Getting started with ucdpR

ucdpR supports reproducible research with data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program. It discovers current and historical releases, imports data, retains provenance, retrieves supporting documentation, and provides tools for validation, spatial preparation, precision assessment, and release comparison.

The usual live-data workflow is deliberately short:

library(ucdpR)

ucdp_search("georeferenced|candidate")
ged <- ucdp_get("ged", version = "25.1", format = "csv")
ucdp_metadata(ged)
ucdp_validate(ged)

Specifying a version makes the analytical input explicit. Objects returned by ucdp_get() retain the selected catalog record, source URL, checksum, retrieval time, and package version in their ucdp_source attribute.

Most analytical helpers also work with ordinary data frames. This makes it possible to inspect a prepared subset without another download:

library(ucdpR)

events <- data.frame(
  id = 1:3,
  year = c(2020, 2021, 2021),
  where_prec = c(1, 2, 6),
  date_prec = c(1, 3, 5),
  latitude = c(50, 51, 52),
  longitude = c(10, 11, 12)
)

ucdp_schema(events)
#> # A tibble: 6 × 9
#>   variable   class   storage_type n_missing pct_missing n_unique minimum maximum
#>   <chr>      <chr>   <chr>            <int>       <dbl>    <int> <chr>   <chr>  
#> 1 id         integer integer              0           0        3 1       3      
#> 2 year       numeric double               0           0        2 2020    2021   
#> 3 where_prec numeric double               0           0        3 1       6      
#> 4 date_prec  numeric double               0           0        3 1       5      
#> 5 latitude   numeric double               0           0        3 50      52     
#> 6 longitude  numeric double               0           0        3 10      12     
#> # ℹ 1 more variable: examples <chr>
ucdp_precision(events)
#> # A tibble: 6 × 6
#>   dimension variable    code label                                       n share
#>   <chr>     <chr>      <int> <chr>                                   <int> <dbl>
#> 1 spatial   where_prec     1 Exact location                              1 0.333
#> 2 spatial   where_prec     2 Within approximately 25 km                  1 0.333
#> 3 spatial   where_prec     6 Country only                                1 0.333
#> 4 temporal  date_prec      1 Exact date                                  1 0.333
#> 5 temporal  date_prec      3 Week known                                  1 0.333
#> 6 temporal  date_prec      5 More than one month but less than one …     1 0.333
ucdp_filter_precision(events, where_prec = 1:2, date_prec = 1:3)
#>   id year where_prec date_prec latitude longitude
#> 1  1 2020          1         1       50        10
#> 2  2 2021          2         3       51        11
ucdp_aggregate(events, unit = "conflict-year", id = "id",
               include_fatalities = FALSE)
#> # A tibble: 3 × 3
#>      id  year n_events
#>   <int> <int>    <int>
#> 1     1  2020        1
#> 2     2  2021        1
#> 3     3  2021        1

Four focused vignettes provide the detailed workflows:

• vignette("accessing-and-versioning", package = "ucdpR") explains catalog discovery, exact releases, downloads, imports, and update checks.
• vignette("spatial-workflows", package = "ucdpR") covers precision-aware conversion to sf and preparation for downstream spatial joins.
• vignette("uncertainty-and-revisions", package = "ucdpR") treats precision and retrospective revisions as observable dimensions of uncertainty.
• vignette("reproducible-research", package = "ucdpR") combines metadata, schemas, validation, codebooks, version histories, and replication files.

ucdpR is an independent community client and does not redistribute UCDP data. Consult UCDP’s documentation and citation guidance for every dataset and report the exact data version used in published work.