Identifying the impact of rainfall variability on conflicts at the monthly level

Abstract

Research on the relationship between rainfall variability and conflicts has yielded contradictory results. This study is the first to show that the significance of the impact of rainfall variability on conflicts depends on the temporal unit of analysis. We prove this point by comparing the statistical significance of the linkages between georeferenced conflicts and rainfall variabilities at the monthly and annual levels with panel data analyses from 1989 to 2020. We find that a 10 percent increase in monthly rainfall decreases the risk of conflict incidence by 0.0298 percent, but annual rainfall variability is not statistically linked to conflict outbreaks. These statistically significant disparities result from the aggregation of data dispersion and the disregard for the timing of the impact of rainfall on conflicts. These findings highlight the importance of information on monthly rainfall variation when estimating the impact of rainfall on conflicts.