Costa: Flood Displacement During the 2017 Coastal El Niño in Peru

The research interest in Peru’s western arid coast (Costa) was in the well-being of persons displaced short distances away from their homes by floods during the 2017 Coastal El Niño (CEN) event for two reasons. First, Peru’s coast is periodically affected by severe El Niño-driven rainfall, which climate change will increase significantly in this century. Second, related floods are the main driver of displacement on Peru’s coast. The 2017 CEN floods, specifically, were the largest push for such displacement over the past decade in Peru, with close to 300,000 cases. Thus, examining the well-being of displaced persons from villages in the Piura Region after the 2017 CEN provides a useful temporal analog for future challenges. In the first section of this chapter, I provide information on the geographical context, measured and projected climate change, exposure, vulnerabilities, local coping and adaptation, and hazard-related migration by Peru’s coast. Then, I explain the new qualitative and quantitative results of this case study of displaced persons’ well-being following the 2017 CEN. Findings underline that the displacement occurred under high structural constraints, including severe climate risks and deficient DRR/DRM; poverty and inequality; limited livelihood options; tenure insecurity; poor and hardly accessible basic services; weak governance; and limited political participation. Conversely, structural opportunities were low. As a result, the severe and abrupt CEN floods caused forced, survival migration with detrimental conditions for moving and settling. Throughout the lifecycle of displacement, people suffered extreme losses, which continued to worsen their prospects for development from a secure base and a space to live better. Conversely, social relatedness remained similar after moving. Because displacement has become prolonged without substantial improvements, people’s need fulfillment, long-term asset base, and capacities for climate adaptation have worsened. Consequently, most displaced persons evaluated their need fulfillment as negative, and only few experienced partial positive feelings or cognitive satisfaction despite their plight. Expectations for the future were mostly negative and resulted in prevalent enforced fear as well as some fragile adjustment. Based on these findings in this case, I conclude by deriving more general propositions on the well-being impacts of climate migration.