Evaluating Climate-Related Migration Forecasting Models Report

The Research and Technical Assistance Center (RTAC) partnered with the USAID Bureau of Policy, Planning, and Learning (PPL) to gather evidence on climate-related migration globally. Two reports were developed to address different aspects of this issue. One report analyzes the current state of climate migration models today while the second report discusses key climate-related “game changers” that are likely to have a significant impact on future migration patterns worldwide. Each report is accompanied by a brief which summarizes the key findings and ideas.

Climate change will have significant impacts on all aspects of human society, including population movements. In some cases, populations will be displaced by natural disasters and sudden-onset climate events. In other cases, climate change will slowly reshape the economic, social, and political realities of a place, which will influence how and where people migrate. Planning for the wide spectrum of future climate-related mobility is a key challenge facing development planners and policy makers.

Human migration brings opportunities and challenges to both sending and receiving societies. Migration is a key adaptation mechanism vulnerable households can use to cope with climate change, and whether receiving societies experience benefits or strain from population growth will depend on key investments— in housing, jobs, infrastructure, and social services. To best plan these investments requires an understanding of how future population movements will be affected by climate change.

This report reviews a number of prevailing and promising modeling approaches for forecasting the nature, magnitude, and direction of climate-related migration over the next 30 years. We pay particular attention to how well models are likely to forecast migration across geographic contexts, for different population groups (including women and marginalized groups), the degree to which models integrate other developmental or conflict-related drivers of migration, and whether models capture the potential for trapped populations. Our findings are based on a systematic literature review (see Appendix A.1 for details) and benefit from the insight and expertise of eight climate migration experts and modelers (see Appendix A.2 for details).

Read the accompanying brief which summarizes key findings and ideas.