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Cell phone traces have been successfully used to study human mobility during natural disasters such as earthquakes and flooding [1, 2, 3]. Climate change, understood as the change in weather patterns for a long period of time, also has the potential of causing changes in human mobility and cause migrations that have a wider and long standing impact. A​ climate migrant is an individual that is forced to leave their local environment due to long or sudden weather changes. In this study we present initial results of the migrations caused by the severe drought that happened in La Guajira, Colombia, in 2014. Our initial results indicate a linear reduction of the population of 10% during the 6 months considered.

La Guajira is a department of Colombia located in the northwest tip of the country and borders Venezuela. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)[4], since the beginning of 2014 an extreme drought has affected La Guajira. The drought caused a declaration of the state of public calamity in the municipality of Uribia (La Guajira) in February of 2014 [5]. It is estimated that around 65,000 people have been affected by the severe droughts in La Guajira. Consequences to the population are mainly regarding malnutrition, especially for infants, with extreme consequences for the agricultural and livestock sectors.