Climate Impacts Return and Displacement in Afghanistan: Research Brief
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This summary highlights four key findings:
First, vulnerability to climate-related environmental hazards acts as a barrier to reintegration with distinct challenges faced by individuals returning to Afghanistan – notably the lack of information and preparedness. These returnees lack access to information on how extreme weather is impacting living conditions in areas of return. This concern is widespread among returnees from Iran and Pakistan, many of whom lived abroad for years, decades or generations, with a significant proportion of returnee children having been born in host countries. Certain individuals have either not returned to their areas of origin in decades, while others have simply never set foot there. They are unfamiliar with current weather conditions, climate shocks or impacts on local economies, basic service sectors, and/or food systems. This holds implications for their safety, health, livelihoods and access to basic services, as resilience and adaptation capacity are often low.
As an example, houses made of mud – in which certain returnees reside following arrival to Afghanistan, alongside other vulnerable populations exposed to climate impacts, such as IDPs – are not disaster resilient, with reports of temporary housing and shelter being destroyed by flash floods in return areas. Overall, extreme temperatures and flash floods, and other non-climate-climate related environmental hazards such as air pollution2, affect returnee families interviewed in Nangarhar, Kabul and Herat. Female returnees and female-headed households face added pressures and challenges to cope with climate-related shocks, including exclusion from adaptation planning, heightened barriers to safe water access, and disproportionate impacts on health, mobility and economic resilience.
Second, returnees to Afghanistan are often more vulnerable than host communities to climate-related environmental hazards that lead to secondary displacement – in part due to their exclusion from community-based mechanisms. Referring to “areas of origin” is misleading as returnees have often spent significant stretches – or the entirety – of their lives abroad. Upon return, the heightened vulnerability levels experienced by returnees stem from a combination of limited familiarity with climate patterns and economic landscapes in areas of residence, and limited access to social capital and community-based support or protection mechanisms when compared with host community members. This vulnerability, in urban areas, also stems from the perception and treatment of returnees as temporary, rather than permanent residents, increasing the risk of relegation to poorly planned, informally developed settlements presenting varying degrees of disconnection from – or misconnection to – service grids.
These settlements arise in areas unfit for construction (e.g. low-lying areas, floodplains, or steep hills), exposed to environmental hazards, and excluded from urban planning processes, including disaster contingency plans and risk reduction measures. Residents experience high levels of exposure to environmental hazards such as flooding or landslides, often accompanied by limited recognition from urban planners and municipal actors, undermining participation in decision-making processes conducive to risk mitigation. Following arrival back to Afghanistan, returnees remain vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, which may include onward, protracted or repeated displacement related to climate shocks. Rather than reducing exposure, cycles of secondary displacement drive upward spirals of vulnerability, and the gradual erosion of returnees’ resilience to climate change, undermining prospects for durable solutions.
Third, population growth due to displacement and returns has exacerbated tensions and competition tied to resource scarcity in Afghanistan. Levels of scarcity – and resulting tensions – are amplified by a combination of (1) limited enforcement of regulatory frameworks surrounding access and use of natural resources such as underground water and firewood, resulting in (2) uncontrolled usage at local level, and (3) climate impacts, in particular shifting precipitation patterns, resulting in drought and driving desertification. Forced returns of Afghans from Pakistan in 2023-2024 have been projected to strain resources further given the inability of returnees to return to areas of origin devastated by climate shocks. The same can be said of planned forced returns from Iran in 2025. A 2024 expert analysis points to the fact that scarcity – the notion that there are not enough resources to meet population needs – is largely socially and politically generated.3 In such contexts, newcomers to a location or community, whether refugee returnees or IDPs, become scapegoats for the perceived scarcity.
For example, returns from Iran and Pakistan are adding to this perception of “the outsider” exacerbating water concerns. Despite these challenges, communities have adopted, with the support of returnees, various adaptation measures such as community livelihoods adapted to different seasons of the year, using technology to address water access issues, introducing new crops to their communities, and supporting urban solutions.
Fourth, the impacts of extreme weather and disasters on return and reintegration increasingly mirror and overlap with those tied to internal displacement dynamics in Afghanistan. Displacement due to environmental factors is on the rise, intertwined with economic vulnerability and limited access to resources. This climate-induced poverty impacts displaced groups in key districts in Nangarhar, Helmand, Jawzjan, Samangan and Ghor. Those displaced by climate and disaster-related patterns are often unable to go far from home, with most movements occurring over short distances, within districts and provinces of origin or departure. When climate-induced internal displacement occurs in parallel to climate-induced secondary displacement following return, it becomes a challenge to distinguish between members of either group and the challenges
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The description was excerpted from the report's executive summary.
