Geospatial Analysis of Displacement in Afghanistan

Anais Dahmani Scuitti, Erwin Willem Yvonnick Leon Knippenberg, Walker Turnbull Kosmidou-Bradley and Johanna Lee Belanger

No 10583, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: Given increasing levels of displacement due to conflict and climate change, it is important to establish robust monitoring systems. This paper explores how remote sensing data, particularly geospatial data, can be leveraged to monitor displacement flows. It draws lessons from northeastern Afghanistan, namely the 2018 drought, which is considered one of the worst in decades. The analysis identifies displacement patterns by combining displacement data from the International Organization for Migration Displacement Tracking Matrix with nighttime lights. The results suggest that the cumulated displacement movements from 2018 to 2020 can be proxied by trends in nighttime light imagery. Settlements with higher net inflows of displaced persons between 2018 and 2020 have comparatively larger nighttime light growth. Allowing for nonlinearity suggests decreasing marginal returns of displacement on nighttime lights, as settlements showing the largest expansion of nighttime lights are those with the lowest displacement inflows. The model uses data on nighttime lights to predict whether a settlement was a net receiver of displacement flows during 2018–20 and correctly classifies 63.2 percent of the settlements as net inflow or net outflow. This study provides a proof of concept to test whether population displacements can be proxied using geospatial data trained on administrative records in a data-scarce environment, where real-time insights can inform humanitarian assistance. This work was done before the political crisis of August 2021.

Date: 2023-10-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/09980701 ... e1f0709f7beb61e2.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:10583

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Roula I. Yazigi ().