As droughts worsen across the globe, more people who earn their living through farming and owning livestock are forced to leave their homes. Many academics and policymakers predict that the rise in migration may lead to an increase in violent conflict.

However, most existing studies on the topic use country-level or regional data that fail to capture how water shortages directly impact the risk of violence within a population. To better understand the issue, a research team spoke directly with Kenyans affected by the changing environment.

This study, led by the University of Utah, is the first to use a nationwide survey representing an entire country in sub-Saharan Africa to find some connections between droughts, migration and violence.

The team surveyed 1400 respondents in 175 locations across Kenya, asking if they had relocated either permanently or temporarily because of drought, if they had been victims of violence, and, using an indirect questioning method, whether they have latent support for the use of violence.

The researchers found that people who have relocated are consistently more likely to experience violence than the general population, yet migrants themselves are no more likely to express support for the use of violence than others.

People who migrated temporarily were more likely to support the use of violence only if they themselves had been violently attacked. These problems may be more widespread than previously thought and the findings reported in the article have direct policy implications.

"The people who are already experiencing traumatic moves due to drought are very vulnerable," said lead author Andrew Linke, assistant professor of geography at the U.

"The treatment of these vulnerable populations is critically important. If they're viewed as hostile outsiders and they are attacked by long-term residents, that can make a bad problem worse. There's a risk that they could in turn hold hostilities based on their experience."

More Kenyans were affected by drought and violence than Linke had thought. Approximately 15 percent of respondents reported having to relocate due to drought. Twenty-one percent reported being violently attacked outside of their homes, and a large share of the victims were migrants; 43 percent of people who reported relocating were victims of violence, compared to nearly 12 percent of the general population.

"There are a lot of respondents who report these experiences - it's not a fringe one or two percent of the population. We're talking about much larger shares of the population that we don't always understanding in the states, sitting here behind our desks," Linke said.

Research paper

Related Links
University of Utah
Climate Science News - Modeling, Mitigation Adaptation

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