Unravelling the complex interplay between drought and conflict

Climate change will likely exacerbate droughts, increase regional water demands and affect agricultural yields. In addition, projected population growth combined with lack of  ‘good’ governance is likely to enhance the negative impacts of droughts and crop failure in the future as agriculture increasingly expands onto marginal lands. There is a global concern about these trends, because crop failure, droughts, increasing pressure on suitable agricultural land and rangeland for livestock, and changes and quality of governance can also increase the risk of conflict and (organized) violence.

In this presentation we explore the strength and impact of the climate-conflict trap., We use historical drought simulations and future drought projections to study the link between conflict and drought. Conflict data are taken from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program and combined with hydrological simulations from the global hydrological model PCR-GLOBWB.

The results show that drought occurrence is expected to increase under all climate scenarios, with stronger impacts for the higher emission scenarios.  On the other hand, at the global scale conflicts are likely to reduce as increased economic wealth compensates for the increased climate vulnerability.

This work helps us to better understand the interplay between the natural hydrological system and society. To better understand unsustainable and potentially devastating pathways for the coming decades, we have the greater aim to start unravelling the complex dynamics between changes in drought, society and risk of conflicts.