On Friday, 4 September 2026 at 09.00 Professor Dr. Ann-Christine Link from Heidelberg University and UNU-EHS is presenting a seminar on Mapping Climate-Related Planned Relocation and Retreat: Insights from Global and European Databases (in person and online). For further information, please contact Pascale Vantorre, pvantorre@cris.unu.edu
In policy contexts, these processes are often treated as highly sensitive and are frequently deferred until discussion becomes unavoidable due to the increasing impacts of climate change. Beyond the sensitive nature of relocations, empirical knowledge on these processes is extremely limited. Against this background, we updated the existing global climate-related planned relocation database by Bower & Weerasinghe (2021), extending its coverage to 2025. To address methodological limitations identified in the existing database, we adopted a more comprehensive approach at a smaller, European scale. The European approach combines systematic reviews of academic literature with the screening of non-academic sources and targeted engagement with local experts. In addition to extending the methodological scope, we refined the definition of relocations to capture more individualised retreats, which are more prevalent in the Global North compared to the Global South. Her presentation will focus on the updated global database and the newly developed European database, which will be made publicly available. She will also share findings on geographical, spatial, and disaster-related differences in relocation and retreat cases, and reflect on methodological and conceptual lessons from these mappings.
