article_snippet: The resulting rising urban populations combined with poverty, government mismanagement and other factors combined to trigger the unrest that led to the civil war.
article_snippet: Dr Richard Seager, a climate scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in New York, said: 'Dr Richard Seager, a climate scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in New York're not saying the drought caused the civil war. '
article_snippet: Dr Richard Seager, a climate scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in New York’re saying that added to all the other stressors, the civil war helped kick things over the threshold into open conflict. '
article_snippet: Rising city populations and increasing poverty due to the drought led to the 2011 uprising which swelling into outright conflict which is now devastating much of the country like Aleppo's al-Shaar neighbourhood above .
article_snippet: Combined with a growing population - from four million in the 1950s to 22 million now - this led to increasing levels of poverty and pressure within the country's urban areas.
article_snippet: Writing in the journal, the authors said: 'Rapid demographic change encourages instability. '
article_snippet: However, Marshall Burke, an environmental scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, said: 'There were many things going on in the region and world at that time, such as high global food prices and the beginning of the Arab Spring, that could have also increased the likelihood of civil conflict.'
highlights_snippet: This led to an influx of people into cities causing rising poverty and unrest .
  
highlights_snippet: This eventually led to the uprising that led to civil war breaking out in 2011 .
  