Thirstier World Likely to See More Violence

"Severe, prolonged droughts are the strongest indicator of high-intensity conflicts," said Marc Levy of the Centre for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University's Earth Institute in New York.

These are internal conflicts, not between countries, and involving more than 1,000 battle deaths, Levy said at a press briefing in Washington last week.

Such conflicts tend to occur about a year after a "severe deviation in rainfall patterns", he said.

Levy and colleagues used decades of detailed precipitation records, geospatial conflict information and other data in a complex computer model that overlays all this onto a fine-scale map of the world.

"Major deviations from normal rainfall patterns were the strongest predictor of conflicts," he said. "I was surprised at how strong the correlation is."

Levy is careful to say that droughts don't directly cause conflicts but are more likely triggers in regions where there already tensions or low-level conflicts.

For example, in the recent civil conflict in Nepal, the parts of the country where most of the fighting occurred experienced low rainfall for several years and then a severe drought in the late 1990s.

Farmers may have simply given up hope of farming and joined the local rebellion as a way of sustaining themselves and their families, he hypothesised.

And rainfall appears to have a pacifying affect. The wet areas of Africa, for instance, have far fewer years of violent internal conflict than the dry regions, he said.

from the Inter Press News Service