Modeling human migration: a minimalistic mechanistic modelling approach

Migration is one of human’s most drastic adaptation strategies against unfavorable conditions. In this work, we developed a minimalistic mechanistic model for human migration, dubbed CHASE, is developed. The model is named after the factors it includes to capture human migration, namely CH = Changing mindset, A = Agglomeration, S = Social ties, and E = the Environment.  Numerical experiments were conducted by subjecting the human agents in the model to two different kinds of disturbances: sudden shocks and gradual changes. Model results revealed highly nonlinear interplay among diversity, distance barrier, and social ties. The results also showed distinct responses to sudden shocks and gradual changes, both in terms of dynamics of the populations and diversity patterns.  Some ongoing and future work will also be briefly discussed.