Forced Migration and Environmental Change: the Impact of Refugees on Host Environments

This paper reviews existing research and policy-related assessments of environmental impacts of refugee settlement worldwide, highlighting three types of environmental change on which the presence of refugees may have significant effects, namely deforestation, land degradation and impact on water supply and quality. However, in each case, despite concern amongst international agencies providing assistance to refugees, and the developement of policies to combat perceived environmental degradation, empirical evidence of environmental change remains limited. It is suggested that, in practice, environmental impacts in refugee-affected regions are complex, and attention must be paid in research and policy to interactions between environmental change, and wider social, economic and political factors.