Climate Crisis, Human Mobility and Security Challenges in MENA

1.1 Climate Change, Vulnerability and Emerging Security Risks

Climate change impacts are intensifying globally, with rising temperatures, extreme heat and droughts increasingly affecting ecosystems, economies and human security (Mukherjee and Mishra 2021; Gao et al. 2023; Wu et al. 2024; Li et al. 2025). These climatic pressures disproportionately undermine livelihoods in low- and middle-income regions, where water scarcity and agricultural decline exacerbate poverty and inequality (Abel et al. 2019; Cattaneo and Foreman 2023; Schutte et al. 2021; Clements 2024; Wang, et al. 2025a). Such vulnerabilities heighten exposure to food insecurity and economic fragility, particularly among rural, marginalised and gender-vulnerable populations (Maconga 2023; Schuster et al. 2024; Alam et al. 2024; Dirie et al. 2024; Amin 2025). These dynamics have amplified global concern over the climate change–conflict–migration (CCM) nexus, whereby environmental stressors interact with structural political and socioeconomic weaknesses to intensify instability and displacement (Abel et al. 2019; Mach et al. 2020; Eklund et al. 2022; Anderson et al. 2021; Han et al. 2024; Zheng et al. 2025).

1.2 Climate Change, Conflict Dynamics and Pathways of Migration

Environmental stress influences mobility through both direct impacts (e.g., infrastructure loss, agricultural collapse) and indirect mechanisms such as economic decline or heightened violence (Khavarian-Garmsir et al. 2019; Mukherjee and Fransen 2024). Forced displacement often emerges where climatic, political and socioeconomic pressures intersect (Abel et al. 2019; Lunt et al. 2016; Schuster et al. 2024; Wang et al. 2025b). These interlinkages form the core of the CCM nexus, which emphasises how climate stress interacts with conflict dynamics to shape diverse mobility outcomes. Migration responses range from temporary internal displacement to long-distance international movement, although high vulnerability may also generate immobility traps (Schutte et al. 2021; Ngcamu 2023; Thalheimer et al. 2025; Cattaneo et al. 2019). Persistent conceptual and methodological challenges complicate the measurement of climate-induced migration (Cattaneo et al. 2019; Hällfors et al. 2024). Earlier narratives portrayed environmental migration as a security threat (Hartmann 2010; Black et al. 2011; Koubi et al. 2018, 2021), particularly in rural regions of the Global South (Almulhim et al. 2024). Within the CCM nexus, one of the most extensively documented pathways is the effect of agricultural production shocks on conflict, which heighten resource competition and socioeconomic stress (Falco et al. 2019; Xie et al. 2024). More broadly, climate anomalies influence civil unrest through economic channels, mental health impacts and food insecurity (Miguel et al. 2004; Basu et al. 2017; Meadows et al. 2024; Hsiang et al. 2013; Kori 2023). Despite the expanding literature, empirical integration of CCM mechanisms into a unified analytical framework remains limited and contested (Watson et al. 2023).

1.3 Forced Migration Trends and Evidence From the MENA Region

Traditional models of asylum migration emphasise political repression and violence as primary drivers (Moore and Shellman 2004), yet contemporary evidence points to a far more complex interplay of environmental, economic and political pressures, consistent with the CCM nexus (Abel et al. 2019; Schutte et al. 2021; Schuster et al. 2024). According to UNHCR’s Global Trends report (UNHCR 2023; https://www.unhcr.org/media/global-trends-report-2023), 108.4 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide at the end of 2022, increasing to 117.3 million by the end of 2023, the highest numbers ever recorded (Wu and Wang 2018). Complementary estimates from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) indicate that over 32 million internal displacements in 2022 were triggered by disasters, many of them climate-related. These official statistics underscore the scale and complexity of contemporary mobility pressures and highlight the growing relevance of climate–conflict interactions. Although climate impacts most often generate short-distance or internal displacement (Missirian and Schlenker 2017; Abel et al. 2019; Cuong et al. 2024), deteriorating environmental conditions in origin countries have also been linked to rising asylum applications to the EU, with potential increases of up to threefold under high-warming scenarios (Missirian and Schlenker 2017). The MENA region illustrates these compound dynamics vividly. The severe 2006–2010 drought in Syria contributed to agricultural collapse and rural–urban migration (Gleick 2014; Kelley et al. 2015; Mathbout et al. 2018), but it was the interaction of environmental stress with longstanding political repression, governance failures and economic decline (De Châtel 2014; Selby et al. 2017; Eklund et al. 2022; Alhaj Omar et al. 2023) that precipitated civil conflict and one of the largest forced displacement crises in modern history. This convergence exemplifies the intertwined mechanisms central to the CCM nexus.

1.4 Gaps in Knowledge and Need for Integrated Analytical Approaches

Despite substantial progress, important gaps remain in understanding how climate change, conflict, and socioeconomic conditions jointly shape migration outcomes. Climate–conflict research has improved spatial and temporal resolution using subnational datasets (Koren and Bagozzi 2017; Delazeri et al. 2022; Sundberg and Melander 2013; Gleditsch 2020; Vesco et al. 2022; Martínez Flores et al. 2024), while migration studies show that climatic variability affects key economic mediators such as GDP, wages and agricultural productivity (Beine and Parsons 2015; Martínez-Zarzoso 2020; Martínez-Zarzoso et al. 2023). Yet findings remain heterogeneous across regions, periods and population groups. In the MENA region specifically, drought and temperature anomalies aggravate instability (Suleymanov 2024; Ranucci et al. 2025), but their impacts are intertwined with governance weaknesses, economic fragility and social vulnerability (Ash and Obradovich 2020; Dinc and Eklund 2023). A major methodological limitation is that most migration-modelling studies rely on linear or log-linear approaches, such as gravity models or fixed-effects regressions, that assume additive, monotonic relationships and therefore cannot capture the nonlinear thresholds, compound effects and interaction pathways central to the CCM nexus. For example, drought may influence migration only once critical severity levels are reached, or conflict may magnify climatic stress depending on economic resilience or governance capacity. These dynamics remain underexplored because conventional econometric models impose restrictive functional forms that obscure such complexities. This study addresses this conceptual gap by employing a Random Forest–based analytical framework capable of modelling nonlinear, interactive and multi-scalar relationships that traditional methods cannot detect. Our variable selection, encompassing climate, conflict, socioeconomic, governance, demographic, and geographic indicators, is grounded in the CCM framework and reflects the theorised channels through which environmental stress interacts with political instability and structural vulnerabilities to shape migration decisions. By integrating these dimensions into a unified empirical design, this study provides a more comprehensive assessment of CCM dynamics and advances beyond the constraints of existing linear modelling approaches.

Figure 1 presents the conceptual framework guiding this study, synthesised from the existing literature on the climate–conflict–migration nexus. The framework illustrates the hypothesised pathways through which climatic stressors, particularly drought and water scarcity, interact with agricultural impacts, socioeconomic vulnerability, political instability and conflict dynamics to shape migration outcomes. Rather than representing a methodological component, the framework serves as an integrative lens that structures the study’s analytical focus and informs the interpretation of the empirical results.

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