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HEIndividual fellowship2023–2025

HOME · Human mObility and cliMate change in the European context

Horizon Europe — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration
2023-01-01 → 2025-02-28
EU contribution
€203,464
Participants
2
Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF

Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.

Results in brief

Human mObility and cliMate change in the European context

Climate-related hazards such as sea-level rise and wildfires could reshape mobility patterns in Europe, yet internal responses—displacement, voluntary immobility, or planned relocation—remain understudied and underrepresented in policy. The HOME project addressed this gap by investigating how environmental change influences human mobility decisions and governance challenges within Europe, focusing on the Portuguese context. The project explored how both sudden-onset (wildfires) and slow-onset (coastal erosion, sea-level rise) events affect different forms of mobility. It aimed to move beyond simplistic cause-effect models by investigating how social inequalities, institutional frameworks, and historical legacies shape im/mobility. Portugal was selected as the primary study site due to its exposure to both wildfire and coastal risks, and its relevance as a policy laboratory for climate adaptation in Europe. The project’s specific scientific objectives were to: I) Provide a systematic review of European research on climate-related mobility. ii) Analyze how institutional power and governance structures shape unequal exposure to climate risks and capacities for im/mobility. iii) Empirically document how and under what conditions different mobility responses emerge in contexts of wildfire and coastal risk. iv)Contribute knowledge that can inform more just and effective climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction (DRR) strategies.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

Despite the increase in climate-induced migration studies, research on the topic seems to be a prerogative of researchers from the Global North focusing on case studies in the Global South. In particular, research on climate change, environment and human mobility is underrepresented in European cases, despite the increasing number of small scale disasters that displace communities in Europe every year. European countries are far from being immune to the effects of climate change and natural disasters and, just in the recent years, extreme weather events have displaced hundreds of thousands of people across Europe. Nonetheless, stories of environmental-induced mobility often remain undetected in the European context. HOME will contribute to address this geographical bias and it will adopt a political ecology approach to focus both on local experiences and practices of environmental changes and mobility in the European context, and on how they are nested in power dynamics that produce unequal distribution of climate change effects and shape im/mobility decision-making responses. On a societal level, this can better inform public policies and strengthening disaster risk and climate change adaptation governance. Portugal has been identified as an exploratory case-study with a focus on the effects of slow-onset events (e.g. sea level rise – SLR) and sudden-onset events (e.g. wildfires) on human im/mobility. The action will be conducted by the fellow Dr. Michele Dalla Fontana at the Environmental Policy Group at the Wageningen University (The Netherlands) under the supervision of Dr. Ingrid Boas, a renowned expert in the field of climate change-human mobility nexus. A secondment period of eight months is foreseen at the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon (Portugal) under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Luisa Schmidt, who combines expertise in climate change adaptation and risks with a profound knowledge of the Portuguese context.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

  • WAGENINGEN UNIVERSITY · WageningenCoordinatorNetherlands
  • INSTITUTO DE CIENCIAS SOCIAIS · LISBOAPortugal

Links

Data: CORDIS, © European Union