Abstract

Although environmental change could be unpredictable and unplanned, the major effects of this change are shown in many aspects of life. With a rapid increase in the patterns of migration on the global level, more interest towards the impact of environmental change on these patterns is revealed. Nowadays, the policy challenges are increasingly involved in controlling the sudden move of people due to disasters to bigger cities as well as handling the effects of the environmental phenomenon on socio-economic life.
Globally, the sixth IPCC assessment report in 2022 stressed that pervasive impacts to ecosystems, people, settlements, and infrastructure have resulted from observed increases in the frequency and intensity of climate and weather extremes, including hot extremes on land and in the ocean, heavy precipitation events, drought and fire weather. The IOM Director General stated that “The launch of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report in February further reinforces the growing body of evidence that climate change is having profound impacts on human mobility. The role that human mobility plays in inclusive growth, sustainable development, and resilience-building - especially for disaster risk reduction – has further achieved global recognition.”
Recently, the first International Migration Review Forum (IMRF) in 2022 stressed on strengthening the production, analysis and dissemination of relevant data and knowledge, operationalizing responses to migration and displacement in the context of environmental degradation, as well as mainstreaming the inclusion of migration and displacement considerations in climate change, environment, disaster and other relevant agendas.
Focusing on Egypt, given that population, land use and agriculture, as well as its economic activity, are all constrained along a narrow T-shaped strip of land along the Nile and the deltaic coast, internal migration patterns are well known, especially between the delta and coastal cities searching for better opportunities for livelihoods security. On the other hand, Egypt is one of the vulnerable countries to climate change. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Egypt´s Nile Delta is one of the world´s three “extreme” vulnerability hotspots, and future projections indicate that Egypt will suffer from the following climate change impacts: sea-level rise; water scarcity and deficit. There are several channels through which environmental change can affect migration and labor mobility such as health, land productivity, and economic growth.
This paper will discuss some of the patterns of internal migration in Egypt and try to explore the impact of environmental events on these patterns with a focus on the effects of sea-level rise, erosion, and extreme weather on the resources access leading to the decision of migration. In addition, this paper will examine some of the key drivers of internal migration in Egypt with emphasize on corps production, cultivated land and revenues from fishing, and the role of environmental hazards in accelerating those drivers of migration.