Extreme Climate Events and Migration: An Agent-Based Modeling Approach

Barbara Entwisle, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Ronald R. Rindfuss, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and East-West Center
Stephen J. Walsh, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
George Malanson, University of Iowa
Peter Mucha, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Brian Frizzelle, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Philip McDaniel, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Xiaozheng Yao, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Nathalie Williams, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Benjamin Heumann, McGill University
Ashton M. Verdery, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Pramote Prasartkul, Mahidol University
Yothin Sawangdee, Mahidol University
Aree Jampaklay, Mahidol University

This is a study of migration responses to extreme climate events. Based on data from Nang Rong, Thailand, we construct an agent-based model that incorporates dynamic linkages between demographic behaviors, such as migration, marriage, and births, and agriculture and land use, which depend on weather patterns and other variables such as slope, soil type and elevation. With this model, we simulate patterns of out- and return migration in the face of ‘normal’ weather patterns, a seven year flood, and a seven year drought in a rice economy. Agent based modeling is a relatively new but increasingly popular methodology in the social sciences that allows the analyst to computationally simulate specific macro-level events in isolation of other macro-level events, and as such it creates the opportunity to circumvent many of the classic methodological problems in with the study of climate change and migration.