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Socio-hydrological features of armed conflicts in the Lake Chad Basin

Nature Sustainability volume 5, pages 843–852 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

The role of water resources in conflict has been the centre of a polarized scientific debate on the connections between environmental and social sustainability. We investigate whether and how water availability, also in relation to water demand, increases the likelihood of violent conflict, and we analyse how hydrological factors influence social conflict dynamics involving non-state armed groups in the Lake Chad Basin. We combine hydrological and biophysical factors with information on socio-political processes. We use a novel physically based agro-hydrological model to produce water-availability and water-demand indicators to explore the conflict potential. By coupling a critical modelling perspective with a novel rendition of hydrological dynamics and statistical tools, we explore water–conflict interconnections in a broader hydrosocial framework. Our results show that, although water scarcity alone does not directly drive violent conflict, complex water-related interdependencies exist on multiple space–time scales. Analytical integration of fine-scale hydrological indicators may help deconstruct both mechanistic and relativist narratives, improve understanding of socio-hydrological complexity and move towards a comprehensive vision of socially and environmentally sustainable use of water and land.

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Fig. 1: Location, conflict and main environmental indicators in the Lake Chad Basin.
Fig. 2: Performance summary of the spatial econometric models.
Fig. 3: Prior and posterior credibility intervals for the direct effects of the covariates and the hyperparameters under SLC model.
Fig. 4: Conflicts and clusters for four indicators in 2004 and 2015.
Fig. 5: Spatial econometric covariate distribution on random and conflict points, grouped by environmental pattern.

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Data availability

All data inputs to the analysis in this study were retrieved from publicly available sources that are cited within the text. Results that are additional to those provided in the text and in the supplementary materials are available from the authors upon reasonable request.

Code availability

The code for the spatial econometric analysis is available from the authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

J.D. and M.C.R. acknowledge support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action (MSCA) Innovative Training Network (ITN) grant agreement no. 861509 – NEWAVE. M.C.R. and N.G. are supported by ENI Enrico Mattei Foundation (FEEM), Cariplo Foundation (SusFeed project 0737 CUP D49H170000300007) and Regione Lombardia (RUD0CONV01 / ASSO project D44I20002000002). M.C.R., N.G. and D.D.C. are supported by the European Commission’s PRIMA joint programme, under project ‘NEXUS-NESS’ (CUP D49J21005050006).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy

    Nikolas Galli, Davide Danilo Chiarelli & Maria Cristina Rulli

  2. Department of Environmental Policy Analysis, Institute for Environmental Studies, IVM, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Jampel Dell’Angelo

  3. Department of Mathematics, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy

    Ilenia Epifani

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  1. Nikolas Galli
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Contributions

M.C.R., N.G. and J.D. designed research. I.E., N.G. and D.D.C. performed the analysis. M.C.R., N.G. and J.D. wrote the article. I.E. and D.D.C. conducted review and editing.

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Correspondence to Maria Cristina Rulli.

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Nature Sustainability thanks John O’Loughlin and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Methods, Results and Figs. 1–3.

Supplementary Tables

Spatial econometric model covariates descriptive statistics, spatial econometric model covariate effects, Mann–Whitney tests outcomes.

Supplementary Data

Spatial econometric model database, in shapefile format. Acronyms are described in the file metadata.

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Galli, N., Dell’Angelo, J., Epifani, I. et al. Socio-hydrological features of armed conflicts in the Lake Chad Basin. Nat Sustain 5, 843–852 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00936-2

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