About this Research Topic
The goal of this Research Topic is to advance the state of the art on climate mobility modeling through the description of modeling data inputs and methods. It is hoped that by exploring multiple modeling approaches, modelers will learn from one another, and non-modelers will better appreciate the complexities of modeling complex socio-ecological processes.
By its nature, this climate mobility modeling is multi-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary. The articles in the topic will cover a wide range of approaches, disciplines and cross-cutting issues related to mobility and climate change. The common denominator of the papers is clearly their focus on the modelling side. Hereafter, we report a number of dimensions according to which the different papers can be categorized.
The first dimension classifies the articles in Method papers and Perspective papers. Method papers describe in detail a specific modelling approach which is used in the climate mobility literature; they help to support replication and increase transparency in the research and modelling community. The Perspective Papers offer a more general description of the different methods, also comparing them and indicating avenues for future research; they may facilitate new collaborations in the field.
The second dimension refers to the geographical scope. We identify two broad categories: Global Assessments and Case studies (countries or regions). Integrated Assessment or General Equilibrium Models are mainly used for world-level analysis while Case studies are more often based on different kinds of statistical and spatial models.
The third dimension focuses on the type of physical climate impacts, basically slow onset and sudden onset events. Sea Level Rise (SLR) and desertification belong to the first category, extreme events are part of the second one. The different physical impacts also imply different types of migration. Forced displacement is more related to sudden onset events, voluntary permanent migration to slow onset events.
The fourth dimension distinguishes international migration, internal migration and immobility. Clearly, global models are more suitable to study international migration. In the last years some interesting modeling works on immobility (e.g. trapped populations) have emerged from the literature and papers addressing this topic are also of interest.
Finally, the fifth dimension tackles the very important aspect of Interconnections with other topics. The list of interconnected topics is long: economic inequality and performance, food and water security, gender, conflict, demographic transition, legal protection of migrants, markets and institutions. In this Research Topic we seek to cover at least some of these related topics.
Keywords: climate migration, climate mobility modelling, adaptation to climate change, human mobility, data, methods
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.