Mapping Climate as a Threat Multiplier in Sudan: Integrating GIS and Participatory Mapping Approach

This thesis explores the complex interplay between climate vulnerability, armed conflict, and socio-economic fragility in Sudan, a country where overlapping stressors generate both acute and protracted displacement dynamics. Sudan represents a particularly relevant case due to its high exposure to extreme weather events related to climate change (drought, floods, and water scarcity) combined with long-standing political instability and socio-economic challenges, culminating in what the United Nations has described as the world’s most severe humanitarian and displacement crisis. The research is guided by a central question: to what extent do climate extremes, socio-economic vulnerability, and armed conflict spatially converge in Sudan? Two main objectives frame this inquiry: (i) to map the spatial overlap of climate hazards, social vulnerability, and conflict incidence using GIS-based composite indicators; and (ii) to reflect on the methodological potential of integrating GIScience and participatory approaches for documenting climate-related drivers of displacement. From a methodological perspective, the study employs GIScience as a framework for integrating heterogeneous datasets and generating spatial evidence on climate risk in Sudan. The spatial analysis combines multiple raster datasets into a composite index. This allowed the identification of “hotspots” where climate extremes and vulnerability converge. The spatial analysis, reveals two distinct vulnerability clusters. The first, in the central-eastern corridor (Khartoum, Al Jazirah, White Nile, Sennar), shaped by flood exposure, rapid urbanization, and socio-economic fragility. The second, in South and East Darfur, is shaped by recurrent drought, advancing desertification, and protracted conflict. Both clusters overlap with the highest concentrations of conflict events and internally displaced populations, underscoring how climate stress acts as a “threat multiplier” rather than an isolated driver. Qualitative data collected in Calais with a small group of Sudanese migrants provide complementary insights. While participants rarely used the category of “climate change”, they described concrete environmental disruptions, irregular rainfall, flooding, and resource competition, interpreted through their impacts on agriculture, food security, and livelihoods. Participatory mapping further demonstrated how experiential knowledge can be spatially documented, offering grounded representations of risks that complement technical models. In conclusion, the thesis spatially shows that climate change cannot be understood in isolation, but only in its interaction with socio-economic fragility and conflict dynamics. Beyond its empirical findings, it highlights the importance of inclusive methodologies that bridge scientific data with experiential knowledge. The integration of GIScience and participatory methods proved valuable not only for identifying spatial hotspots of compounded vulnerability, but also for capturing how migrants themselves interpret and narrate environmental change. This combined approach tries to provide both academic contributions and potential tools for legal and policy frameworks addressing climate-induced displacement.