To provide a coherent information basis, to create a common analytical framework, and to facilitate integration of all works of the project, a common database and modeling tool will be developed based on GIS technologies. Related information and data for factors influencing migration will be identified and compiled. These include but are not limited to the following factors: 1) Environmental change directly influencing livelihoods; 2) indicators for governance in terms of designed development policies targeted by race, ethnicity and gender, institutions and rule of law, and inadequate service delivery; 3) Economic drivers; 4) Social or cultural drivers; 5) Use of new ICT that enables potential migrants to build networks and facilitate the migration process; 6) Political conflicts caused by historical discords, social injustices or economic inequalities. Since most of these factors operate on different levels and scales, it is important to have a nested approach: from the local to the international and vice versa. The collected data will enable team members of the project to jointly, objectively, and systematically characterize the situations at hand, model the relationships among the influencing factors, formulate and test hypotheses, and eventually draw conclusions.

Tasks

1.Internal workshop and guidelines for database. An internal preparatory workshop will be organized during the kick-off meeting to discuss Global Change mobility drivers that can form the foundation of the database. Following this workshop, a guideline document for the database will be formulated.

2. Collection and creation of the database. This task involves compiling relevant data from different disciplinary perspectives and using advanced multivariate analysis tools from natural science, especially climate research, to address the complex interactions of the drivers and to quantify their effects on migration. The integration of qualitative and quantitative research traditions from both the social and natural sciences in a single framework places this work at the vanguard of interdisciplinary approaches to social-environmental change.

3. Selecting relevant climate data. To identify climate variables and combinations of climate variables that are most relevant to migration, including global historical observations from the Climate Research Unit (CRU), UK Met Office, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). Future climate projections from CMIP6 and CORDEX, which were used by the IPCC will provide input for our projection of future impacts of climate change on (im-)mobility and assist with building future scenarios using forecast and network theory. These will be combined with other information related to migration through a set of advanced statistical modeling tools such as multivariate analysis to identify changing patterns and to establish relationships.

Cluster 1 - Database and analysis for modelling of Social Tipping Points

Leading