Univ.-Prof. Dr. Patrick Sakdapolrak

Head of the Working Group

Professor of Population Geography and Demography
Vice-Director of Doctoral Studies (SPL 45)

Contact

Department of Geography and Regional Research
Universitätsstraße 7/5, D518
1010 Vienna, Austria

Tel.: +43-1-4277-48730

Email: patrick.sakdapolrak@univie.ac.at


Hours: Tuesday, 14:00 to 15:00 (MS Teams)

Please register by Monday (10 am) at the latest. You will then receive an access link.

Book an appointment > 02.12.2025 | 16.12.2025 | 13.01.2026 | 27.01.2026

Teaching

Course directory

Biography

My research field is at the interface of population dynamics, environmental change and development processes, with a focus on the topics of migration and displacement as well as health and disease. The central theme of my research is the question of how vulnerable groups live with risk. My Ph.D. thesis is based on field research in slum settlements in India, where the inhabitants have significant higher mortality and morbidity rates than the rest of the urban population. I have investigated how these poor urban groups cope with and adapt to environmental and social stresses. My current research on migration-environment relationships in Kenya and Thailand addresses the question how migration alters the way people at places of origin deal with the environment and climate change. I have the aim to pursue sound theoretical and empirical research which is relevant for wider society. I have studied Geography and Development Research in Heidelberg and Wollongong, Australia, and received my doctorate degree at Bonn University.

Research interests

Conceptual: vulnerability, resilience, livelihoods, translocality, Bourdieu's Practice-Theory

Thematic: human-environment-relations, migration and displacement, health and disease

Regional: South Asia (India), South-East Asia (Thailand), East Africa (Kenia)

Current research Projects

  • HABITABLE – Linking Climate Change, Habitability and Social Tipping Points: Scenarios for Climate Migration

Publications

Showing entries 1 - 20 out of 102
Sterly, H., Borderon, M., & Sakdapolrak, P. (2025). Dépasser le déterminisme environnemental: Recentrer le social dans les débats sur l’habitabilité et les migrations. mondes & migrations, 1351(4), 11-19. Article 2637. https://doi.org/10.4000/14ywp
Boas, I., Sterly, H., Farbotko, C., Hulme, M., Benveniste, H., Schewel, K. D., Bettini, G., Borderon, M., Hoffmann, R., Geest, K. V. D., Durand-Delacre, D., Selby, J., Wrathall, D. J., Baldwin, A., Cortés, A. B., Bukari, K. N., Bunchuay-Peth, S., Capisani, S., Codjoe, S. N. A., ... Zickgraf, C. (2025). Climate-induced redistribution of people is not inevitable. Environmental Research Letters. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/adfdfd
Diniega, R., Bunchuay-Peth, S. A., & Sakdapolrak, P. (2025). From individual to collective social remittances: the role of translocal moorings in climate adaptation in Morocco. Mobilities. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2025.2506063
Sterly, H., Borderon, M., Sakdapolrak, P., Adger, W. N., Ayanlade, A., Bah, A., Blocher, J., Blondin, S., Boly, S., Brochier, T., Brüning, L., Bunchuay-Peth, S. A., O'Byrne, D., Safra de Campos, R., Codjoe, S. N. A., Debève, F., Detges, A., Franco-Gavonel, M., Hathaway, C., ... Zickgraf, C. (2025). Habitability for a connected, unequal and changing world. Global Environmental Change, 90, Article 102953. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102953
Garcia, C., Borderon, M., Sakdapolrak, P., Assefa, N., Bunchuay-Peth, S., Dheresa, M., Reboul, L., & Sterly, H. (2025). Unveiling invisible climate im/mobilities: mixed-methods case study of a drought-prone rural area of Kersa, Ethiopia. Regional Environmental Change, 25(1), Article 34. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-025-02373-1
Sakdapolrak, P. (2025). Migration im Kontext des Klimawandels: Was wir wissen und was nicht. Geographische Rundschau (GR), 9 (2025), 4-9.
Diniega, R., & Sakdapolrak, P. (2025). Social remittances and the environment in the context of climate change: What do we know? Where do we go? Climate and Development, 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2024.2449121
Tadee, R., Sakdapolrak, P., Sterly, H., & Pagogna, R. (2025). The Roles of Information Communication Technology in Translocal Embedding and Anchoring Among Thai Migrant Workers in South Korea. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie. https://doi.org/10.1111/tesg.70008
Ober, K., & Sakdapolrak, P. (2024). How and When Does International Migration Policy Travel Across Scales? Understanding the Limits to Migration as Adaptation Through the Lens of Thailand. Die Erde: Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin - Forum für Erdsystem- und Erdraumforschung, 155(1), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.12854/erde-2024-664
Thongchaithanawut, M., Borderon, M., & Sakdapolrak, P. (2024). Regional evidence of environmental mobility in Southeast Asia: A systematic review of the empirical evidence. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 45(3), 533-562. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjtg.12562
Janoth, J.-N., Abu, M., Sakdapolrak, P., Sterly, H., & Merschroth, S. (2024). The impact of migration on culturally-embedded and subjective perceptions of habitability in a context of environmental change: A case study from Northern Ghana . Erdkunde: Archiv für wissenschaftliche Geographie, 78(1), 35-55. https://doi.org/10.3112/erdkunde.2024.01.02
Sakdapolrak, P., Sterly, H., Borderon, M., Bunchuay-Peth, S. A., Naruchaikusol, S., Ober, K., Porst, L., & Rockenbauch, T. (2024). Translocal social resilience dimensions of migration as adaptation to environmental change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), 121(3), Article e2206185120. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2206185120
Pagogna, R., & Sakdapolrak, P. (2023). How migration information campaigns shape local perceptions and discourses of migration in Harar city, Ethiopia. International Migration, 61(5), 142-155. https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.13112
Lemke, L. K.-G., Sakdapolrak, P., & Trippl, M. (2023). Unresolved issues in regional economic resilience: Conceptual ways forward. Progress in Human Geography, 47(5), 699-717. https://doi.org/10.1177/03091325231191242
Weldemariam, L. F., Sakdapolrak, P., & Ayanlade, A. (2023). Household food-security strategies and migration in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia: food-security strategies and migration. Scientific African, 21, Article e01801. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sciaf.2023.e01801
Stange, G., Pagogna, R., Sterly, H., Sakdapolrak, P., Borderon, M., Schraven, B., & Serraglio, D. A. (2023). Impeded Migration as Adaptation: COVID-19 and Its Implications for Translocal Strategies of Environmental Risk Management. ASEAS - Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies, 16(1), 157-169. https://doi.org/10.14764/10.ASEAS-0093
Szaboova, L., Adger, W. N., Safra de Campos, R., Maharjan, A., Sakdapolrak, P., Sterly, H., Conway, D., Codjoe, S. N. A., & Abu, M. (2023). Evaluating migration as successful adaptation to climate change: Trade-offs in well-being, equity, and sustainability. One Earth, 6(6), 620-631. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2023.05.009
Sakdapolrak, P., Borderon, M., & Sterly, H. (2023). The limits of migration as adaptation. A conceptual approach towards the role of immobility, disconnectedness and simultaneous exposure in translocal livelihoods systems. Climate and Development, 16(2), 87-96. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2023.2180318
Groth, J., Seppelt, R., Sakdapolrak, P., Senbeta, F., & Hermans, K. (2023). Why smallholders stop engaging in forest activities: the role of in-migration in livelihood transitions in forested landscapes of southwestern Ethiopia. Ecology and Society, 28(1), Article 52. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-14022-280152
Rockenbauch, T., Sakdapolrak, P., & Sterly, H. (2023). Do translocal networks matter for agricultural innovation? A case study on advice sharing in small-scale farming communities in Northeast Thailand: (Previously published in Agriculture and Human Values Volume 36, Issue 4, December 2019). In R. Bezner Kerr, T. L. Pendergrast, B. J. Smith II, & J. Liebert (Eds.), Rethinking Food System Transformation (pp. 35-52). Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-019-09935-0
Showing entries 1 - 20 out of 102