Demographic Responses to Natural Resource Changes

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PROJECT SU1MMARY This project will investigate how environmental changes and associated changes in natural resource-based economies impact human migration patterns. Knowledge of how human populations adapt to changes within multiple interconnected systems is critical to maintaining healthy communities. Natural environmental, economic, and human systems intersect in the US Gulf Coast region to create a unique context within which scholars can investigate broad questions about human adaptation to environmental and subsequent economic change. Based on the idea that different forms of assets have different implications for labor and firm mobility, the overarching project goal is to investigate how environmental and associated economic changes impact population-level migration patterns in coastal counties in the Gulf of Mexico region and the rest of the United States. The proposed work will advance analytical models rooted in a migration systems theory framework. A systems approach enables scholars and decision-makers to consider the contexts and relationships between origins and destinations, a direct contrast to individual-centered perspectives that neglect the complex and intersecting structures within which individual choices are determined and acted upon. Additionally, case study approaches to disaster impacts often treat population size as a constant, despite long-term demographic trends resulting from net migration and natural growth. Our study will provide generalizable knowledge of how environmental changes and events in coastal counties contribute to migration-related population change within and beyond a region through their economic impacts and damage to natural and capital assets. The project will integrate multiple datasets and develop statistical models to investigate the contribution of migration to population change in Gulf Coast counties, model the relationship between natural resource economies and migration flows from and to coastal counties and other US counties, and test claims about the impact of specific environmental changes (e.g., oil spills, hurricanes, fishing moratoriums or diminished stocks) and associated economic impacts on population-level migration. The project will advance the scientific understanding of the interconnectivity between natural environmental, economic, and population systems, and the associated implications for the health and wellbeing of impacted communities and their inhabitants. Migration directly influences local population size and composition, which has significant implications for demands on local healthcare and public health systems: disaster-induced out-migration and its impact on healthcare demand at destination; recovery migration and its contribution to healthcare service needs in disaster-affected destinations; and implications for healthcare provisions for populations living in places with persistent out-migration exacerbated by disaster-induced economic contractions. In addition to publishing in scholarly outlets, the team will make results available and accessible to planners, health policy-makers, and other decision-makers and publics through webinars, extension programming, and press releases and features. The team will also make the associated integrated database freely available to scientific and community researchers and the public. 1