Scientific interest for the interactions between migration and environment is growing for different reasons. Among them we may mention the consequences of natural disasters on the location of populations affected by this type of event and the vulnerability of more and more people in relation to population growth on one side, and the threat of a substantial sea level rise due to global warming on the other side. If most of the studies focus on migrations as consequences of environmental changes, the effects of mobility on the environment itself cannot be neglected. Different types of migrations have to be considered. In some cases migrations are temporary and people return home when environmental conditions make it possible (after floods for example). In other cases, people have to leave for good (e.g. nuclear disaster as in Chernobyl). Short term migrations may affect the environment. International mobility is an important factor in the dynamics of epidemics, as for influenza epidemics of recent years, and tourism may exert a strong demographic pressure on fragile spots.
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Jacques Véron (2012) studied this question.