Climate Analysis Report Methodology

This work began as a series of discussions between Master’s of Climate Change & Society (North Carolina State University) graduate Nicholas Shanahan, and Invest Appalachia’s Director of Community Impact Baylen Campbell and CEO Andrew Crosson. These discussions centered around the idea that Central Appalachian communities will likely be impacted by in-migration due to the climate crisis. We asked ourselves what challenges and opportunities such a scenario is likely to present to states and communities in the region, and how to best align Invest Appalachia’s strategic vision for community development and social investment accordingly. We found that there was not an established analysis of climate changes’ impacts on the greater Central Appalachian region, though many local jurisdictions or community organizations had some level of data or analysis about climate change’s impacts on a particular industry or locality.

This recognition led us to pursue what we originally conceived as a simple internal “baseline” assessment of existing literature on climate impacts and migration related to Appalachia. However, the lack of existing summary analysis on the topic led us to conduct a broadscope review of available literature from scientific and academic institutions, as well as an examination of the discourse from major popular media outlets, in an effort to empirically establish if and to what extent climate change concerns are affecting where Americans choose to live, as well as what regions may be best suited for climate related in-migration with a focus on the Central Appalachia region. The available data does suggest that Central and Northern Appalachia are relatively well positioned to act as sites of climate change adaptation at the national scale and therefore may expect to gain population and relatedly could experience economic expansion as a result of climate change. However, rigorous research into the subject of internal, voluntary climate change related migration in the United States has proven to be sparse, and is particularly lacking with regards to Appalachia. We strongly advocate for more publicly available research on the subject. Nevertheless, the authors and reviewers made their best effort to ground this paper’s arguments and findings in the most relevant available evidence. Where it was necessary to extrapolate or hypothesize, we relied on expert reviewers to vet any assumptions or projections.