Water scarcity and rioting

• Verfasst von: Almer, Christian Alexander [VerfasserIn]
• Verfasst von: Laurent-Lucchetti, Jérémy [VerfasserIn]
• Verfasst von: Oechslin, Manuel [VerfasserIn]
• Titel: Water scarcity and rioting
• Titelzusatz: disaggregated evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa
• Verf.angabe: Christian Almer, Jérémy Laurent-Lucchetti, Manuel Oechslin
• E-Jahr: 2017
• Jahr: November 2017
• Umfang: 17 S.
• Fussnoten: Gesehen am 11.10.2018 ; Available online 16 June 2017
• Titel Quelle: Enthalten in: Journal of environmental economics and management
• Ort Quelle: Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier, 1974
• Jahr Quelle: 2017
• Band/Heft Quelle: 86(2017), Seite 193-209
• ISSN Quelle: 1096-0449
• DOI: doi:10.1016/j.jeem.2017.06.002
• Datenträger: Online-Ressource
• Sprache: eng
• Sach-SW: Disaggregated data
• Sach-SW: Riots
• Sach-SW: Small-scale conflict
• Sach-SW: Water shocks
• K10plus-PPN: 1581766971

Abstract

It is often purported that unusually dry weather conditions provoke small-scale social conflict—riots—by intensifying the competition for water. The present paper explores this hypothesis, using data from Sub-Saharan Africa. We rely on monthly data at the cell level (0.5×0.5 degrees), an approach that is tailored to the short-lived and local nature of the phenomenon. Using a drought index to proxy for weather shocks, we find that a one-standard-deviation fall in the index (signaling drier conditions) raises the likelihood of riots in a given cell and month by 8.3%. We further observe that the effect of unusually dry weather conditions is substantially larger in cells with a lower availability of water resources (such as rivers and lakes), a finding that supports the significance of the competition-for-water mechanism.