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Mass Migration and Geospatial Approach
Migration is an expression of the human aspiration for dignity, safety and a better future. It is a part of the social fabric, part of our very make-up as a human family.
– Ban Ki Moon
What is it?
Mass migration is the migration of large group of people from one geographical location to another. It include the permanent change of residence by an individual or group.
Some terrible facts
Chechnya to Central Asia – 0.7 Million
Vietnam to rest of the world – 1-2 Million
India to Pakistan – 15 million
From rural China to urban centres – 160 Million
Reasons:
- Water resources
- Adverse agriculture conditions
- Disease
- Climate change
- Urbanization
- Wars and conflicts
Why we need to monitor and analyse it ?
We need to monitor migration in order to make policies for all and planning for the development of society and distribution of resources. The practice of migration has both the positive and negative impacts. Some are listed below.
Positives
- Migration helps in improving the quality of life of people.
- It helps to improve social life of people as they learn about new culture, customs, and languages.
- Children get better opportunities for higher education.
Negatives
- The loss of a person from rural areas, impact on the level of output and development of rural areas.
- The influx of workers in urban areas increases competition for the job, houses, school facilities etc.
- Having large population puts too much pressure on natural resources, amenities and services.
Technology for monitoring, analysis and predictions of mass migration
Geospatial is the technology used for a long time for human welfare. It gives everything like monitoring, evidences, solution, warning and implementation of solutions.
– Water Resources
Availability of safe and clean water is becoming a big issues in many parts of the world. This is becoming a reason for migration. Scientists use satellites to measure the amount of water in a river floodplain, enabling them to predict droughts and floods that may result from global climate change. Remote sensing and GIS based projects has helped Zambia to manage its water shortages. Multispectral sensor helped in mapping existing water resources and vegetation in the Kafue River Basin and identified potential dam sites.
– Agriculture Conditions
Satellite images can highlight relevant land use change along with increased surface reflectivity, temperature, dryness, and dustiness. Infrared sensors can detect vegetation stress due to environmental shifts. Once the at risk areas are identified, measures to restore degraded lands and reduce the incidence of human-caused droughts can be initiated. Satellite sensors with different spatial, spectral, and temporal resolution are used for agriculture and crop assessment, crop health, change detection, environmental analysis, irrigated landscape mapping, yield determination, and soils analysis.
– Disease
Remote sensing has broad applications in monitoring the spread of disease, providing early warning of health emergencies, and allowing for the application of preventative measures. We can better understand this with this example- cholera outbreaks in Bangladesh was once predicted by detecting coastal algae blooms containing vibrio cholerae, which is a food source for zooplanktons which was later consumed in drinking water. Satellite imageries are also used to determine the connection between vegetation characteristics and malaria transmission.
-Climate Change
Climate change may displace coastal populations living at or near sea level. Satellite remote sensing along with GIS and other geospatial technologies are playing a vital role in studying climate changes and making effective policies. Remote sensing data is also useful in detecting soil moisture quality and ocean salinity. Detecting glaciers and sea water levels are other applications. Land Use Land Cover (LULC) maps are significant in change detection and analysis.
-Natural Resources
Remote sensing, GIS and photogrammetry are vital component of mapping natural resources. People sometime migrate from their native places due to the lack of knowledge of natural resources available in their areas. Geospatial is helpful in digital terrain analysis, making land resource inventory and mapping, monitoring and mapping of natural resources, helpful in site selection and construction of dams, exploring mining possibilities in an area.
-Monitoring and managing refugee camps
GIS is used as a planning and coordination tool in managing refugee camps. High resolution satellite imageries are effective for this purpose. Geospatial data is used to track camp migration, population flux, lines of communication (e.g. bridges, roads, airfields, etc), water supply, soil conditions, deforestation, natural hazards, camp security, etc. UAV are also used for monitoring these camps at a ultra high resolution level.
Close picture of a refugee camp using UAV
Summary
Mass migration is happening on global level. This has both its positive and negative impacts. In order to make the quality of life much better, we need to analyse and monitor it. Geospatial technology including GIS and remote sensing are useful in various ways. We use geospatial technology under various aspects that influences mass migration. Some of them are water, agriculture, climate change, natural resources and monitoring and managing of refugee camps.