Water Conflict: An Empirical Test for Neo-Malthusian View with Remote Sense Data

• In Event: Poster Session: International Security II

Abstract

This study attempts to explore the role of population and agriculture along international rivers in water conflict. The neo-Malthusian view of conflict over international rivers pervades the academic literature. It argues that shared water resources can become an issue of national security if the resource becomes scarce due to increased demand, which is mainly because of growth of population and irrigation for agriculture. Unfortunately, due to lack of data on population and agriculture along international rivers, majority existing researches focus either on water availability per capita of dyad countries or merely on whether or not two countries share a river. Thus, they do not offer a directly convincing evidence for neo-Malthusian view of water conflict. This study aims to fill this gap based on a dataset on dyadic international rivers from 2001-2017 generated using a Geographical Informational System (GIS). Besides, the geographic layout of upstream-downstream is the most remarkable factor in shaping the prospects for international conflict over water. However, upstream-downstream relationships do not exist in the vacuum. Is the risk of conflict higher when upstream state has higher population and agriculture concentration along sharing river? Or is the risk of conflict lower when both upstream and downstream countries have lower population and agriculture concentration along sharing river? The second aim of this study is to examine whether or not population and agriculture along international rivers mediate relationships between geography and the possibility of water conflict. This study will generate data on population and agriculture of each dyad-countries within 50 km buffer along international rivers based on gridded population of the world (GPW, v4) and remotely sensed data of land cover (MODIS MCD12Q1).

Author

• QingQian He, Tsinghua University