Collaborative Research: ESE:Climate Change/Variability and Armed Conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa.

冷战结束后，武装冲突的次数减少了。尽管气候变化有可能扭转这一有利趋势，但长期趋势是武装冲突的严重程度有所降低。气温上升可能导致干旱，增加自然灾害（包括洪水和飓风）。由此导致的移民以及与收容社区的冲突可能导致当地物资短缺，从而增加冲突的风险。气候变化可能会削弱低发展国家政治不稳定的政权，进而加强叛乱运动挑战政府的力量，加剧社区冲突。指数将着眼于具体的自然现象（干旱和自然灾害），然后追踪其社会和经济影响，以估计可能对冲突产生的影响。气候变化的预估影响不会导致所有社会的冲突风险增加，而是取决于具体国家和背景因素。对撒哈拉以南非洲国家的调查将分区域和地方两个层面进行。利用耦合的自然（气候）和社会（暴力）系统的预测模型，加上反馈回路和中介社会政治经济变量，pi将测量不利的气候变化和/或气候变率变化对武装冲突率的影响，确定影响这种影响率的中介因素，并根据不同的气候变化/变率情景预估暴力结果。来自大量气候、卫星成像环境（土地利用）、社会经济和暴力来源的数据将纳入一个地理信息系统，以100公里网格为主要分析尺度。在东非选定的背景下进行的地方研究（在当地研究网络的支持下）将通过探索将气候/环境变化与暴力事件联系起来的地方变化过程来补充统计研究。评估气候变化对安全影响的努力由于缺乏经验证据和科学文献中对可能的关系程度缺乏共识而失败。美国和国际机构最近的声明提出，气候变化/多变性是对现有问题（贫困、社会紧张、环境恶化、领导不力和政治制度薄弱）的威胁倍增，可能威胁到弱国的国内稳定。气候变化/变率的可能影响是由环境条件介导的，特别是政府政策、社会经济资源以及沿区域和民族界线存在的裂缝。撒哈拉以南非洲已被确定为最脆弱的区域，有可能发生大量的区域内移徙/移民，以逃避生活质量的恶化，从而导致因资源减少而发生的社区冲突。这项研究将有助于美国国内和国际上的政策辩论，迄今为止，由于不可靠的冲突测量，有争议的气候变化指标，关于地方差异的信息，以及自然/气候科学与冲突研究社区之间缺乏联系，这些辩论都回避了这个问题。

The number of armed conflicts has declined after the end of the Cold War. There is also a long-term trend towards less severe armed conflicts, though climate change threatens to reverse this favorable trend. Rising in temperatures are likely to cause drought and increase natural hazards (including floods and hurricanes). Resulting migration and in turn, conflict with host communities can lead to local scarcities, increasing the risk of conflict. Climate change will possibly weaken politically-unstable regimes in low-development countries, in turn strengthening the hand of insurgent movements challenging governments and adding to communal conflict. The PIs will look at specific physical phenomena (droughts and natural hazards) whose social and economic effects will then be traced to estimate the probable implications for conflict. The projected impacts of climate change will not result in elevated conflict risk in all societies but depends on country-specific and contextual factors. The investigation will take place at two scales, the regional and the local, for the countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Using a predictive model of the coupled natural (climate) and social (violence) systems, with feedback loops and mediating socio-political-economic variables, the PIs will measure the impact of adverse climate change and/or changes in climate variability on the rate of armed conflict, determine which mediating factors influence the rate of this impact, and project the violence outcomes on the basis of different climate change/variability scenarios. The data from the substantial climate, satellite imaged environmental (land-use), socio-economic and violence sources will be integrated in a geographic information system, with 100 kilometers grids being the primary scale of analysis. Local studies in selected contexts in East Africa (with the support of local research networks) will complement the statistical study by exploring the locally-varying processes linking climate/environmental change to violent events.Efforts to assess the security implications of climate change have foundered on the paucity of empirical evidence and the lack of consensus in the scientific literature of the extent of the possible relationship. Recent statements by U.S. and international agencies propose climate change/variability as a threat multiplier to existing problems (poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership, and weak political institutions) that might threaten domestic stability in weak states. Possible impacts of climate change/variability are mediated by contextual conditions, especially governmental policies, socio-economic resources, and existing fractures along regional and ethnic lines. Sub-Saharan Africa has been identified as the most vulnerable region, with the possibility of significant intra-regional migration/emigration to escape a worsening quality of life leading to communal conflict over declining resources. The research will contribute to policy debates within the US and internationally which, to date, have skirted the issue due to unreliable conflict measures, debatable climate change indicators, information on local differences, and the lack of contact between the natural/climate science and conflict studies communities.