Emergent network patterns of internal displacement in Somalia driven by natural disasters and conflicts

Abstract

In Somalia, extreme droughts, floods, and conflicts have generated a great wave of internally displaced persons (IDPs) involuntarily moving within the country’s boundaries. Despite increasing concerns about the IDP problem, we still do not fully understand the emergent properties of IDP flows from the network perspective. Particularly lacking is quantitative information on how natural disasters and conflicts differently or similarly shape IDP networks. These knowledge gaps are critical for IDP studies with complex interactions because the gaps may misconnect IDP flows with socio-environmental data at inappropriate spatial scales. To address these gaps, this study applies a series of network analyses to compare emergent patterns in disaster-induced and conflict-induced IDP networks. Push patterns were random without hub formation in both cases. Social connections were critical to incoming IDP flows but not to outgoing IDP flows. Natural disasters and conflicts produced similar triadic structures of IDP networks, suggesting possible interactions between natural disasters and conflicts in driving IDP flows. Community patterns were more scattered by the number and formation in the conflict-induced IDP network than in the disaster-induced IDP network. From the community detection, Natural disasters were likely to move IDPs within the regional boundaries, but conflicts relocated IDPs to relatively remote areas out of the boundaries. The communities were more modular in the disaster-induced IDP network than in the conflict-induced IDP network. These findings are useful for understanding IDP network patterns as a starting point for developing a nexus between climate, conflict, and migration.