Authors

Jiyun Cho, Amari Garrett, Anne Mercado, Vinayak Saxena

Research Question

How can the impact of climate-induced migration on the vitality of urban U.S. counties be characterized through a socioeconomic lens?

Background

Wildfires, droughts, flooding, and sweltering heat are climate challenges that continue to impact more Americans with each passing year. By 2070, rising seas could force up to 13 million Americans from their homes, as Abrahm Lustgarten’s eye-opening 2020 analysis revealed. There is a significant body of work which has sought to determine where climate migrants will move within the U.S., but limited work has been done in characterizing the effects of this migration on the U.S. metropolitan areas.

Methodology

Using the Qin Fan et al. coupled CGE-RUM model projections as our foundation, we’ve developed three scenarios: a low-impact scenario applying 50% of the model’s projected climate migration effect, a medium-impact scenario using the full climate migration effect from their model, and a high-impact scenario applying 150% of the projected effect. These scenarios will be used to adjust the model’s baseline regional population share projections, which don’t account for climate migration. Based on the projected shifts in the population shares of the U.S. climate regions, a process was developed to predict and analyze the impact of these population dynamics on key economic, educational, and public safety indicators for metropolitan areas.

Deliverables

• Data Dashboard to visualize the project’s data and analysis
• Policy memos highlighting the gaps and offering recommendations to policymakers based on the analysis
• Technical Report documenting the project’s process and results

Datasets