Abstract:
Few studies of violent conflict focus explicitly on the environmental and
ecological relationships that occur in locations that experience violence. Rather,
traditional studies of focus on the political, economic, and social factors that affect
conflict propensity, holding the state as the unit of analysis. This limits the ability of
these studies to identify the geographic and biophysical factors that affect where violent
conflict is physically located.
I employ a spatially explicit approach to studying the environmental and
ecological correlates of conflict. Using a geographic information system (GIS) platform,
I overlay a grid of 100 x 100 km cells across the entire terrestrial surface of the earth. I
then overlay a series of raster data sets across the terrestrial surface and identify the
biophysical and geographic characteristics of each cell. I use logistic regression to
explore which ecological characteristics are most closely correlated with the occurrence
of violent conflict. Among the characteristics I explore are land cover/land use,
vegetative productivity (with controls in place for rain-use efficiency), human population
density, infrastructure expansion, forest cover/type, climate and precipitation. I control
for political and economic variables including democracy and economic prosperity.
I distinguish between conflicts over governance and conflicts over territory, and
find that each type of conflict is associated with a distinct ecological, social, and political
x
profile. Armed conflicts fought over territory (succession, sovereignty, or independence)
occur in cells that are marked by decreasing biomass productivity, high densities of crop
and pasture lands, areas with higher incidence of distinct agricultural regimes and
farming systems, open/fragmented land cover, and temperate climates. In contrast, armed
conflicts fought over governance (control of the state, or right to rule) occur in areas with
increasing populations and expanding infrastructure, in areas without much farming or
grazing, in previously unconverted forest land, and in tropical climates.
Identifying the environmental and ecological conditions that affect local conflict
propensity holds important implications for organizations working in conflict-prone
states, offering a richer understanding of the precipitants of local violence, and offering a
greater return on investment through better-informed planning. Further, this approach
bridges the gap between biodiversity conservation and human/social/economic
development by demonstrating the interconnection of human and natural systems.
