Urbanization: Exploring Rural-Urban Migration, Conflict, and Anthropogenic Change in Colombia

Anthropogenic change is generally associated with population growth, land use change, and changing economies. However, internal migration patterns and armed conflicts can also be key drivers behind these anthropogenic change and demographic change processes. To better understand this dynamic, we explore the spatial relationship between forced migration due to armed conflict and changing demographic factors in Colombia; a country with a recent history of 7 million internal migrants. First, we spatiotemporally analyzed the relationship between anthropogenic and demographic change due to forced migration from internal armed conflicts using remote sensing to measure anthropogenic change during 1984-2018 and we then used statistical and spatial analyses of demographic data. We found that anthropogenic change is significantly and positively related with increased rural-urban migration. Results show that interregional expulsion is also negatively associated with such anthropogenic change. Indeed, different regions anthropogenic prints have had different sensibilities towards forced migration, and across different time periods. Findings are then used to discuss how social and political phenomena such as armed conflict can have significant effects on the dynamics and trajectories of humans and territories in countries such as Colombia.