Migration as a Pathway to Climate Resilience: Precarities, Adaptive Capacity, and Wellbeing in Denchukha-Thimphu migration corridor

This thesis investigates migration as a potential pathway to climate resilience in Bhutan, focusing on the Denchukha–Thimphu migration corridor. Employing the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework and a mixed-methods approach, it examines how environmental stressors such as rising temperatures, irregular rainfall, water scarcity, and crop diseases interact with socio-economic factors to shape migration decisions. Field narratives reveal that migration often reduces household precarity through remittances, improved access to education, and diversified income sources. However, these gains come with challenges, including agricultural labor shortages, and loneliless linked to family separation. Sustainable Livelihoods Framework is used to demonstrating how human, social, natural, physical, and financial capitals are simultaneously reshaped by migration and environmental change. Despite these pressures, strong place attachment persists, with many expressing a desire to remain if viable opportunities existed locally. The findings suggest that migration can serve as an adaptive strategy under certain conditions.