The Project tries to answer the question how different modes of environmental induced distributional conflicts affect the risk of violence and (in-)security, and enforce processes of social fragmentation.  Environmentally induced transformation processes focus on natural disasters (floods, droughts) and the resource scarcity (water shortage, desertification). The project aims to capture the varying consequences of different types of environmental disasters in terms of their impact on the formation and continuation of violent conflicts, and the effect on the variation in conflict behavior over time and space.  The project’s basic premise is that climate and environmental change do not directly enhance the risk of conflict onset or violence, but that they are transmitted by power-, economic - and social related distributional conflicts.  Empirically, the project analyzes local and transnational areas in the Sahel zone of Africa.