Climate Change And The Potential For Conflict And Extreme Migration In The Andes: A Computational Approach For Interdisciplinary Modeling And Anticipatory Policy-Making, es la tesis presentada en George Mason University por el Prof. José Manuel Magallanes, con la que obtuvo su segundo PhD, esta vez en Computational Social Science, el resumen de la tesis indica:

I present an agent-based model to support the thesis that extreme migration and social conflict can emerge by simply extending the current social and natural conditions, and by replicating simple mechanisms at the individual level. To carry out this work, every available information on water supply and demand has been collected and organized using official data sources, producing a baseline dated in 2011; and the basic demographics of the population has been implemented using the last official census (2007). Based on these data, many computations have been made to find, calibrate and represent the trends in population growth and water balance. For the basic mechanisms at the individual level, a fieldwork guided both by theoretical considerations and ethnographic findings has been done. A key assumption on the processing of information, not identified from the fieldwork, has been introduced via Bayesian belief updating mechanism

To sustain the emergence of migration, the information collected from the empirical work has allowed me to identify the hypothetical mechanisms that the individuals will use when facing extreme water scarcity, and how this situation will force him or her to migrate. In the same way, the emergence of conflict is sustained by the identified reactive mechanism that will lead people to become frustrated or relatively deprived. For the rural case, peri urbanization and immigration are assumed to play a critical role for the potential of conflict; for the urban case, it is population growth and negative water balance the key elements assumed to condition migration and conflict.

The model has been calibrated to represent the urban and rural areas of Huancayo, the most important province of the Central Andes in Peru, which strongly depends on the Shullcas river for water supply, a source that will soon be negatively affected by the total retreat of the local glacier Huaytapallana. The findings of this work help policy makers identify clearly that urgent measures are needed to create a system that saves at least the 13% of water from the rainy season to alleviate water needs during the dry season, so to avoid the emergence of these social problems in the next 50 years.