An agent-based model to identify migration pathways of refugees: The case of Syria

Abstract

The Syrian civil war has generated a refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe. This study draws on complex systems theory and the agent-based modelling method to simulate the movement of refugees in order to identify pathways of forced migration under the present crisis. The model generates refugees as agents and lets them leave conflict areas for a destination that they choose based on their respective characteristics and desires. The simulation outputs are compared with existing data regarding the state of forced migrations of Syrians to assess the performance of the model.