Raleigh, Clionadh, and Henrik Urdal. 2007. Climate change, environmental degradation and armed conflict. Political Geography 26, no. 6 (August): 674-694. doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2007.06.005.
From Abstract: "Climate change is expected to bring about major change in freshwater availability, the productive capacity of soils, and in patterns of human settlement. However, considerable uncertainties exist with regard to the extent and geographical distribution of these changes...We argue that our best guess about the future has to be based on our knowledge about the relationship between demography, environment and violent conflict in the past...This article represents a new approach to assess the impact of environment on internal armed conflict by using georeferenced...data and small geographical, rather than political, units of analysis. It addresses some of the most important factors assumed to be strongly influenced by global warming: land degradation, freshwater availability, and population density and change. While population growth and density are associated with increased risks, the effects of land degradation and water scarcity are weak, negligible or insignificant. The results indicate that the effects of political and economic factors far outweigh those between local level demographic/environmental factors and conflict" (674).
"To address the issue of whether climate change poses a traditional security threat, we build on propositions from the environmental security literature, identifying potential links between natural resource scarcity and violent conflict. We combine these propositions with environmental change scenarios from...[IPCC]...and develop testable hypotheses about the expected relationships...If soil degradation, freshwater scarcity and population pressure have influenced the risk of conflict in the past, we assume that this may also inform us about likely security implications of climate change. Obvious limitations to such approach are the possibilities that climate change will bring about more severe and more abrupt forms of environmental change than we have experienced in the past" (675).
While the lion's share of studies on the relationship between resource scarcity and conflict focus on state-based units, this study will focus on 100 square kilometer blocks.
The existing literature on resource scarcity and conflict focuses on the following causal chains: "firstly, increasing temperatures, precipitation anomalies and extreme weather is expected to aggravate processes of resource degradation that is already underway" (676). "Secondly, significantly increasing sea levels as well as more extreme weather conditions will force millions of people to migrate, potentially leading to higher pressures on resources in areas of destination and subsequently to resource competition" (677).
Their soil data: "The measure of soil degradation throughout the world was commissioned by the International Soil Reference and Information Centre. The information...is based on questionnaire answers from numerous soil experts throughout the world" (683).
"It appears from this disaggregated analysis that demographic and environmental variables only have a very moderate effect on the risk of civil conflict" (689).
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