Water-Related Intrastate Conflict and Cooperation (WARICC): A New Event Dataset

Water scarcity is widely regarded as a key factor linking climate variability and change with conflict. However, existing research on the water-conflict nexus is hampered by poor data that inhibits drawing firm conclusions on the role of water in shaping societal stability and security. This article reports on the construction of a new dataset on subnational and georeferenced events over domestic water-related cooperation and conflict for 35 countries in the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and the Sahel for 1997-2009. The main value of this dataset is in its precision. Its key component, the Water Events Scale (WES), records the exact time, location, and intensity of water-related conflictive and cooperative events, as well as the actors involved. A few descriptive statistics and illustrations serve to demonstrate the usefulness of the new dataset for quantitative analyses of intrastate conflict and cooperation over water resources. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.