Climate migration and urban governance in India: policy challenges, social vernerability and institutional responses

Abstract

Climate-induced mobility is emerging as an important governance concern in India as droughts, floods, extreme heat, coastal hazards, and livelihood instability increasingly interact with existing patterns of internal migration. This study examines climate migration not merely as population movement, but as a multidimensional urban governance problem involving housing insecurity, employment vulnerability, health exposure, access to basic services, and institutional preparedness. A major research gap lies in the limited integration of climate-risk indicators, migrant vulnerability characteristics, and city-level governance capacity within a unified analytical framework for Indian urban areas. To address this gap, the study proposes an artificial-intelligence-assisted Climate Migration Governance Vulnerability Framework capable of identifying migrant-receiving urban areas where climatic exposure and institutional deficits may reinforce social vulnerability. The framework conceptualises vulnerability through environmental exposure, livelihood sensitivity, housing conditions, health and service accessibility, social protection coverage, and municipal response capacity. Machine-learning-based risk classification is proposed to distinguish urban areas with relatively low, moderate, high, and critical climate-migration governance pressures while maintaining interpretable indicators for policy use.