This paper explores the environmental and socio-economic factors affecting households’ propensity to send a member to migrant. Specifically, the linkages between perceptions of climate variability, access to natural resources and subsequent livelihood decision making is examined. The research does not confirm a clear deterministic link between environmental change and contemporary human mobility in the Tarai, and yet warrants circular migration as a vital adaptation mechanism to secure household welfare amidst changing social and environmental conditions. Given its fertile soils and favourable climate, the Tarai have provided a rich agricultural landscape and a haven for internal migrants who lost their livelihood to environmental hazards, and those wanting to escape harsh conditions on the hills. Although the Tarai once provided comparatively better opportunities for the hill migrants, social inequalities continue to mediate sensitivity to livelihood risks. These risks, coupled by the absence of proper compensatory mechanism against crop loss, and the failure to modernize agriculture, sending a migrant is a rational choice for a household. The household surveys conducted in under-urbanized wards of two municipalities from the Tarai, Damak in the East and Dhangadhi in the West identified that households are increasingly exposed to high inter-annual variability of monsoon rainfall, inadequate and unreliable irrigation infrastructure and frequent flash-floods. Particularly, the research has revealed that social and environmental changes in the region have significantly altered the livelihood values of the Nepali plains. The research found that whilst more than 80% of surveyed households were involved in agriculture and livestock rearing, about half of the households also had at least one migrant member. Although it is not uncommon for the Tarai households to send a member for circular migration for a supportive source of income and a potential risk management strategy, there is a distinct shift in the choice of destination. While many migrants still go to various destinations in India, the contemporary migration pattern is dominated by linkages to distant international destinations. Moreover, as the destinations have become more distant and with households sending more than one migrant, and sending a female migrant, the impact on labour availability for agriculture and livestock rearing is evident. However, the remittances from the new destinations are disproportionately larger than those from traditional sources and for most households remittance has become an essential income source to cover basic necessities. Climate risks and environmental changes in the Tarai landscape have significantly altered the residents’ livelihood. It can be anticipated that with increasing reliance on remittance, the trend in foreign employment is expected to perpetuate and in return impacting the established agricultural practices relying on mostly household labour input. The Tarai people in a continual attempt to seek for new livelihood opportunities have tapped into the national, regional and global human mobility nexus. These cases illustrate the evolving human mobility patterns over multiple generations and calls for reimagining adaptation in terms of the extent that the societal system will reorganize to become resilient.