​​The majority of civil wars are local phenomena confined to limited parts of a country’s territory. However, studies of civil war have mainly relied on national statistics to explain the causes of such conflicts. As spatial methods and sub-national data evolve, this opens up for local studies of conflict. But how can we combine and provide spatial data related to civil war for scrutiny?
CSCW researcher Andreas Forø Tollefsen together with Research Professor Halvard Buhaug and Senior Researcher Håvard Strand have in response to this developed the PRIO-GRID, which is a spatiotemporal grid structure that will aid collection, combination, distribution and management of spatial data and time varying trends. PRIO-GRID consists of a grid of cells covering the complete globe and includes data on armed conflict, physical and climatic conditions, relative location, socio-economic status, ethnicity, land cover and more. This effort aids researchers in combining data from various sources, and introduces the ability to include their own data.
 
For more information. Please visit:
http://www.prio.no/CSCW/Datasets/PRIO-Grid/