04 Dec Quantifying change in ecosystem services and exposure to hazards in the Mediterranean basin over the next 50 years that might be relevant to migration
Type
Report
Author
Burke, M. S.
Mulligan, M.
Parks, K.
van Soesbergen, A.
Title
Quantifying change in ecosystem services and exposure to hazards in the Mediterranean basin over the next 50 years that might be relevant to migration
Year
2011
Series Title
Migration and Global Environmental Change
Series Editor
Foresight
Publisher
Government Office for Science UK
Abstract
This report examines the environmental drivers of migration in the Mediterranean, with particular focus on the role of ecosystem services and the impact of environmental hazards as potential push and pull factors. Environmental drivers are just one set of potential drivers for migration described in the Foresight ‘drivers of migration’ pentagon alongside demographic, social, political and economic drivers. In the complex and diverse Mediterranean political, social and economic landscapes, environmental drivers rarely work in isolation of the other drivers, except in rare cases of migration forced by hazard. Nevertheless, environment plays a part and so we must consider how environmental drivers help to define the ecosystem services and disservices (such as hazards) that might combine with political, social and economic factors to provide push or pull conditions which then encourage migration. Moreover, the environment is rarely static and, given pressures on the global environment in general and the Mediterranean environment in particular, we need to analyse how ecosystem service provision and hazardscapes might change in the future and what the potential implications of such change might be for encouraging particular types of migration. The substantial role of non- environmental drivers (i.e. politics, social, cultural and economic factors) is covered by a separate report (DR8b).
Citation
Burke, M. S., Mulligan, M., Parks, K., & van Soesbergen, A. (2011). Quantifying change in ecosystem services and exposure to hazards in the Mediterranean basin over the next 50 years that might be relevant to migration. Government Office for Science UK: London.