Detection of drought-related human migration and population change on the North American Great Plains

Rural migration responses to drought are complex, context specific, and multi-directional. Migration is one of many possible adaptive responses to drought, and is typically initiated only after other, less disruptive strategies have been attempted. The potential for drought to stimulate migration or displacement is inversely related to the range of alternative adaptation options available to households, and is lowered through coordinated vulnerability-reduction mechanisms such as institutional water-management regimes and crop insurance programs. When drought-related migration does occur, it tends to flow along pre-existing social networks to known destinations, which are usually urban centres within the same state/country or in contiguous ones. Using a mixed-methods approach that combines geospatial tools, quantitative methods (i.e. random forest and spatial regression) and qualitative data gathered through archival research and local interviews, we have generated detailed models of the changing influence over time of drought on rural population patterns on the North American Great Plains. In this presentation we highlight key findings from our work, describe data needs and limitations, discuss the predictive power of various quantitative methods, identify non-climatic variables that mediate migration outcomes, and emphasize the importance of mixed-methods approaches.