HABITABLE

The HABITABLE project – Linking Climate Change, Habitability and Social Tipping Points: Scenarios for Climate Migration – will be centred around the notion of habitability, and will formulate a broader, interdisciplinary conceptualisation of what constitutes a social tipping point as an original way to analyse how environmental disruptions can potentially trigger major social changes.

HABITABLE contends that the habitability of a given place is hardly objective and cannot be determined by analyses of climate parameters alone. On the contrary, migration outcomes are strongly dependent upon individual and collective perceptions of changes and risks, as well as other mitigating factors of these changes – such as the resilience of the socio-ecological system and the adaptive strategies and capacity of populations in situ.

By analysing the effects of climate impacts on the system as a whole – including social, political, economic, environmental and demographic factors – and accounting for both objective and subjective dimensions, HABITABLE’s systemic approach will contribute to the design of appropriate and sustainable policy responses to the climate-migration nexus.

Building from this, an innovative contribution from HABITABLE is the consideration of the perceptions of affected populations – migrant and non-migrant – regarding the habitability of local areas and the perceived benefits of migration to better understand migration decisions.

The overall goal of HABITABLE is to investigate how and to what extent climate change affects the habitability of socio-ecological systems and transforms current and future migration patterns.