Abstract

An established cause for human migration is the search for better economic opportunities, with possible triggers from meteorological changes and events. Conflict is another robust driver of internal displacement in human migration studies, and shifting risk exposures will drive migration responses to temporary and acute natural disasters. We apply these empirically derived relationships between environmental change and human migration to climate change projections (e.g. CMIP5 models) and expand them globally. In estimating these future global patterns of human migration, we identify areas that may require more data and new research, for example potential ways to assess the effects of institutional responses and feedbacks with cross-border migration. We discuss the implications of this work for assembling a modular framework that integrates existing empirical work on climate change and human migration with new theoretical models of displacement and immigration. By bringing together work across disciplines, this project attempts to highlight outstanding research questions for both the scientific and human migration studies communities.