TY - JOUR
T1 - Recovery Migration After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
T2 - Spatial Concentration and Intensification in the Migration System
AU - Curtis, Katherine J.
AU - Fussell, Elizabeth
AU - DeWaard, Jack
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015, Population Association of America.
PY - 2015/8/12
Y1 - 2015/8/12
N2 - Changes in the human migration systems of the Gulf of Mexico coastline counties affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita provide an example of how climate change may affect coastal populations. Crude climate change models predict a mass migration of “climate refugees,” but an emerging literature on environmental migration suggests that most migration will be short-distance and short-duration within existing migration systems, with implications for the population recovery of disaster-stricken places. In this research, we derive a series of hypotheses on recovery migration predicting how the migration system of hurricane-affected coastline counties in the Gulf of Mexico was likely to have changed between the pre-disaster and the recovery periods. We test these hypotheses using data from the Internal Revenue Service on annual county-level migration flows, comparing the recovery period migration system (2007–2009) with the pre-disaster period (1999–2004). By observing county-to-county ties and flows, we find that recovery migration was strong: the migration system of the disaster-affected coastline counties became more spatially concentrated, while flows within it intensified and became more urbanized. Our analysis demonstrates how migration systems are likely to be affected by the more intense and frequent storms anticipated by climate change scenarios, with implications for the population recovery of disaster-affected places.
AB - Changes in the human migration systems of the Gulf of Mexico coastline counties affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita provide an example of how climate change may affect coastal populations. Crude climate change models predict a mass migration of “climate refugees,” but an emerging literature on environmental migration suggests that most migration will be short-distance and short-duration within existing migration systems, with implications for the population recovery of disaster-stricken places. In this research, we derive a series of hypotheses on recovery migration predicting how the migration system of hurricane-affected coastline counties in the Gulf of Mexico was likely to have changed between the pre-disaster and the recovery periods. We test these hypotheses using data from the Internal Revenue Service on annual county-level migration flows, comparing the recovery period migration system (2007–2009) with the pre-disaster period (1999–2004). By observing county-to-county ties and flows, we find that recovery migration was strong: the migration system of the disaster-affected coastline counties became more spatially concentrated, while flows within it intensified and became more urbanized. Our analysis demonstrates how migration systems are likely to be affected by the more intense and frequent storms anticipated by climate change scenarios, with implications for the population recovery of disaster-affected places.
KW - Disasters
KW - Environment
KW - Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
KW - Migration system
KW - Recovery migration
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84938972896&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84938972896&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s13524-015-0400-7
DO - 10.1007/s13524-015-0400-7
M3 - Article
C2 - 26084982
AN - SCOPUS:84938972896
SN - 0070-3370
VL - 52
SP - 1269
EP - 1293
JO - Demography
JF - Demography
IS - 4
ER -