As climate change fuels sea level rise, younger people will migrate inland, leaving aging coastal populations — and a host of consequences — in their wake, a study by Florida State University researchers finds.
While destination cities will work to sustainably accommodate swelling populations, aging coastal communities will confront stark new challenges, including an outflow of vital human infrastructure such as health care workers, said Associate Professor of Sociology Matt Hauer, lead author of the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“In the destination communities where populations are increasing you’ll need more dentists, doctors, service workers, construction workers, etc.,” Hauer said. “So by people moving, you affect other people’s likelihood of moving. You get a demographic amplification.”
Previous studies estimated where people are likely to move as a changing climate affects livability. Hauer’s study also incorporates demographic data and secondary effects that revealed a host of challenges awaiting both the coastal “sender” communities and their destination counterparts.
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Image: Florida State University Associate Professor of Sociology Matt Hauer led a study that found that indirect processes could create 5.3 to 18 times the number of climate migrants as those directly displaced by rising seas. The work was published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (Credit: Florida State University)