Climate Change as a Double-Edged Sword: Exploring the Potential of Environmental Recovery to Foster Stability in Darfur, Sudan

Abstract

The Darfur conflict, which emerged in the early 21st century, represents a multi- faceted crisis driven by socio-political and environmental factors, with resource scarcity, exacerbated by climate change, playing a pivotal role in intensifying tensions between agricultural and pastoral communities. While climate change is typically associated with adverse environmental outcomes, an analysis of data spanning four decades (1980–2023) reveals a contrasting trend of increased precipitation, enhanced vegetation, and decreased drought frequency in recent years. This research explores the potential of these positive environmental changes to mitigate resource-based conflicts and foster political stability in Darfur as improved environmental conditions are posited to create a foundation for conflict resolution and sustainable peacebuilding. The present study integrates trends in the Academic Editor: Nektarios Kourgialas Received: 29 January 2025 Revised: 2 March 2025 Accepted: 5 March 2025 Published: 18 March 2025 Citation: Ahmed, A.; Rotich, B.; Czimber, K. Climate Change as a Double-Edged Sword: Exploring the Potential of Environmental Recovery to Foster Stability in Darfur, Sudan. Climate 2025, 13, 63. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/cli13030063 Copyright: © 2025 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/). Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) to examine these shifts. EVI data, derived from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) at a 250 m resolution, was used to assess large-scale vegetation patterns in arid and semi-arid landscapes. The Autoregressive Integrated Mov- ing Average (ARIMA) model was employed to forecast future precipitation scenarios up to the year 2034, enhancing the understanding of long-term climatic trends. Data processing and analysis utilized advanced tools, including Google Earth Engine (GEE), ArcGIS Pro (version 3.4), and R software (version 4.3.2). The findings reveal a significant (33.19%) improvement in natural vegetation cover between 2000 and 2023, with degraded and unchanged areas accounting for 1.95% and 64.86%, respectively. This finding aligns with a marked increase in annual precipitation and a reduction in drought intensity over the study period. Historical SPEI analysis showed persistent drought events between 1980 and 2012, followed by a notable decline in drought frequency and severity from 2013 to 2024. Precipitation projections suggest a stable trend, potentially supporting further vegetation recovery in the region. These environmental improvements are preliminarily linked to climate-change-induced increases in precipitation and reductions in drought severity. This study’s findings contribute to a nuanced understanding of the interplay between environ- mental dynamics and socio-political stability in Darfur, offering actionable insights for policy interventions aimed at fostering sustainable peace and resilience in the region.