Relationships between hazard, conflict, and displacement for the 2022 flood and 2023 drought events in Somalia

Extreme weather events are increasingly compounding with conflict, severely limiting the ability of vulnerable communities to cope with their impacts. Both conflict and climate-related hazards can lead to displacement, which in turn heightens exposure and vulnerability to social and hydroclimatic shocks. As hydrometeorological hazards are projected to intensify under climate change, alongside increasing trends in conflict, it becomes paramount to better understand the links between conflict, displacement, and climate-related hazards. Yet, these interactions remain poorly understood in the context of Somalia.

This study investigates how conflict, climate-related hazards, and their compound effects influence patterns of internal displacement in Somalia. It integrates multiple datasets including hydrometeorological variables (e.g., precipitation, temperature), conflict event records, flood data and displacement records, aggregated at a monthly temporal scale and regional spatial level. The analysis applies monthly descriptive and spatial-temporal association methods by harmonizing conflict, climate, flood, and displacement datasets to a common administrative level and attributing displacement events based on threshold-based co-occurrence of hazards and conflict. The focus is on two critical years, 2022 and 2023, selected due to the concurrent intensification of drought, flooding and conflict, providing a unique opportunity to examine their cascading effects on internal displacement in Somalia. Displacement events were then categorized in relation to four drivers: conflict-related, drought-related, flood-related, and compound causes (i.e., conflict occurring alongside climate hazards).

Initial results indicated that in 2022, drought was the primary driver of displacement in central regions such as Bakool and Hiraan, while conflict alone triggered significant displacement in areas like Bay. Notably, compound displacement linked to both conflict and drought was detected in Lower Juba and Lower Shabelle. In 2023, displacement peaked during flood events in the rainy seasons, particularly in Hiraan, Gedo, and Lower Juba, often intersecting with ongoing conflicts. The study finds that while monthly, regional-scale aggregation provides a consistent basis for attributing displacement events, it may obscure short-term or highly localised dynamics.

This work contributes to a better understanding of how overlapping cascading hazards shape displacement patterns in Somalia. It shows the importance of spatial and temporal disaggregation in displacement attribution studies and emphasizes the importance and need to improve how displacement data are generated, accessed, and used in conflict contexts. In doing so, the research identifies critical gaps in current displacement modelling, including the need to harmonise trigger methodologies used across agencies and datasets. Building on this work, future work will further explore patterns of immobility under hazard and conflict stress.