Identifying place-based research priorities on climate-induced human mobility in the United States

Abstract

In the United States, migration to coastal counties has increased since 2010, even as many of these same counties experience severe coastal hazards and even disasters resulting in displacement. In regions with multiple natural hazards—like the U.S. Southwest where sea level rise, extreme heat, and wildfires converge—the impacts of these hazards on mobility are even more complex, especially as they intensify and occur more frequently due to climate change. Despite an increased reference to the link between climate change and human mobility (which includes displacement, migration, and planned relocation), there is a lack of knowledge on how shifts in population patterns intersect with underlying socioeconomic, cultural, political, and environmental processes and resources that either enable or constrain the ability of people to cope where they are or force them to move due to insufficient support or constrained resources. To address this gap, the University of Southern California Sea Grant program, in partnership with eleven national Sea Grant programs, conducted one of five regional workshops to identify place-based research, policy, communication, and relationship-building needs on climate-induced human mobility. Fifty-eight experts in migration studies, climate communication, and law and policy contributed insights for the identification of the scientific infrastructure that is required to conduct use-inspired collaborative research on climate-induced human mobility as well as educational and engagement strategies for the U.S. Southwest. Regionally specific needs identified in this study include improved modelling of how geographically intersecting climate hazards may impact mobility, understanding how perceptions of migrants and receiving communities may impact migrant integration, balancing affordable housing while limiting gentrification, and fostering interdisciplinary communication and collaboration. Compared with findings of the other regional workshops, many needs from the U.S. Southwest were common to all other regions. Most common among all regions were the need for understanding receiving communities, the demand for substantial and sincere community engagement throughout adaptation and relocation planning processes, the need for critical reconsideration of the American homeownership model, and the importance of storytelling in relocation processes. These commonalities suggest that both this project’s methods and the needs identified may be helpful for informing community relocation planning in other regions. Identifying these needs will provide communities facing climate-induced human mobility with the opportunity to proactively address these needs and build climate resilience—for example, through land use planning for climate-wise infrastructure—for existing residents and newcomers alike.