Giving Compass' Take:

• Zafirah Zein reports that the Water, Peace and Security conflict prediction tool can identify potential water-based conflict a year in advance. 

• How can funders use this, and other tools, to identify places to take preemptive action? What role can funders play in preventing and ending climate-induced conflict? 

• Learn more about the security threat of climate change. 

According to data from California-based thinktank Pacific Institute, incidents of water-related violence have doubled in the last ten years, with disputes and protests erupting in countries such as Iran, India and Iraq.

In a bid to measure the risks posed by water-related challenges and pre-empt conflict, a consortium of researchers have developed a new tool that combines machine learning and different types of data — environmental, meteorological, social and economic — to forecast where conflict is likely to break out.

Called the Water, Peace and Security (WPS) Global Early Warning Tool, WPS combines climate data, socio-economic variables and local drivers such as governance and pre-existing conflict “to intervene and help defuse conflicts before blood is shed.”

While previous early warning tools focused on purely political and socio-economic factors, the WPS tool considers specific variables such as rainfall, water scarcity and crop failures, as well as risks from climate change. For instance, data on crop health helps paint a fuller picture of how likely conflict will break out in a community facing other vulnerabilities, such as poverty and ethnic discrimination.

Read the full article about a tool predicting water-related conflict by Zafirah Zein at Eco-Business.