In a study published in the international journal Environmental Research Communications byAir Pollution Institute of the National Research Council (CNR-IIA), it is observed that the weather-climatic variations play a primary role in the influence of migratory flows from the African belt of the Sahel to Italy. The researchers focused on the period 1995-2009, preceding the Arab springs and the Syrian crisis, thus excluding recent conflicts and better highlighting possible climatic effects.
“In this context, it is interesting to evaluate quantitatively the influence of climate change on migration from the African belt of Sahel to Italy, which account for about 90% of the entrances to our territory from the Mediterranean route ", he claims Antonello Pasini, researcher at Cnr-Iia and author of the study, carried out in collaboration with Stephen Amendola, PhD student in physics at the University of Roma Tre. “Specifically, we used a simple linear model and another more sophisticated artificial intelligence model, a neural network system recently developed by our group, capable of highlighting non-gradual changes and effects of exceeding certain thresholds in the meteo-climatic variables. With the neural network model we were able to explain virtually the 80% of variability in migratory currents towards Italy, taking into account the weather-climatic data only, by direct cause and by influence on the amount of annual harvests ".
Agriculture therefore represents a link between climate change and migration. “Poor harvests and possible famines, in conjunction with heat waves during the growing season, they amplify the migratory phenomenon”, Explains Pasini.
Il dominant factor that induced these migrations, however, seems to be the temperature, so much so as to suggest that exceeding a threshold of thermal tolerance, both human and animal, may have a primary role in the variations of migratory flows. “Today we know that African countries are very close to these thresholds. Our modeling results obviously represent only a first step towards larger studies, which may see collaboration with social scientists for a more complete evaluation of all the factors influencing migration ”, concludes the researcher. "Despite this, I believe that even now the evidence presented in this study must be seriously taken into consideration by the world of politics, so that even in Africa double winning strategies are adopted, such as the recovery of degraded and desertified land, which can lead to mitigating warming global and, at the same time, to create situations that prevent the sad phenomenon of forced migration ".