Markov Chain Models of Refugee Migration Data

Abstract:

The application of Markov chains to modelling refugee crises is explored, focusing on local migration of individuals at the level of cities and days. As an explicit example I will discuss applications of the Markov chains migration model developed to UNHCR data on the Burundi refugee crisis. I will compare our method to a state-of-the-art `agent-based' model of Burundi refugee movements, and highlight that Markov chain approaches presented here can improve the match to data while simultaneously being more algorithmically efficient.