Climate Change, Hydro-conflicts and Human Security: Achievements of and Gaps in Current Policies

The CLICO project has mobilized 14 research teams from Europe, North Africa, Sahel and the Middle East and brought together for the first time some of the world’s leading researchers in water resource, vulnerability, and peace and security studies. Eleven cases of hydro-conflicts will be studied ranging from Niger, Sudan, the Jordan and Nile basins to Cyprus, Italy and the Sinai desert. A large dataset – the first of its kind – of hydro-conflicts in the Mediterranean, Middle East and Sahel will be regressed against climatic, hydrological and socio-economic variables. Natural and social scientists will work together in a trans-disciplinary fashion.

CLICO will also map existing policies at the national and international level and envisage a better overarching framework with improved links between existing policies. Project results will be synthesised in a report that will identify potential security concerns in the studied regions and provide fresh policy ideas for promoting peace and security under changing hydro-climatic conditions.

This policy brief is the first in a series of briefs presenting results of the CLICO project. This 1st policy brief presents CLICO’s research agenda regarding policy responses to climate change-induced hydro-conflicts; a second policy brief showcasing preliminary results of the project will be available at the end of 2010.