Abstract
The relationship between climate change, water scarcity, and conflict is still debated. Much of the existing work relating resource scarcity to conflict has involved regional-scale analysis linking instances of violent outbreaks to environmental conditions. But how do individual farmers in Africa define conflict? Do they perceive that conflict will change as a function of water scarcity, and, if so, how? Here, we address these questions by surveying farmers in southern Zambia in 2015, where we asked respondents to define conflict, assessed their perceptions of past and future conflict, as well as perceptions of rainfall and water availability. We find that the majority of our respondents (75%) think of conflict as misunderstandings or disagreements between people and that 91% of our sample has experienced past conflict, 70% expect to experience future conflict, and 58% expect to experience future physical violent conflict. When asked about the sources of conflict, respondents mainly mention land grabbing, crop damage by animals, and politics rather than water related issues. However, we find a significant relationship between perceptions of future rainfall decreasing and future physical violent conflict. These results imply that even though respondents do not think water scarcity is a direct source of conflict, the perception of decreased rain in the future is significantly related to the perception that future conflict and future physical violent conflict will occur.
Highlights
The effects of climate change are expected to negatively impact water and human security, an expectation true for Africa [1,2]
Perceptions of past conflict, future conflict, and future physical violent conflict were analyzed to understand how perceptions of water access and availability influence perceptions of conflict using the following key survey questions: (a) Respondent’s definition of conflict: “How would you define conflict?” (b) Past conflict: “Based on your definition, have you observed conflict around your area in the past ten years?” (Yes, No) (c) Future conflict: “Based on your definition, do you expect any forms of conflict around your area in the ten years?” (Yes, No) (d) Future physical violent conflict: “Do you expect any physical violence in the ten years?”
In the regression models evaluating conflict and violence and their correlates, we find significant positive relationships between expectations of rainfall decreasing in the future and expectations of future conflict and future physical violent conflict
Summary
The effects of climate change are expected to negatively impact water and human security, an expectation true for Africa [1,2]. The relationship between climate change, water insecurity, and human conflict is a much-debated topic [3,4,5,6,7]. The potential impacts of climate change on agriculture, water scarcity, and human security are especially worrisome for rain fed subsistence farmers [8,9,10,11]. The tight coupling between water and food insecurity may lead to negative impacts on physical, psychological, and social well-being ranging from increased anxiety and stress at the individual-level to increases in group-level violence. We investigate the relationship between water needs, perceptions of rainfall, sources of anxiety and stress, and past and future conflict by surveying subsistence farmers in southern Zambia
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