Jan Ketil Rød

Fighting over Oil: Introducing a New Dataset

Recent research on armed civil conflict has suggested that oil-producing countries tend to experience conflict more often than their non-oil-producing counterparts. However, this research relies on weak and incomplete measures of petroleum resources. To facilitate more rigorous research on the possible links between hydrocarbons and conflict, this paper presents and describes a new global dataset, PETRODATA. The dataset includes 890 onshore and 383 offshore locations with geographic coordinates and information on the first oil or gas discovery and production year. PETRODATA allows researchers to control for both the spatial and temporal overlap of regions with hydrocarbon reserves and armed conflict. To illustrate the use of data, we conduct a duration analysis on the types of armed civil conflict. The results suggest that oil and gas located in conflict area lengthen governmental conflicts but have no effect on conflicts over territory.

Representing ethnic groups in space: A new dataset

Whether qualitative or quantitative, contemporary civil-war studies have a tendency to over-aggregate empirical evidence. In order to open the black box of the state, it is necessary to pinpoint the location of key conflict parties. As a contribution to this task, this article describes a data project that geo-references ethnic groups around the world. Relying on maps and data drawn from the classical Soviet Atlas Narodov Mira (ANM), the ‘Geo-referencing of ethnic groups’ (GREG) dataset employs geographic information systems (GIS) to represent group territories as polygons. This article introduces the structure of the GREG dataset and gives an example for its application by examining the impact of group concentration on conflict. In line with previous findings, the authors show that groups with a single territorial cluster according to GREG have a significantly higher risk of conflict. This example demonstrates how the GREG dataset can be processed in the R statistical package without specific skills in GIS. The authors also provide a detailed discussion of the shortcomings of the GREG dataset, resulting from the datedness of the ANM and its unclear coding conventions. In comparing GREG to other datasets on ethnicity, the article makes an attempt to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses associated with the GREG database.

Conflict Diamonds: A New Dataset

Natural resources, and diamonds especially, are commonly believed to play a significant role in the onset and duration of armed civil conflict. Although there is ample case study evidence that diamonds and similar resources have been used by rebel groups to finance fighting, there are few systematic empirical studies assessing the role of lootable resources in civil conflict. This is largely due to lack of reliable data on production and location. In this article we discuss priorities for the collection of data on conflict-relevant resources and introduce a new dataset, DIADATA, that provides a comprehensive list of diamond deposits accompanied by geographic coordinates throughout the world. The dataset includes characteristics relevant to conflict such as production status and geological form of the deposit. Particularly important is the distinction between primary and secondary diamonds, because the latter are more easily lootable. The dataset incorporates a spatial as well as a temporal dimension.

Ethno-Nationalist Dyads and Civil War A GIS-Based Analysis

Previous quantitative research on ethnic civil war relies on macro-level proxies in an attempt to specify the conditions under which ethnic minorities rebel. Going beyond an exclusive focus on minorities, the present study employs Geographic Information Systems (GIS) as a way to model ethnic center—periphery dyads that confront governments with excluded groups. We construct and analyze a new dataset of geo-referenced politically relevant ethnic groups, covering the entire world during the period from 1951 through 2005. Our results show that the conflict probability of marginalized groups increases with the demographic power balance compared to the group(s) in power. Furthermore, the risk of conflict increases with the distance from the group to the capital, and the roughness of the terrain in the groups settlement area. We also find that while the results for demographic group strength hold for all ethnic civil wars, the geographic factors apply for territorial ethnic conflicts only.

Social vulnerability assessment for Norway: A quantitative approach

The article presents a method for quantifying social vulnerability to natural hazards in Norwegian municipalities. In the analysis, a large number of variables that each measures a facet of a municipalitys susceptibility to a potential hazard are used. Using factor analysis, the information in the variables is reduced to a smaller number of factors and socioeconomic and built environment vulnerability scores for each Norwegian municipality are calculated. The resulting scores in the Socioeconomic Vulnerability Index and Built Environment Index are mapped for each municipality. The results show that there are pronounced regional differences: municipalities with high socioeconomic vulnerability cluster in the northern half of Norway and parts of the south-east. The least vulnerable region is south-western Norway. Built environment vulnerability is highest in densely populated areas. By indicating municipalities with a high level of vulnerability, the method presented in this article is a useful tool in identifying regions which are likely to face significant challenges in coping with a large-scale event. The results can be used in, for example, planning mitigation efforts against extreme weather events, which are likely to be more frequent and severe in the future due to climate change.

Integrated vulnerability mapping for wards in Mid-Norway

The future climate of Norway is expected to become “warmer, wetter, and wilder”, and it is anticipated that this will cause more extreme weather events. Local authorities therefore need to increase their ability to assess weather-related hazards such as flooding and landslide, as well as peoples’ capacities to cope with such events. Any evaluation of future vulnerability towards natural hazards should use todays situation as the baseline. In this article, we present this baseline: a vulnerability assessment for the present. Our vulnerability assessment incorporates both physical and social dimensions of vulnerability and screens Mid-Norway at the lowest administrative level. The results reveal a considerable geographic variation regarding vulnerability. The assessment identifies the most vulnerable localities within a municipality and could thus be relevant for the local authorities. By incorporating knowledge held by the local authorities, the vulnerability mapping could be made even more relevant.

An agenda for democratising cartographic visualisation

Cartographic visualisation tools aid exploration, but they are designed for, and used exclusively by, experts. A democratised visualisation tool will include second-generation users, and these non-specialists might also want to use the available computer technology to visualise their geographical data. In this paper, we argue that democratised GIS should have a functionality similar to visualisation tools and we forward our opinion on how these can be developed in order to do so. Our emphasis is on interactivity regarding representation methods and on elaborating principles for implementing map type selection in interfaces for democratised GISs.

Cartographic Visualization of Vulnerability to Natural Hazards

Vulnerability to natural hazards has many components. It is about exposure to various natural disasters, but a place’s vulnerability also depends on its capacity to prepare for, respond to, and recover from shocks resulting from natural extreme events. To avoid increased place vulnerability due to the anticipated negative effects of climate change, local authorities need to know which places are the most vulnerable and what makes these areas vulnerable. We have developed ViewExposed to provide this information. Knowing where the most vulnerable areas are is very useful for local stakeholders, since these places may be most in need of adaptation strategies. However, stakeholders also need to have an understanding of what makes these areas vulnerable. ViewExposed provides this information using a parallel coordinates plot, a table view, sparklines, and a profile report. Although vulnerability assessment data are complex, ViewExposed has an easy-to-use interface facilitating a high degree of user interaction through multiple and linked views. An improved understanding of the many aspects of vulnerability has a far-reaching potential to inform users efficiently about factors that influence the overall vulnerability and, as a consequence, can help raise people’s awareness of what makes places vulnerable to natural threats. La vulnérabilité aux dangers naturels est constituée de nombreux éléments. C’est une question d’exposition à diverses catastrophes naturelles, mais la vulnérabilité d’un endroit dépend aussi de sa capacité de se préparer aux chocs découlant d’événements naturels extrêmes, d’y réagir et de s’en remettre. Afin d’éviter la vulnérabilité locale accrue à cause des effets négatifs prévus des changements climatiques, les autorités locales doivent connaître les endroits les plus vulnérables et les causes de leur vulnérabilité. Nous avons mis au point ViewExposed pour fournir cette information. Il est aussi très utile pour les intervenants locaux de connaître les endroits les plus vulnérables, car c’est peut-être à leur sujet qu’il faut le plus de stratégies d’adaptation. Les intervenants doivent toutefois comprendre aussi la cause de ces vulnérabilités. ViewExposed fournit ces renseignements en utilisant un tracé à coordonnées parallèles, une vue de tableau, des graphiques Sparklines et un rapport de profil. Même si les données d’évaluation de la vulnérabilité sont complexes, ViewExposed offre une interface facile à utiliser qui facilite une grande interaction entre les usagers grâce à des vues multiples et liées. Une compréhension améliorée des nombreux aspects de la vulnérabilité offre de vastes possibilités d’informer les usagers de façon efficiente au sujet de facteurs qui jouent sur la vulnérabilité globale et, par conséquent, peut aider à sensibiliser davantage les gens à ce qui rend des endroits vulnérables aux menaces naturelles.

Visibility and Dominance Analysis: Assessing a High-Rise Building Project in Trondheim

This article presents a GIS-aided visibility and dominance analysis used for a visual-impact assessment of a planned high-rise building located in a central area in Trondheim, Norway. The visibility analysis calculates fields of intervisibility between the high-rise building and locations in the urban landscape. Visual obstacles such as existing buildings and trees are included. The dominance analysis adds to the visibility analysis a measure of how visually dominant the high-rise building would be. The dominance measure is based on the distance to the building and how much of the building would be visible from any observation point. The result is an assessment of visibility and dominance throughout the entire study area as opposed to using photomontages for assessing visibility and dominance from single standpoints.

Three core activities toward a relevant integrated vulnerability assessment: validate, visualize, and negotiate

Future climate in the Nordic countries is expected to become ‘warmer, wetter, and wilder’, and this will probably cause more extreme weather events. Therefore, local authorities need to improve their ability to assess weather-related hazards such as floods, landslides, and storms, as well as people’s sensitivity and capacity to cope with or adjust to such events. In this article, we present an integrated assessment of vulnerability to natural hazards, which incorporates both exposure and social vulnerability. In our assessment, we screen places and rank them by their relative scores on exposure and vulnerability indices. We also design a web-based visualization tool – ViewExposed – that shows maps that reveal a considerable geographic variation in integrated vulnerability. ViewExposed makes it easy to identify the places with the highest integrated vulnerability, and it facilitates the understanding of the factors that make these places exposed and/or vulnerable. For empirical validation, we correlate the exposure indices with insurance claims due to natural damage. However, we also emphasize the importance of a dialog with relevant stakeholders to ensure a participatory validation. Our top-down exposure and vulnerability assessment benefits from a participatory bottom-up assessment. This is crucial to support decisions about where to implement adaptive and preventive measures against hazards related to climate change.