[This corrects the article on p. e1000268 in vol. 7.].

The Academic Editor's name and institution were erroneously omitted from the metadata of the PDF and HTML versions of this article. The Academic Editor providing expert input on this paper was Peter Byass, Umea Centre for Global Health Research, Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Umea University, Sweden. For more information about the role of the Academic Editor in PLoS Medicine's editorial process, see our Author Guidelines: http://www.plosmedicine.org/static/guidelines.action#overview.

Correction: The Effect of Rural-to-Urban Migration on Obesity and Diabetes in India: A Cross-Sectional Study

Africa is considered to be the second driest continent in the world after Australia. Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is the whole of Africa except North Africa; SSA covers around 80% of Africa’s total land area with a population of around 0.9 billion people. The continued population growth poses a challenge to systems that supply services in SSA; for example, in 1950, less than 200 million people lived in Sub-Saharan Africa, but in 2016 the population in SSA has increased to around 1 billion. Since the beginning of the 21st century, there has been a rising sense of urgency about the need to address migration; movement of refugees and their displacement (Cross et al., 2006). There are many factors that influence the movement of people. This thesis examines some of these factors in depth to understand the tendency for migration both to urban from rural and from rural to urban – the latter being more important. Presently, 14 African countries (including 9 from SSA) are experiencing water stress, and it is predicted that the number of water stressed countries in SSA will increase to 25 countries by the year 2025 (Mejia et al., 2012; UN, 2008). SSA experiences rainfall fluctuations and rising temperatures that have been impacting the agricultural production over time. It is predicted that SSA may experience extreme rainfall events and such extreme precipitation may become more frequent and intense over time. Local rural water availability conditions may also face more challenges; for example, Nigeria water supply systems have failed to cope with the rapid population growth over time. In 1991, 79% (25 million) of Nigerian people living in urban areas had access to clean water, yet 17 years later it has fallen to 75%, but now 55 million people have access to fresh water.
The literature reviewed showed a number of gaps in research with regards to water security. Essentially, this thesis investigates how water security, climate change and population growth are related to the people movement in and around SSA. This study uses quantitative type univariate and multivariate time series methodologies to investigate the links among the abovementioned variables. The main research aim of this major study as stated led to the examination, study and analysis of long term time series data concerning rainfall, temperature, populations; including their relationships to rural-urban and urban to rural migration time series data.
The study developed univariate and multivariate time series models that are appropriate for trend studies, and prediction of the changes that may occur to the climatic and people movement variables in the future. The study identified associations and correlations between climatic and people movement variables. The findings of this study indicate that rainfall and temperature variabilities do indeed impact the movement of people in SSA in Somalia, Ethiopia and Democratic Republic of Congo in particular. The results of the time series analyses suggest that rainfall has a greater impact on rural-urban migration in Somalia, Ethiopia and Democratic Republic of Congo compared to that of the temperature; although a combined effect is also noted. The people movement in these countries responded to the unit shocks in rainfall or temperature.
More importantly, the study notes that number of people leaving from rural areas outnumber those relocating to rural areas. This means that migration in selected countries and in SSA in general has net flows towards the cities. Due to limitations of the migration data availability, author used vital statistical method to indirectly measure net migration in selected countries. The study provides an essential breakthrough of the area of the climate change impact on rural urban migration in SSA. The findings can aid different levels of decision making authorities, research and educational institutions in the regions as well as regional and international organization in terms of what may be done to stem the flow away from rural areas. Hence, there is a need for more site specific research projects to further examine interactions and associations between climate change and human migration within SSA and member counties. Higher level studies in the future should seek funding from agencies to collect primary data from relevant government departments as well as climate related research institutions in SSA.

Impact of Water Security, Climate Change and Population Growth on Rural-Urban Migration in Sub-Saharan Africa

Precipitation is essential for food production in Sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 80 % of agriculture is rainfed. Although ∼40 % of precipitation in certain regions is recycled moisture from Africa's tropical rainforest, there needs to be more knowledge about how this moisture supports the continent's agriculture. In this study, we quantify all moisture sources for agrarian precipitation (African agricultural precipitationshed), the estimates of African rainforest's moisture contribution to agricultural precipitation, and the evaporation from agricultural land across the continent. Applying a moisture tracking model (UTRACK) and a dynamic global vegetation model (LPJmL), we find that the Congo rainforest (>60 % tree cover) is a crucial moisture source for many agricultural regions. Although most of the rainforest acreage is in the DRC, many neighboring nations rely significantly on rainforest moisture for their rainfed agriculture, and even in remote places, rainforest moisture accounts for ∼10–20 % of agricultural water use. Given continuous deforestation and climate change, which impact rainforest areas and resilience, more robust governance for conserving the Congo rainforest is necessary to ensure future food production across multiple Sub-Saharan African countries. 

African rainforest moisture contribution to continental agricultural water consumption

Water is highly critical for the existence of humans and other living organisms as well as for all
sorts of life. Agriculture needs water to produce crops and manufacturing industries need it for producing
products and services. Water is immensely critical for energy production and needed in the balance and
sustainability of ecosystem. There has been a considerable rainfall variations that impacted water availability
in Somalia and Ethiopia. Equally, temperature variations have also played a major role in the everyday life of
Somalis and Ethiopians. Together the rainfall fluctuations and temperature variations have been attributed to
climate change. The effects of these issues on people movements away from rural to urban have had little
attention in recent times. This paper addresses the impact of climate change variables on rural - urban migration
in both Somalia and Ethiopia. More specifically, we use time series analysis to examine the interactions
between the rural-urban migration, rainfall and temperature. We model the multivariate data using ARIMA
and VAR models; this is to first conduct univariate analyses for the purpose of predictions, and secondly to
understand the nature of interactions and dependencies by conducting multivariate VAR analysis. This study
determines the most appropriate ARIMA models of rural migration, urban migration rainfall and temperature
of Somalia and Ethiopia as presented in Table 2. Both ARIMA and VAR analyses have produced relatively
good models that are statistically significant and perform well in making short term predictions; a 10 year
period of annual forecast of rural and urban migration as well as rainfall and temperature of Somalia and
Ethiopia were carried out. Then univariate and multivariate analyses have showed that climate change factors
such as “rainfall” and “temperature” variations have a combined granger effect on people migration in both
rural and urban areas in both countries; in fact temperature variations have a significant impact (5% and 10%)
on urban and rural migrations respectively. Climate change effects appear to be driving the migration from
rural to urban. This is also compounding the international migration out of the African continent that is noted
in Europe, Asia and even Australia.

Impact of rainfall fluctuations and temperature variations on people movement in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Time Series Analysis of data from Somalia and Ethiopia

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Impact of rainfall fluctuations and temperature variations on people movement in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Time Series Analysis of data from Somalia and Ethiopia