Displacement and Resettlement: Understanding the Role of Climate Change in Contemporary Migration

How do we understand displacement and resettlement in the context of climate change? This chapter outlines challenges and debates in the literature connecting climate change to the growing global flow of people. We begin with an outline of the literature on environmental migration, specifically the definitions, measurements, and forms of environmental migration. The discussion then moves to challenges in the reception of migrants, treating the current scholarship on migrant resettlement. We detail a selection of cases in which the environment plays a role in the displacement of a population, including sea level rise in Pacific Island States, cyclonic storms in Bangladesh, and desertification in West Africa, as well as the role of deforestation in South America’s Southern Cone as a driver of both climate change and migration. We outline examples of each, highlighting the complex set of losses and damages incurred by populations in each case

Calibration of an advanced constitutive model through direct shear test results

In many geotechnical problems, failure conditions involve the formation of a narrow shear band where shear strains localize. In this study, the thickness of the shear bands was indirectly determined based on the results of constant normal load direct shear (CNL) tests carried out on sand specimens reconstituted at three different relative densities. The adopted procedure also allows to evaluate the soil deformations within the shear band and, thus, to correctly locate the critical state line in the compressibility plane. The results of the CNL tests were used to calibrate the Severn-Trent model, an advanced constitutive model proposed by Gajo and Wood, apt to well-reproduce the mechanical behaviuor of sands from small to large strain levels. The predictive capabilities of the model were confirmed by the good agreement with the experimental data obtained performing constant normal stiffness direct shear (CNS) tests. Finally, the shaft bearing capacity of a bored pile embedded in a homogeneous soil layer was numerically evaluated and compared to the one predicted using a less sophisticated (classical) approach