Indexing climatic and environmental exposure of refugee camps with a case study in East Africa

Abstract

This study presents a novel approach to systematically measure climatic and environmental exposure in refugee camps using remote sensing and geospatial data. Using a case study of seventeen refugee camps across five countries in East Africa, we develop a climatic and environmental exposure index to quantify each camp’s exposure relative to a population of simulated camp locations within the hosting country. Our results show that seven of seventeen refugee camps are within the upper two quartiles of exposure relative to a simulated population, suggesting that more than six-hundred thousand refugees living in these camps face elevated exposure compared to other potential camp locations. This method stands to improve the process of gathering and analyzing climatic and environmental data on geographically remote humanitarian spaces in a reliable, low-cost, and standardized manner. Automation and refinement of this index could enable real-time updates on climatic and environmental exposure to support decision-making related to disaster risk reduction in refugee camp management.