Estimation of potential population displacements that associate with climate changes are one of the most important topics in the world. Population displacement has been studied well by social sciences, and conducted mainly at regional scales. However, there are few knowledge how natural factors affect human migration and which country has high potential of that. Thus, we examine the relationship among human internal migration and flooded areas and economic condition in the world.
We used data of flooded areas that were calculated by using a global river and inundation model, human internal migration data that are provided by Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, and GDP as an economic indicator of each country. We conducted a Generalized Linear Mixed Model (GLMM) to examine how flooded intensity and economic condition affect the human internal migration.
The number of internal displacement that caused by flood had been high in African, South/South-eastern countries during 2008-2016. The result of GLMM showed that the flood intensity and the interaction of the flood intensity (anomaly of flooded areas) and the economic condition would affect the human migration. We suggest that the impact of floods on human migration is high especially in lower economic countries.