Water-in-food, Conflicts and Refugee Movements: A Comprehensive Analysis

Whether people decide or are forced to migrate depends on a number of factors. Black et al. framework identifies five families of drivers which affect migration decisions: economic, political, social, demographic, and environmental drivers. In this chapter, the authors explain whether the extent of participation of countries to the Virtual Water Trade (VWT) importing network is associated to a decrease in flow of refugees and whether this effect is similar and can be ascribed to that of reduction in the propensity to get engaged in conflicts. They compare the effect of VWT importing network to that of other trade importing networks, such as that of strategic (oil & gas) and non-strategic (footwear) commodities, and also focus on the subset of countries without conflicts. Finally, the authors study whether their conclusions can be generalized to all migration flows or it is specific to refugee movements.