Climate Change and Environmental Sociology: How Climate Disasters Displace and Marginalise Vulnerable and Low-Income Communities in North-Eastern and North-Western Nigeria

Abstract

Climate change has emerged as the defining environmental and sociological crisis of the twenty- first century, disproportionately displacing, impoverishing, and marginalising populations that have contributed least to greenhouse gas emissions. This study provides a sociological assessment of how climate disasters displace and marginalise vulnerable and low-income communities in north-eastern and north-western Nigeria, with particular focus on the interconnected crises of food and water scarcity, societal disruption, banditry, and environmental collapse. Anchored on the Social Vulnerability Framework, the Political Ecology perspective, and Rob Nixon's concept of Slow Violence, the study employs a cross-sectional mixed-methods design combining a structured survey of 360 respondents drawn from Yobe, Borno, and Kebbi States, in-depth qualitative interviews with 40 purposively selected participants, and secondary data from governmental and international humanitarian sources. Quantitative findings reveal that 75.0 percent of respondents have experienced climate disaster- driven displacement or relocation, 80.5 percent report severe or significant food insecurity attributable to climate change, and 72.3 percent identify increased banditry and conflict as direct consequences of climate-induced resource scarcity. All four null hypotheses were rejected at p < 0.001, confirming significant associations between climate disaster exposure and community displacement, between food and water scarcity and societal disruption, between income level and differential climate vulnerability, and between environmental collapse and increased banditry. Qualitative findings reveal that government disaster response is widely IJGEM IJGEM IIARD International Journal of Geography & Environmental Management experienced as inadequate, delayed, and captured by elite interests, leaving the most vulnerable communities to self-organise survival in the absence of meaningful institutional support. The study concludes that climate change in Nigeria is not merely an environmental phenomenon but a profoundly sociological one, operating through existing structures of inequality to deepen poverty, displacement, conflict, and social disintegration. Recommendations address environmental policy, disaster risk reduction, conflict prevention, and community resilience building.

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