2015 Conference

Poster Presentation

There is a rapidly growing body of research examining the relationship between the state of the environment and conflict. The uncertainty surrounding climate change, in combination with a rapidly urbanizing world, provides motivation to better understand the link between environmental security and human security. Much of the research has been focused on state and society level datasets; however, applying remote sensing techniques to quantify environmental variables in moderately high resolution satellite imagery provides an opportunity to explore the conflict-environment relationship on a more local scale. This project, which is part of ongoing research, focuses on developing a method to quantitatively model the relationship between conflict and various environmental and quality of life variables. Conflict and quality of life variables are derived from publicly available data. Environmental variables are derived from Landsat satellite imagery and include deforestation, environmental degradation, and crop failure. Deforestation is measured with a rapid tree identification method, and environmental degradation and crop failure are measured with the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index. Statistical analyses are used to determine which environmental and quality of life variables group with conflict. This will be an indicator of which variables are more likely to be present when conflict is present.