As extreme heat, rising sea levels, and more frequent and severe environmental disasters like hurricanes and wildfires worsen with climate change, more people will be displaced. In 2022, 3.2 million adults in the US were displaced or evacuated because of such disasters, and in a recent national survey, nearly one in three Americans cited climate change as a motivation to move.

Yet communities, planners, and policymakers still have much to learn about climate migration’s drivers and impacts and the needs and assets climate migrants bring. They urgently need new data, planning resources, and policy frameworks to help prepare for what’s ahead.

That’s why the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, in partnership with the University of Massachusetts Amherst, recently convened researchers, planners, practitioners, advocates, and people with lived expertise in climate migration and climate change to discuss how to ensure future migration can support positive community change while meeting current and future residents’ needs. Participants included the Climigration Network; the Water Collaborative of Greater New Orleans; the Department of Sustainability for Cuyahoga County, Ohio; Florida State University; Buy-In Community Planning; Neighbor 2 Neighbor Massachusetts; the Windham Regional Commission; Regional Plan Association; the Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program; the Harvard Graduate School of Design; New America; and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

I was pleased to attend and share findings from me and my colleagues’ recent research on the impacts of climate migration in three Gulf Coast communities, including recommendations for how the communities climate migrants move to (i.e., receiving communities) can strengthen their capacity to respond to climate migration flows.

The insights convening attendees shared, coupled with findings from our analyses, reveal three key insights—and related evidence and investment needs—that climate researchers, planners, and funders can champion to support more resilient and equitable futures for climate migrants and receiving communities.

1. Many of the factors that drive climate migration drive other kinds of migration, but climate migration presents distinct policy and planning challenges.
   
   People may choose or be forced to move because of climate change threats, but what ultimately drives climate migrants to move tends to be the same types of economic and social considerations that influence other immigrants and migrants to move.
   
   Our research shows that people who move because of climate-related disasters are similar to people who move for other reasons. Where they have social and cultural connections and where they believe they can access economic resources and opportunities strongly influence their decisions about when to leave and where to go. Social and wealth inequalities also constrain their choices, shaping not only who can move but where they can move, how far they can move, and what circumstances they’ll face when they arrive.
   
   But climate migration is also unique. Unlike people who leave areas of social, political, or economic distress for better prospects elsewhere, many climate migrants move within the same high-risk regions or trade one high-risk region for another. So far, evidence for large-scale climate migration to “climate havens”—where climate impacts are expected to be less severe—remains limited. Instead, top destinations include the Sunbelt and Gulf Coast states of Arizona, Texas, and Florida—places at very high climate risk. This means that, as our research found, many of the communities migrants are leaving will also be receiving communities, and these communities need resources and evidence to plan for both.
   
   Although climate migrants have yet to move to lower-risk destinations in large numbers, they probably will in greater numbers as climate impacts worsen. That means more distant receiving communities—especially those in the North—will need resources to learn from and apply the lessons being learned now across southern and Sunbelt receiving regions.
   
   Researchers and planners can support this by generating evidence about the institutional, infrastructural, and social assets and vulnerabilities of southern and Sunbelt communities that will likely experience both in- and out-migration, especially in the context of ongoing and interrelated climate crises. Researchers and planners can also coordinate with experts on immigration and refugees to learn from other migration contexts that can help them understand migrants’ needs and develop strategies for meeting them. New knowledge-sharing tools and networks will also be needed to institutionalize lessons learned in southern and Sunbelt communities and to provide resources and support to northern receiving regions as they plan for what may be ahead.
2. To prepare for climate migration, potential receiving communities need to address their existing institutional, infrastructure, and capacity needs.
   
   Many planning officials at the convening said that limited capacity—such as inadequate sewer and water treatment capacity, low availability of affordable rental and owner-occupied housing, and regional institutional and governmental siloing—is a major barrier to realistic community planning for welcoming new populations. Because of this, it’s essential for communities to build capacity and improve coordination across sectors such as housing, health care, critical infrastructure, and emergency and first-responder services that may already be strained—and are often further strained by climate crises and new migration flows.
   
   Whether communities are already receiving climate migrants or wish to attract them, building capacity to meet current needs is a critical first step to reduce institutional strain when they arrive. Addressing current needs may also help increase public support for new residents and reduce potential resistance to or scapegoating of them, which has been documented in climate migration and other immigration contexts when residents perceive new arrivals as competition for community resources.
   
   Researchers and planners can support receiving communities by taking inventory of the existing policy and administrative tools that can help address both capacity gaps and climate migration planning, such as housing preservation policies. They can also pursue local, state, and federal tax and financing mechanisms to shore up critical infrastructure and develop climate-informed models and resources to support regional coordination across health care, housing, and other key sectors to improve capacity to meet current and future residents’ needs.
3. Different climate migrants and different climate migration contexts require new planning and policy frameworks.
   
   Our research identified different community impacts from “fast” migration, which follows acute disaster events like hurricanes, and “slow” migration, which occurs gradually because of chronic hazards like sea level rise and land loss.
   
   “Fast” and “slow” climate migrants may experience loss at different paces and scales, and they often have different recovery needs and access to available supports. Because “slow” migrants arrive in smaller numbers, it can be challenging for receiving areas—and especially for rural and unincorporated communities with few resources—to sustain the institutional supports they need. Most programs and organizations that ramp up services during acute crises and recovery periods stop operating after the emergency ends, leaving “slow” migrants little support in climate migration “off seasons.”
   
   In addition, most federal spending is targeted to people and communities experiencing losses from acute climate crises. “Slow” climate migrants don’t qualify for most federal assistance available to “fast” migrants displaced after large, presidentially declared disasters, which can compound challenges to recovery and stability.
   
   Receiving regions need information about climate migrants’ varying contexts and needs, as well as flexible support systems, services, and response models to meet their diverse needs. Researchers and planners can support them by developing typologies of “slow” and “fast” climate migrants that detail their unique characteristics, experiences, and needs across disaster contexts. The data gathered could inform the development of new “fast” and “slow” migration planning and policy frameworks that help receiving communities plan for and meet climate migrants’ needs after both acute and ongoing climate disasters, without overdeveloping or underdelivering.

People have always moved, but climate change threatens to reproduce and exacerbate existing social and economic inequalities and disproportionately harm people with low incomes, people with disabilities, and many communities of color. Climate planners, researchers, and funders can take action on these opportunities to build a national evidence and resource base for communities poised to receive climate migrants and to support welcoming and equitable climate migration coordination, planning, and policy.