The Interconnectedness of Quality of Life and Environmental Impact in Refugee Camps
- Louise Deltheil
- 2 hours ago
- 7 min read
Written by: Louise Deltheil
Edited by: Iris Bisson
In 2022, 35.3 million people lived in refugee camps – temporary shelters meant to house people fleeing from conflicts around the world (Luca Trabattoni & Esmaeili, 2024). Despite supposedly being temporary, less than 3% of refugees get reallocated per year, meaning that many people spend years living in these camps which are meant to be short-term solutions (UNHCR, 2021).
What is the architecture of a refugee camp?
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) created a grid-based system to organize city-like camps designed to house refugees temporarily (Luca Trabattoni & Esmaeili, 2024). Camp architecture is supposed to follow guidelines to create conditions deemed appropriate. Unfortunately, when camps are built urgently, their layout resembles military camps or prisons. The UNHCR dictates that each person is entitled to a 45 m2 living area, but an area as small as 30 m2 is still used in some camps. Furthermore, they state that a camp, made up of sectors, blocks, communities, and families, should house a maximum of 20,000 people (Luca Trabattoni & Esmaeili, 2024). In reality, a camp’s population can increase to nearly 100,000 people, which could be defined as a small city (de Rooij et al., 2008).
In European camps, unhygienic conditions and overcrowding have been reported – namely, at the Moira and Calais Jungle camps. Such extreme conditions have worsened the physical and mental health of the refugees living there. In African and Middle Eastern camps, such as the Dadaab and Zataari, managed by the UNHCR, refugees have had to live for more than two years in tents meant to last only one. This has led to a reorganization of the layout by the refugees to mirror an actual city, with the addition of courtyards, caravans, and private toilets (Luca Trabattoni & Esmaeili, 2024).
The United Nations established an agenda for Sustainable Development with a list of goals to achieve by 2030 regarding cities and human settlements, which includes refugee camps. Oftentimes, the conditions of living are rated on the Quality of Life (QOL) scale, which is significantly lower in refugee camps because of the overcrowding and hygiene issues (Luca Trabattoni & Esmaeili, 2024).
What are the environmental impacts of a camp?
A major issue with refugee camps comes from the usage of inappropriate materials for shelter, which does little to protect from the cold in the winter and warmth in the summer. Additionally, refugees only receive about 20% of their energy needs from UNHCR, which means that they often have to collect wood, for cooking and heating themselves, outside of the camp, leading to tensions with the host communities (Luca Trabattoni & Esmaeili, 2024).
Another problem worth mentioning is the impact of overcrowding. Overcrowding leads to unsanitary conditions, in particular because of poor waste management. This, in turn, drastically reduces residents’ quality of life, especially that of children. According to the UN, over 700 children die from unsafe water and unhygienic conditions each day (Luca Trabattoni & Esmaeili, 2024).
Other environmental impacts, which also have a negative impact on refugees and host populations, include deforestation, soil erosion, and water pollution (Refugees and the Environment, 2001). For example, in Bangladesh, to which over 1 million displaced Rohingya have fled since 2017, almost 100 tons of waste has been found in the water surrounding the camps because of poor waste management (Hammer & Ahmed, 2021). In addition, over 3,700 acres of forests have been destroyed to provide fuel and space for the refugee camps (Hammer & Ahmed, 2021). However, UNHCR points out that the leading culprit of deforestation in the world is by far the agricultural industry, and refugee camps should not be blamed disproportionately (Refugees and the Environment, 2001). Finally, deforestation, which leads to soil erosion, is a sign of overcrowding in camps.
These issues can be addressed and improved by implementing stricter sustainable principles on the camps, specifically regarding infrastructure and the organization of buildings. First and foremost, the goal of these decisions is to better the quality of life of refugees in camps. Although camps are meant to be short-term settlements, they often aren’t that temporary in practice. One solution to explore is improving people’s quality of life – maybe once people can worry less about reliable access to water, food, and safety, they will be able to focus on resettling into the host community and moving out of the camp.
How are refugees’ quality of life and the environmental impacts of a camp interconnected?
Some might argue that incorporating sustainable principles into what was designed to be a short-term solution will encourage refugee camps to become longer-term. In reality, refugee camps are lasting longer and even growing, which indicates that the root cause is elsewhere, rather than in the way they are built. For instance, by 2012, almost 10,000 refugees living in the Dadaab camps were third generation, meaning that their grandparents had fled from their country, and their parents were born in the camps (de Rooij et al., 2008).
To successfully implement better living conditions, a diverse range of professional expertise needs to be consulted. Architects and engineers, and to a lesser extent, sociologists, anthropologists, geologists, and environmentalists should be involved in the planning and building process of refugee camps (de Rooij et al., 2008). By bringing in professionals to oversee every aspect of camp architecture and infrastructure, it will ensure that the camps will be designed and built using city principles that guarantee better living conditions. For example, one of the planning standards is fire safety: this is a critical consideration, because fires spread fast in overcrowded areas and can quickly become very deadly (de Rooij et al., 2008). In 2023, 12,000 people were left without shelter as a fire burned through a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh (Guinto, 2023). A few years prior, in 2020, over 13,000 people were displaced from the camp on the island of Lesbos due to fires (BBC, 2020).
According to the Sphere handbook from 2024, which includes the Humanitarian Charter, the Protection Principles, and the Core Humanitarian Standard, the environmental impact of refugee camps can be addressed through a few methods. Managing natural resources properly can have the highest impact on the environment and on quality of life. Finding sustainable ways to get food, water, and fuel locally can also reduce the energy consumption of the camps and improve quality of life for the refugees (The Sphere Handbook | Standards for Quality Humanitarian Response, 2024).
After multiple surveys, most researchers conclude that the overcrowding issue, which all refugee camps around the world are faced with, has the greatest impact on the refugees and the surrounding environment (de Rooij et al., 2008). Finding solutions to better the living conditions of the refugees by addressing overcrowding will inadvertently have positive consequences on the environment, simply because humans are interconnected with their surroundings.
One of the first solutions is to integrate refugees into the host communities to foster opportunities to participate in daily life. The case of Uganda provides a great example of this. The government refers to camps as settlements to encourage the idea that refugees can become members of the surrounding villages, participate in community activities, and have access to the same services (de Rooij et al., 2008). This helps to eliminate the ‘us vs. them’ mentality and fosters solidarity between refugees and citizens, which inadvertently leads to a better quality of life for both parties. It also reduces the need for refugees to find resources on their own since they have access to a community that wants to help. Another great example is the ‘food credit cards’ introduced in the Nu Po camp at the Thai-Burma border, which lets refugees ‘buy’ food at different sites anytime during the day (de Rooij et al., 2008). This reduces food scarcity, and the potential loss of biodiversity that can occur when refugees are obligated to find food in surrounding forests. It can also reduce the spread of disease as more fresh food is available.
Another simple solution is to involve refugees in the decision-making process. They have firsthand experience living in the camps and therefore know exactly what refugees need. The professionals involved can then figure out how to get there with the available resources. Many researchers have found that the quality of life of refugees would improve by a lot if they were involved in creating their homes, even though these are meant to be temporary. Elizabeth Cullen Dunn, in her argument for creating camps as mirrors of real cities, cited a refugee who said that “this isn’t living; it’s just existing” (de Rooij et al., 2008). This state of existence, of simple survival, is worsened by the inhumane living conditions in the camps. By giving refugees access to fresh food, water, and other local services, they can start living by seeking educational and working opportunities, instead of constantly worrying about basic needs such as feeding their families.
A final solution to explore is the enhancement of the architecture used for housing refugees in the camps. By using vernacular knowledge, or local technologies, in camp construction, the housing units will better resist the local climate and it will reduce the need for warmth fuel. Sustainable materials, such as rammed earth, straw, and wood, should be used because they are often cheaper alternatives and have better thermal and strength properties (Luca Trabattoni & Esmaeili, 2024). An example of an organization implementing this is ARCò Studio which used rubber tires to create formwork for rammed earth in a region that did not have access to much wood (Luca Trabattoni & Esmaeili, 2024). Another effective principle in building camps is self-construction, which is already common in overcrowded camps, where more and more shaky dwellings are built (Luca Trabattoni & Esmaeili, 2024). By combining the leadership of professionals with the experience of refugees, strong dwellings using easily accessible materials can be built efficiently.
Conclusion
In conclusion, improving refugees’ quality of life in camps can directly improve the environmental conditions of the surroundings. Sustainable practices include innovative technologies such as recycling and reuse, using waste as a fuel source, and more. These technologies are unfortunately rarely accessible and are hard to implement in conflict-filled regions, especially in camps meant to be temporary. Improving living conditions for refugees is undoubtedly a necessity and should be prioritized. Incidentally, improving quality of life for refugees also has a positive reverberating impact on the environment, since the two are innately interconnected.
References
BBC. (2020, September 9). Moria migrants: Fire destroys Greece’s camp on Lesbos. BBC News.
De Rooij, B., Wascher, D., & Paulissen, M. (2008). Sustainable Design Principles for Refugee
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Guinto, J. (2023, March 6). Bangladesh investigates huge fire at world’s largest refugee camp.
Hammer, L., & Ahmed, S. (2021, May 13). Refugee camps can wreak enormous environmental
damages – should source countries be liable for them? The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/refugee-camps-can-wreak-enormous-environmental-damages-should-source-countries-be-liable-for-them-152519.
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The Sphere Handbook | Standards for quality humanitarian response. (2024). Sphere.
UNHCR. (2021, April 6). Refugee Camps | Definition, facts and statistics. Www.unrefugees.org.