The term environmental refugee was coined in the late 1980s by the United Nations Environment Programme and refers to people who are forced to leave their community of origin because the land can no longer support them. Environmental factors such as soil erosion, drought, or floods, which are often coupled with poor socioeconomic conditions, are the cause of this loss of stability and security. Many environmental influences may cause such a displacement and include the deterioration of agricultural land, natural or "unnatural" disasters, climate change, the destruction resulting from war, and environmental scarcity.

Environmental scarcity can be supply induced, demand induced, or structural. Supply induced scarcity refers to the depletion of agricultural resources, as in the erosion of crop-land or overgrazing. Demand induced scarcity occurs when consumption of a resource increases or when population growth occurs, as is occurring in countries such as Philippines, Kenya, and...