Inside HABITABLE: Investigating climate-driven migration in rural Thailand

Climate change is already impacting human migration and displacement.

Extreme weather events displace tens of millions of people every year, while multi-year droughts and rising sea levels are making many densely populated regions increasingly hostile to human habitation.

However, the link between climate change and migration is complex.

A person’s decision to leave home depends on a range of factors, including their socioeconomic situation, their family connections and the politics of their home country.

To better understand these interlocking factors, an EU-funded research project known as HABITABLE is carrying out tens of thousands of interviews with rural communities in Sudan, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali and Thailand.

The four-year project, which ends later this year, aims to “significantly advance our understanding of the current interlinkages between climate change impacts, migration and displacement patterns, and to better anticipate their future evolution”.

The team will use their findings to help develop “guidelines and recommendations to allow policies to better address the migration patterns associated with climate change”.

For Thailand specifically, researchers from the Raks Thai foundation conducted more than 1,000 surveys over several months in 2023, travelling to 63 farming villages in the provinces of Chiang Rai and Udon Thani.

Carbon Brief’s science writer, Ayesha Tandon, joined researchers in June 2023 as they interviewed farmers in the Chiang Rai province.

Climate change and migration in Thailand

Thailand is a middle-income country, which the World Bank touts as a “development success story”. However, the country is also highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

The 2021 Global Climate Risk Index – which assesses damage caused by “weather-related loss events”, such as heatwaves, storms and floods – ranks Thailand as the ninth “most affected” country in the world. Between 2000 and 2019, the country recorded 146 such events, resulting in a 0.82% loss of GDP, it finds.

The World Bank (pdf) describes Thailand as “one of the most flood-prone countries in the world”. For example, in 2011 a record-breaking flood – known as “the great flood” – swept across northern, north-eastern and central Thailand. The flood affected more than 13 million people, damaged 20,000 square kilometres of farmland and caused $46.5bn in losses, making it the world’s fourth costliest disaster on record at the time.

Thailand’s tropical climate is already shifting as a result of climate change. The plot below shows how average temperatures have changed in Thailand over 1890-2022, relative to a 1971-2000 baseline. Red indicates hotter than average temperatures, and blue indicates colder than average.

Change in average temperatures in Thailand over 1890-2022, relative to a 1971-2000 baseline, using Berkeley Earth data. Source: Show your stripes

A 2020 report (pdf) by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) says that the country’s average annual temperature rose by 0.95C between 1955 and 2009 – notably higher than the global average of 0.69C.

It adds:

“Between 2006-10, Thailand experienced longer dry spells in the middle of the rainy season, and more intense rain afterwards, exacerbating seasonal stress due to changes in the regional weather patterns.”

The report finds that “already, farmers are subjected to impacts of flooding and droughts annually, leading to crop losses and low productivity, indebtedness and low household earnings”.

Agriculture is a key part of Thailand’s economy. In 2019, around one-third of Thailand’s 70 million inhabitants was employed in agriculture, accounting for more than 8% of the country’s GDP. The country is the world’s largest exporter of rubber and second-largest exporter of rice.

The 2019 Thailand migration report by the UN says that “as a consequence of the declining number of Thai nationals willing to pursue agricultural work, the sector has increasingly come to depend on migrant workers”.

Thailand shares four land borders with Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Malaysia. The report estimates that there are currently hundreds of thousands of “regular migrants” from Cambodia and Laos who come to Thailand to plant and harvest crops. These migrants collectively send billions of dollars of money back home to their families every year, it finds.

Meanwhile, the report says Thai migrants typically go to Taiwan, Israel, Japan, Korea, Malaysia and Singapore. The money that Thai migrants send back home to their families contributed to around 1.5% of Thailand’s GDP in 2017, the report finds.

Carbon Brief’s science writer, Ayesha Tandon, joined researchers in June 2023 as they interviewed farmers in four Thai villages – Juam Krai, Huay Nan, Rakstin Thai and Phaya Lao-U – to learn more about their perceptions of climate change and migration.

Thaowan Giorno – a Raks Thai environmental programme assistant – explains that this dynamic is common. Social ties can make people less scared to migrate to new countries, she says, so it is common for a succession of people to leave to one place.

Thaowan Giorno, a Raks Thai environmental programme assistant.

She praises the bravery of those first migrants. “This was their biggest investment,” she marvels. However, she adds that as more and more working-age people migrate abroad, children and elderly people are often left behind.

Thaowan speculates about the social and behavioural problems that children may develop, when left in a village devoid of people in their 20s, 30s and 40s.

Tanat Sai-inta (aka Josy) – a seasoned Raks Thai interviewer – explains that the missing middle generation can also be detrimental for the elderly people left behind. They receive money from their family in the form of remittances, but nobody is around to look after them when they need help.

Thai farmers who are registered with the government can receive compensation and support after a poor harvest. During one interview, the head of the village stops by to make sure everything is going smoothly. He takes a look at the couples’ “farming book” and gives advice.

“Village head” is an elected position, Sawang Thongdee – Carbon Brief’s translator – explains. He says that the house of the village head also serves as the administration office for the village, where people can visit with complaints and requests.

Sign reading: “Village head’s office, Jum Krai Village, No. 9, Maeloi sub-district, Theong district, Chiang Rai province” (left). Entrance to the village temple (right).

Unfailingly hospitable, the village head sends the research team off with huge quantities of bananas and mangos. He encourages them to come back to the village after lunch so he could show off the village temple. After climbing the 300 stairs, villagers can pray and leave offerings to the large gold statue of Buddha.

The Raks Thai foundation is a “rights-based organisation” that has experience working on projects linking climate change and migration. It is the HABITABLE partner organisation in Thailand.

Boonthida Ketsomboon – an environmental programme manager at Raks Thai, who oversees HABITABLE’s work in Thailand – tells Carbon Brief that the organisation has “worked hard” to build strong links with Thai villages.

This work began months, or even years, ahead of interview day, through building connections and trust with the villages. Boonthida tells Carbon Brief that the “only reason” that villagers were happy to share such extensive details about their lives is because of their long-standing trust in the organisation and its members.

Subset of the Raks Thai interview team outside the office in Huay Nan village.

Many of the Huay Nan interview team are old hands, having already conducted multiple interviews over the preceding days. However, the Raks Thai also make a point of integrating local villagers into the interview teams, meaning that the team changes slightly every day.

“It is very important to build trust between us and the communities,” says Tatchai Akkarawongwiriya (aka Dee) – a Raks Thai staff member who supported the research team in coordinating with the villages.

He explains that inviting university-educated members of the village themselves to join the data collection team is a crucial way to build this trust and reduce suspicion. Training locals to conduct the surveys can help to “get the information needed from their communities” and “reduce the gap between us and communities at a certain level”, he says.

Standing at the head of the table, Poramet Payaksatan (aka “Dream”), gives the team their morning debrief, pointing out tricky questions and explaining how to avoid small errors that had been made in past surveys.

Each interview takes around two hours. It contains more than 100 questions, meaning bringing new members into the team is time-consuming. However, Dream says it is worth the two-day training process to get the insight of locals who “know the context of the communities”. He adds:

“People in the villages trust these interviewers because they are also the members of the communities, too. The villagers then participate well.”

The team interviews a random selection of 15-18 households from each village. Each survey opens with a lengthy interview with the “household head”, which covers the following topics:

• Who lives in the household
• The migration history of anyone who lives, or used to live, in the household
• The house itself, such as whether it is owned or rented, what materials it is built from
• Household income – typically, through agriculture and remittances
• Perceptions of climate risk
• The adaptive capacity of the household
• The psychosocial wellbeing of household members
• How attached the individual is to their community

A page of the survey used by Raks Thai and Poramet Payaksatan (aka Dream), head of the data collection team.

The researchers then carry out a “supplementary” interview with another member of the household – often with the spouse of the household head, to verify key details.

Boonthida explains that the surveys should ideally be conducted twice with the same people, spaced one year apart, to see if peoples’ attitudes changed over time. However, this was not possible with the resources available.

Many houses are solidly built and brightly painted. Some have large loft areas, which originally would have been rice barns, but have since been converted into living spaces, as rice barns were moved elsewhere.

Huay Nan village.

Villages at higher elevations, further from the main roads and cities, tend to be poorer and less well-educated, Sawang says.

Sawang Thongdee – Carbon Brief’s translator.

The Rakstin Thai village has more than 80 households and 400 people. Most houses have tin roofs and there are fewer solidly built stone or concrete houses than in villages lower down the mountain. The scent of manure hangs in the air.

Nevertheless, many houses have cars and motorbikes parked outside. A village shop sells local brands of drinks and snacks, as well as the well-loved US versions. And many household gardens grow a vibrant array of edible plants, including holy basil, coffee, lime and lemongrass.

Rakstin Thai village.

Phaya Lao-U is the least wealthy of the four villages that Carbon Brief visited. Most houses were built from wood, covered either by thatched roofs or sheets of corrugated metal. This shift from thatch to metal began just a decade ago.

Phaya Lao-U village, Chiang Rai.

Most villagers are members of the Hmong tribe – a group who have members across China, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar. As well as the 150 Hmong households in the village, there are also 20-30 households of Akha tribespeople. There are many tribes living across northern Thailand, each of whom have their own language and customs, Sawang explains.

Mrs Chanitra is a member of the Akha tribe and shows off the hand-sewn vests that she made for herself and her husband. She explains that the patterns on the clothing are very significant. Hmong tribes have patterns just on the edges of their jackets, while Akha vests are more patterned throughout.

Young people are increasingly wearing “western” clothes, but they still wear traditional clothes for special occasions, such as festivals, she explains. Even so, with every passing generation, the patterns are changing to become more “fashionable”, she laughs.

Mr A-Chong and Mrs Chanitra – an Akha couple (left). Gathering in the village hall, including women from the Hmong tribe wearing their traditional waistcoats (right).

Many villages in northern Thailand have their own temples. In Phaya Lao-U, many residents are Catholic. The most solidly built structures are the village church and a large concrete building which, a sign informs onlookers, was built by the Singapore YMCA.

Climate or weather?

One key question that the HABITABLE research hopes to answer is whether or not farmers in rural villages are aware of the changing climate.

Tatchai Akkarawongwiriya, a Raks Thai staff member

Akkarawongwiriya tells Carbon Brief that, in his opinion, climate change and migration are “100% related”. However, he says that, typically, “villagers don’t connect climate change to their livelihoods”. He says that when villagers migrate, they often cite economic problems rather than changes in the weather or climate.

He says that, in his opinion, villagers are not aware of climate change as a global issue:

“I personally think people in the communities need to have a clear understanding about climate change and how it impacts their livelihoods. They do have information and notice the changes such as El Niño or La Niña…But they are not aware that it is actually happening on a global level.

“If they have a clearer understanding, they would try to come up with more practical solutions which could reduce the number of people who migrate out. For example, if you know there will be less rain this year, you then should adjust the type of crops to be grown.”

Thaowan explains that the issue is often one of terminology, explaining that while villagers may not use the phrase “climate change”, they often talk about how the weather has changed, such as an increase in drought or temperature.

The villagers that Carbon Brief speaks to rarely bring up climate change unprompted. However, are all highly attuned to changes in local weather patterns – especially regarding the nuanced changes in weather that impact their own crops. Nevertheless, when Carbon Brief specifically asks about climate change, most villagers show a good understanding.

“I have heard people talking about global warming for many years already,” Wasana Panyadee – the daughter of the village chief at Huay Nan village and a member of the interview team – tells Carbon Brief.

Tomrat – the assistant head of Rakstin Thai village – tells Carbon Brief that he thinks changes in rainfall in his village are related to climate change.

He continues, unprompted:

“Not just weather, but changes in our livelihood, the land, and forest as well as the development of modern lifestyle nowadays also relate to this, too.

“I think we need to look back at things we have done that caused the changes and how we can possibly reduce and minimise our impact. If we can do so, the situation will be better. We know that certain things we do lead to this and that impact so we should stop doing things that create negative impact.”

HABITABLE

In 2022, Carbon Brief attended the HABITABLE annual project meeting in Rome and learned about the different data collection methods.

The project is separated into 12 different work packages, and employs a range of different on-the-ground data collection methods.

In addition to the household surveys, the researchers organised stakeholder dialogues, focus-group discussions, “fuzzy cognitive mapping” approaches and semi-structured interviews.

The team also has work packages dedicated to gender and social equality, legal and policy recommendations, plus the communication and dissemination of research back to the impacted communities.

Dr François Gemenne – the principal investigator of the HABITABLE project – tells Carbon Brief that the idea of “habitability” varies from person to person. He adds:

“I’m really hoping that we can break away from the big numbers game where we try to predict how many millions people will be displaced in the long run and really understand at the individual level, which is the level that matters.”

The HABITABLE team seem aware of the tension and power imbalances when countries from the global north and global south work together. Gemenne explains that, typically, funding is given to researchers in the global north who travel to global south countries for their research. “It creates an imbalance I think that is increasingly difficult to justify,” he says.

Gemenne explains that HABITABLE have a more equitable relationship with their partners in the global south:

“All partners from the global south receive money from the European Commission in the same way that we do and therefore, they are no longer needed as subcontractors to conduct the field studies but they are fully integrated in the project in the redesign of the project. And I think this is extremely important.”

The HABITABLE project will publish its findings later this year.