM annual publications aiming to enhance understanding of natural disasters, sudden natural onset events and slow onset events, and their links to human mobility. It reviews case studies across continents, dealing with both developing and developed counties. It considers key concepts as community resilience and social vulnerability as aspects of disaster risk reduction, and how resilience and vulnerability impact on migration strategies.

Furthermore it provides examples of policy responses such as resettlement, national adaptation strategies, disaster risk reduction and return and perspectives at the individual, community and national and regional levels. It tackles a diversity of natural events such as storms, floods and drought, while analyzing many different types of migration such as pastoralist movements, displacement due to natural disasters or cross-border displacement. The report seeks to raise awareness on the effects of climate change on the livelihoods of vulnerable populations, which therefore requires a coordinated effort to manage, facilitate voluntary migration or prevent forced forms of migration when a massive displacement is likely to occur.