Evaluating the Drivers of International Migration from the Northern Triangle of Central America and Its Implications for Land Systems in the Region
Nicholas Cuba, Auburn University at Montgomery, nick.cuba@gmail.com (Presenter)
Laura Aileen Sauls, George Mason University, lsauls@gmu.edu
Migration from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras to the USA has increased substantially in the last decade. As in many parts of the world, traditional and common livelihoods based on agriculture have become less viable in these countries due to factors such as extreme weather events or climate change, changes in resource access, and pollution. Information about land systems derived from remotely sensed data, considered in conjunction with administrative and survey information, can help to better understand the drivers of international immigration as well as the counter-impacts to land systems after outflows of population and in-flows of capital in the form of remittances. This project derives geolocated rates of family unit outmigration at the Department and Municipio scale in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras using data obtained directly from migrants by US Customs and Border Patrol. When spatial variation of these values at the Departmental scale is modeled using variables describing long term changes in the amount or timing of select climate indices significant correlation is observed. However, these observed relationships vary in their strength between countries and do not hold for models at the finer Municipio scale. At finer spatial scales, land system dynamics are seen to be associated with family outmigration rate. Land cover maps of crop type in El Salvador reveal a significant relationship between colocation of large sugarcane tracts alongside maize and outmigration rate at the Municipio scale. This finding signals the importance of social dimensions of local resource conflicts and supports the case for explanatory models that allow for regional variation in the set of explanatory factors within this study area.
Associated Project(s):
Poster Location ID: 1-9
Presentation Type: Poster
Session: Poster Session 1
Session Date: Tue (May 9) 5:00-7:00 PM
CCE Program: LCLUC