Climate change influenced migration: Vertical residential mobility as an adaptation strategy in Antalya, Türkiye

Anthropogenic climate change is increasingly reshaping settlement patterns through rising temperatures and declining bioclimatic comfort, particularly in climatevulnerable regions such as the Mediterranean Basin. Climate pressures often shape internal and gradual mobility rather than longdistance migration. In Türkiye, intensified thermal stress in coastal cities is creating new adaptation pathways linked to elevation. In this context, climate information products, including bioclimatic comfort assessments and climate projections, can provide valuable evidence for understanding emerging mobility responses and supporting climate adaptation planning. This study examines vertical residential mobility from coastal urban areas toward higher-altitude yayla settlements as an emerging, localized form of climate adaptation in Antalya. Adopting a mixedmethods approach, the research integrates bioclimatic comfort analyses, climate projections, landuse and land surface temperature analyses, and semistructured in-depth interviews. The findings reveal a persistent and intensifying thermal differentiation between coastal and highland areas, functioning as a thermal spatial threshold that influences settlement preferences and residential decisions. While yaylas continue to offer relative thermal relief, climate projections indicate continued warming across all elevation zones toward 2100. Qualitative findings show that declining urban comfort, health concerns, and seasonal heat stress are primary drivers of elevationbased residential mobility, while traditional yayla practices are increasingly being transformed into more permanent forms of residence. At the same time, access to vertical residential mobility remains uneven and is increasingly shaped by socioeconomic resources, housing availability, and infrastructure conditions. The study argues that climateinfluenced mobility should be understood not as a direct or crisisdriven outcome of environmental change, but as a socially differentiated and context-dependent adaptation process. Interview findings indicate that changing thermal comfort conditions are influencing residential preferences and contributing to the functional transformation of yayla settlements from seasonal and recreational spaces toward more permanent residential environments. The results further suggest that PETbased bioclimatic comfort assessments, climate projections, and locally grounded evidence derived from household interviews can serve as climate information products that support adaptationoriented decisionmaking by households, planners, and local authorities. By foregrounding vertical residential mobility and bioclimatic comfort as key mechanisms, the study contributes to ongoing discussions on climate adaptation, internal mobility, and the role of climate information in responding to environmental change in climatevulnerable regions.