Abstract: Modelling climate-induced mobility is one of the most pressing challenges in the Central Sahel and neighbouring regions, where environmental stressors such as droughts, extreme temperatures, and erratic rainfall are increasingly displacing vulnerable communities. This is especially true for pastoralists, a type of herders that move across landscapes with their livestock in search of fresh forage and water, while allowing the land to recover. Changing climatic circumstances disrupt the availability of these resources, diminishing crop yields and forcing pastoralists to adjust their traditional routes in search of suitable grazing areas. Although climate models provide reasonably reliable projections of future climate conditions such temperature and precipitation patterns, they do not directly reveal how such environmental shifts shape human decisions. Similarly, many migration models exist, but few capture the combined environmental, socio-cultural and behavioural mechanisms that shape pastoral mobility.

Bio: Aline is a 2nd year PhD student co-supervised by Emily So and Emily Shuckburgh in the Departments of Architecture and Computer Science at the University of Cambridge. Her research sits at the intersection of data science, urban planning and climate adaptation, exploring how remote-sensing and data-drive approaches can support responses to humanitarian crises.