Abstract
In this paper, we test the effect of weather shocks and floods on urban social disorder for a panel of large cities in developing countries. We focus on a particular mechanism, namely the displacement of population into (large) cities. We test this hypothesis using a novel dataset on floods—distinguishing those that affected large cities directly from those that occurred outside of our sample of large cities. Floods are found to be associated with faster growth of the population in the city, and in turn with a higher likelihood (and frequency) of urban social disorder events. Our evidence suggests that the effects of floods on urban social disorder occur (mainly) through the displacement of population, and the “push” of people into large cities. Our findings have important implications for evaluating future climate change, as well as for policies regarding adaptation to climate change and disaster resilience.
Highlights
In this paper, we test the effect of weather shocks on urban social disorder, with a particular focus on the role of floods that occur outside of large cities, in “pushing” population into these cites, potentially resulting in social tensions and conflict in urban areas
We identify diverse effects across two different world regions; in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), lower-than-expected rainfall is associated with more urbanization, while in Asia, higher than expected rainfall leads to higher growth of cities
We consider rainfall anomalies, average temperatures, and the number of people displaced by floods
Summary
We test the effect of weather shocks on urban social disorder, with a particular focus on the role of floods that occur outside of large cities, in “pushing” population into these cites, potentially resulting in social tensions and conflict in urban areas. The aim of this paper is to analyze the potential effects that weather shocks, in particular floods, can have on patterns of economic development through the displacement of population from rural to urban areas. We aim to test the effects of rural–urban migration on social disorder within cities, with weather shocks as the impulse for this population movement We do this by analyzing data for more than 138 (large) cities in 138 countries (one city per country), from 1960 to 2015. Urbanization, and Conflict: The Effects of Weather Shocks and Floods on Urban Social Disorder | 3
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