scholarly journals A meta-analysis of the literature on climate change and migration

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-52
Author(s):  
Michel Beine ◽  
Lionel Jeusette
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climatic Factors ◽  
Human Mobility ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Displacement Effect ◽  
Methodological Choices ◽  
Econometric Methods ◽  
And Migration

Abstract Recent surveys of the literature on climate change and migration emphasize the important diversity of outcomes and approaches of the empirical studies. In this paper, we conduct a meta-analysis in order to investigate the role of the methodological choices of these empirical studies in finding some particular results concerning the role of climatic factors as drivers of human mobility. We code 51 papers representative of the literature in terms of methodological approaches. This results in the coding of more than 85 variables capturing the methodology of the main dimensions of the analysis at the regression level. These dimensions include authors' reputation, type of mobility, measures of mobility, type of data, context of the study, econometric methods, and last but not least measures of the climatic factors. We look at the influence of these characteristics on the probability of finding any effect of climate change, a displacement effect, an increase in immobility, and evidence in favor of a direct vs. an indirect effect. Our results highlight the role of some important methodological choices, such as the frequency of the data on mobility, the level of development, the measures of human mobility and of the climatic factors as well as the econometric methodology.

scholarly journals Tracing livelihood trajectories: Patterns of livelihood adaptations in rural communities in eastern Nepal

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 57-80
Author(s):  
Phu Doma Lama ◽  
Per Becker ◽  
Johan Bergström
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
Climatic Factors ◽  
Sustainable Livelihood ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Mountain Communities ◽  
Rural Livelihood ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Political Economic

Mountain communities are adapting their livelihoods to a complex combination of social, political and economic changes and associated risks. Despite recognition of adaption in response to multiple changes in sustainable livelihood and critical climate change literature, risks attributed to biophysical effects of climate change have increasingly assumed importance. Consequently, diversification is promoted as an adaptive approach to reduce such risks. However, understanding livelihood adaptation from the vantage point of climate change alone might lead to a limited understanding of non-climatic factors also shaping it. This paper proposes understanding adaptation through analysing long-term livelihood changes and using society rather than climate change as a conceptual starting point. It argues that such an approach has better potential to highlight a broader range of dynamic drivers operating over decades and to inform contextually grounded rural livelihood adaptation policies. Changes are traced in the overall livelihood trajectories among four rural communities in Nepal, in living memory, to understand the role of adaptation in shaping it. Qualitative life narratives were collected and complemented by key informant interviews, field observations and the analysis of official documents. The findings suggest that livelihoods have shifted not only from subsistence towards income generation but also from engagement in diverse livelihood sectors towards specialisation; the opposite of the advocated diversification. The role of political, economic, social and cultural processes within and outside the community has been prominent in shaping this trajectory.

scholarly journals Positive biodiversity–productivity relationships in forests: climate matters

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 20170747 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Jactel ◽  
E. S. Gritti ◽  
L. Drössler ◽  
D. I. Forrester ◽  
W. L. Mason ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Carbon Sequestration ◽  
Tree Species ◽  
Climatic Factors ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Tree Age ◽  
Drought Severity ◽  
Natural Forests ◽  
Mixed Species

While it is widely acknowledged that forest biodiversity contributes to climate change mitigation through improved carbon sequestration, conversely how climate affects tree species diversity–forest productivity relationships is still poorly understood. We combined the results of long-term experiments where forest mixtures and corresponding monocultures were compared on the same site to estimate the yield of mixed-species stands at a global scale, and its response to climatic factors. We found positive mixture effects on productivity using a meta-analysis of 126 case studies established at 60 sites spread across five continents. Overall, the productivity of mixed-species forests was 15% greater than the average of their component monocultures, and not statistically lower than the productivity of the best component monoculture. Productivity gains in mixed-species stands were not affected by tree age or stand species composition but significantly increased with local precipitation. The results should guide better use of tree species combinations in managed forests and suggest that increased drought severity under climate change might reduce the atmospheric carbon sequestration capacity of natural forests.

Convergent lines of evidence support NOTCH4 as a schizophrenia risk gene

2020 ◽  
pp. jmedgenet-2020-106830
Author(s):  
Yan Zhang ◽  
Shiwu Li ◽  
Xiaoyan Li ◽  
Yongfeng Yang ◽  
Wenqiang Li ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Eqtl Analysis ◽  
Risk Gene ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Eqtl Data ◽  
Lines Of Evidence ◽  
Brain Tissues

The association between NOTCH4 and schizophrenia has been repeatedly reported. However, the results from different genetic studies are inconsistent, and the role of NOTCH4 in schizophrenia pathogenesis remains unknown. Here, we provide convergent lines of evidence that support NOTCH4 as a schizophrenia risk gene. We first performed a meta-analysis and found that a genetic variant (rs2071287) in NOTCH4 was significantly associated with schizophrenia (a total of 125 848 subjects, p=8.31×10−17), with the same risk allele across all tested samples. Expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) analysis showed that rs2071287 was significantly associated with NOTCH4 expression (p=1.08×10−14) in human brain tissues, suggesting that rs2071287 may confer schizophrenia risk through regulating NOTCH4 expression. Sherlock integrative analysis using a large-scale schizophrenia GWAS and eQTL data from human brain tissues further revealed that NOTCH4 was significantly associated with schizophrenia (p=4.03×10−7 in CMC dataset and p=3.06×10−6 in xQTL dataset), implying that genetic variants confer schizophrenia risk through modulating NOTCH4 expression. Consistently, we found that NOTCH4 was significantly downregulated in brains of schizophrenia patients compared with controls (p=2.53×10−3), further suggesting that dysregulation of NOTCH4 may have a role in schizophrenia. Finally, we showed that NOTCH4 regulates proliferation, self-renewal, differentiation and migration of neural stem cells, suggesting that NOTCH4 may confer schizophrenia risk through affecting neurodevelopment. Our study provides convergent lines of evidence that support the involvement of NOTCH4 in schizophrenia. In addition, our study also elucidates a possible mechanism for the role of NOTCH4 in schizophrenia pathogenesis.

Impairments in facial affect recognition associated with autism spectrum disorders: A meta-analysis

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (4pt1) ◽  
pp. 933-945 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leah M. Lozier ◽  
John W. Vanmeter ◽  
Abigail A. Marsh
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorders ◽  
Emotion Recognition ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Cognitive Intelligence ◽  
Affective Stimuli ◽  
Spectrum Disorders ◽  
Face Emotion Recognition

AbstractAutism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are characterized by social impairments, including inappropriate responses to affective stimuli and nonverbal cues, which may extend to poor face-emotion recognition. However, the results of empirical studies of face-emotion recognition in individuals with ASD have yielded inconsistent findings that occlude understanding the role of face-emotion recognition deficits in the development of ASD. The goal of this meta-analysis was to address three as-yet unanswered questions. Are ASDs associated with consistent face-emotion recognition deficits? Do deficits generalize across multiple emotional expressions or are they limited to specific emotions? Do age or cognitive intelligence affect the magnitude of identified deficits? The results indicate that ASDs are associated with face-emotion recognition deficits across multiple expressions and that the magnitude of these deficits increases with age and cannot be accounted for by intelligence. These findings suggest that, whereas neurodevelopmental processes and social experience produce improvements in general face-emotion recognition abilities over time during typical development, children with ASD may experience disruptions in these processes, which suggested distributed functional impairment in the neural architecture that subserves face-emotion processing, an effect with downstream developmental consequences.

scholarly journals Climate migration and the UK

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 3-26
Author(s):  
Laurie Parsons
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Migration Policy ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Academic Scholarship ◽  
New Directions ◽  
And Migration ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Relationship

This article discusses the relationship between climate change and migration in the context of the UK. After a brief overview of climate migration scholarship, it examines the framing of climate migration as a crisis in UK policy discourse, highlighting the disjuncture between policy and academic scholarship in this respect. Subsequently, it examines the reasons for this schism, exploring both the framing of climate migration within the UK media landscape and the securitisation of the topic within UK government policy. Finally, the article explores how the UK�s political landscape undergirds the political logic of climate finance, emphasising the role of British domestic politics in shaping the boundaries and direction of climate change as it manifests in governance. The article closes by exploring potential new directions in UK climate migration policy.

scholarly journals The Effect of Trust on the Various Dimensions of Climate Change Attitudes

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (23) ◽  
pp. 10200
Author(s):  
Ákos Bodor ◽  
Viktor Varjú ◽  
Zoltán Grünhut
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Trust ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
National Level ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Policy Support ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Change Beliefs ◽  
The Individual

The struggle against climate change will not be successful without a sufficient level of collective action. However, a necessary precondition for this is the existence of trust between people. The literature on trust and attitudes to climate change is displaying a growing tendency, and today the results of numerous empirical studies are available. Although, for the time being, on the basis of these studies, we only have a fragmented picture from which it appears that trust is having a significant effect on attitudes to climate change at both the micro and macro levels. The current paper tries to progress on this path and reveal the role of trust in various dimensions of the attitude to climate change using the data of the European Social Survey originating from 22 countries. The results show that while climate change beliefs and climate concern display no relationship with trust, neither on the individual or national level, trust does have a clear effect on the feeling of individual responsibility in connection with climate change and on support for the various policy measures. In addition, it is also investigated whether the effect of trust can be shown to exist in the relationships between climate concern and the feeling of individual responsibility, and climate concern and policy support. The results show that in both cases the relationship is stronger in those countries characterized by a higher level of social trust.

scholarly journals Family Physician Perceptions of Climate Change, Migration, Health, and Healthcare in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Exploratory Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (12) ◽  
pp. 6323
Author(s):  
Charlotte Scheerens ◽  
Els Bekaert ◽  
Sunanda Ray ◽  
Akye Essuman ◽  
Bob Mash ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Capacity Building ◽  
Primary Healthcare ◽  
Exploratory Study ◽  
Health Sector ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Health Impacts ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
And Migration

Although family physicians (FPs) are community-oriented primary care generalists and should be the entry point for the population’s interaction with the health system, they are underrepresented in research on the climate change, migration, and health(care) nexus (hereafter referred to as the nexus). Similarly, FPs can provide valuable insights into building capacity through integrating health-determining sectors for climate-resilient and migration-inclusive health systems, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Here, we explore FPs’ perceptions on the nexus in SSA and on intersectoral capacity building. Three focus groups conducted during the 2019 WONCA-Africa conference in Uganda were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using an inductive thematic approach. Participants’ perceived interactions related to (1) migration and climate change, (2) migration for better health and healthcare, (3) health impacts of climate change and the role of healthcare, and (4) health impacts of migration and the role of healthcare were studied. We coined these complex and reinforcing interactions as continuous feedback loops intertwined with socio-economic, institutional, and demographic context. Participants identified five intersectoral capacity-building opportunities on micro, meso, macro, and supra (international) levels: multi-dimensional and multi-layered governance structures; improving FP training and primary healthcare working conditions; health advocacy in primary healthcare; collaboration between the health sector and civil society; and more responsibilities for high-income countries. This exploratory study presents a unique and novel perspective on the nexus in SSA which contributes to interdisciplinary research agendas and FP policy responses on national, regional, and global levels.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document