Water Stress and Conflict Severity: A study on how environmental changes affect conflicts in Africa

Climate change has been well-established in the academic community, and has been studied for centuries. It is predicted to have many effects on the world, one of them being increases in water stress. Water stress can be seen through shifting precipitation patterns in both directions, shifting access to groundwater or changing groundwater supply, and increased demand, among other factors. This study looks at how precipitation changes have had an impact on conflict severity in countries throughout Africa, as well as how ethnic group distributions, temperature changes, GDP levels, and regional changes affect conflict severity through negative binomial regressions. It looks at conflicts from 1997 to 2014 on the African continent. When conflicts occur during times of negative water stress, the results indicated an increase in conflict severity and supported the hypotheses. When conflicts occur during times of positive water stress, the results differed depending on the region. As water stress worsens and temperatures increase with global warming, conflicts will get more severe, especially for less developed nations with large numbers of ethnic groups.