An Assessment of Forest Cover Change and Its Driving Forces in the Syrian Coastal Region during a Period of Conflict, 2010 to 2020

Mohamed, Mohamed Ali

doi:10.3390/land10020191

Cited by 13 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…Instead, they started heading to government and private jobs that provide a stable income, unlike the agricultural income, which is very much dependent on the weather. Figure 6 represent the land use changes in the coastal region in general between 2010-2020 [49]. We can see the increase in the bare and uncultivated lands, especially in the mountainous area of the Syrian coast region, with an increase in the proportion of urban areas, while the plains region is still witnessing agricultural activities, due to the availability of favorable conditions for agriculture, such as fertile land, availability of equipment, and ease of transportation.…”

Section: General Characteristics Of the Participating Groups And Thei...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Correlation between Land Use and the Transformation of Rural Housing Model in the Coastal Region of Syria

Khadour¹,

Basha²,

Sárospataki³

et al. 2021

Sustainability

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The phenomenon of urban sprawl has caused radical changes in the spatial structure of cities and rural areas all around the world. Syria is among the developing countries that have experienced this phenomenon. Some of the resulted processes of urban sprawl like urbanization and counter-urbanization have had a clear impact on the land use and lifestyle in both cities and the countryside of different regions in Syria. This research focuses on the coastal region and the spatial changes that affected the nature of social life, such as the rapid growth of the population, the expansion of cities, and the new developments, which in turn have led to considerable changes in the relationship and scale of the house, garden, and landscape. The research studies the development of the rural housing model in the coastal region and its relation to the surrounding landscape. It tracks three phases of the housing unit’s development and conducts a comparative study on four villages using a questionnaire to evaluate the performance of those units. The results of this research show significant change in the relationship between rural and urban areas resulting from the new residential developments, as well as the relationship of land use and the historic plot structure and that of the garden and the house into the overall character of the landscape.

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Section: General Characteristics Of the Participating Groups And Thei...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Correlation between Land Use and the Transformation of Rural Housing Model in the Coastal Region of Syria

Khadour¹,

Basha²,

Sárospataki³

et al. 2021

Sustainability

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“…Remote sensing data has proven to be particularly helpful for tracking conflict-linked damage in numerous conflicts. 31 A wealth of academic research has illustrated the utility of remote sensing as an essential instrument that helps reveal the scale of land cover impacts linked with conflict, such as deforestation driven by fuel-needs from the armed conflict in Syria, 32 forest cover changes associated with peace negotiations in Colombia 33 and forest conservation in Rwanda. 34 Other research has focused on agriculture, demonstrating changes in agricultural land-use in Syria 35 , increase yields from crops that may fund armed groups in Iraq 36 and food insecurity caused by conflict-driven land abandonment in South Sudan.…”

Section: Application Of Remote Sensing In Armed Conflictsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leveraging emerging technologies to enable environmental monitoring and accountability in conflict zones

Zwijnenburg,

Ballinger

2023

Int. rev. Red Cross

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The growth of access to the internet, wide availability of smart phones and increased public access to remote sensing data from hundreds of satellite systems have spurred a revolution in tracking the linkages between armed conflict and environmental damage. Over the last decade, a growing community of open-source investigative experts, environmentalists, academics and civil society groups have applied these methods to document war crimes, human rights violations and environmental degradation. These developments have created new opportunities for building accountability and transparency. The wealth of data on conflict-linked environmental damage has already been successfully leveraged to address acute and long-term environmental health risks and inform humanitarian response and post-conflict environmental assessments in Iraq, Syria and Ukraine. There are, however, larger questions on how to best make use of these data streams and information layers, and how to navigate the opportunities and limitations of these developments. This article will outline the new developments in this field and provide recommendations to ensure that data is used responsibly and effectively to strengthen accountability for environmental damages as a result of armed conflict.

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“…The Al-Draikich region is located in the east of the Tartus Governorate, where it is bordered by the Tartous city administrative region to the west, to the north by the Sheikh Badr region, to the south by the Safita region, and to the east by the administrative borders with the Hama Governorate. Geomorphologically, the elevation in the Al-Draikich area ranges from 171 m to 1110 m. It can be divided into two terrain sectors [27]: The first sector is hilly, whose height ranges from 171 m to 400 m, and the second terrain sector includes the mountainous area, whose height ranges from 400 m to 1110 m. The study area is subject to the mountainous Mediterranean climate: the Csa and Csb patterns (Köppen climate classification), where the average annual temperature reaches 16.6 • C with a relative humidity of 67.4% and the annual rainfall rate reaches 1152 mm [24]. The wild plant system in the study area consists particularly of Oaks, Acacia, Terebinths, Carob, Brutia Pine, and Cypress [15,28].…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a result of originality, diversity, high spatial density, socio-economic importance, and variation of natural geographical characteristics, forests are foremost among the environmental resources in the western region of Syria [24,25]. In this regard, more than 76% of the forest area in Syria is concentrated in its western region [24]. Forests in western Syria are acutely vulnerable to many manifestations of deterioration, especially high-frequency forest fire incidents.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

GIS-Based Frequency Ratio and Analytic Hierarchy Process for Forest Fire Susceptibility Mapping in the Western Region of Syria

et al. 2022

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Forest fires are among the most major causes of global ecosystem degradation. The integration of spatial information from various sources using statistical analyses in the GIS environment is an original tool in managing the spread of forest fires, which is one of the most significant natural hazards in the western region of Syria. Moreover, the western region of Syria is characterized by a significant lack of data to assess forest fire susceptibility as one of the most significant consequences of the current war. This study aimed to conduct a performance comparison of frequency ratio (FR) and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) techniques in delineating the spatial distribution of forest fire susceptibility in the Al-Draikich region, located in the western region of Syria. An inventory map of historical forest fire events was produced by spatially digitizing 32 fire incidents during the summers of 2019, 2020, and 2021. The forest fire events were divided into a training dataset with 70% (22 events) and a test dataset with 30% (10 events). Subsequently, FR and AHP techniques were used to associate the training data set with the 13 driving factors: slope, aspect, curvature, elevation, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Normalized Difference Moisture Index (NDMI), Topographic Wetness Index (TWI), rainfall, temperature, wind speed, TWI, and distance to settlements, rivers and roads. The accuracy of the maps resulting from the modeling process was checked using the validation dataset and receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves with the area under the curve (AUC). The FR method with AUC = 0.864 achieved the highest value compared to the AHP method with AUC = 0.838. The outcomes of this assessment provide constructive spatial insights for adopting forest management strategies in the study area, especially in light of the consequences of the current war.

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An Assessment of Forest Cover Change and Its Driving Forces in the Syrian Coastal Region during a Period of Conflict, 2010 to 2020

Cited by 13 publications

References 65 publications

Correlation between Land Use and the Transformation of Rural Housing Model in the Coastal Region of Syria

Correlation between Land Use and the Transformation of Rural Housing Model in the Coastal Region of Syria

Leveraging emerging technologies to enable environmental monitoring and accountability in conflict zones

GIS-Based Frequency Ratio and Analytic Hierarchy Process for Forest Fire Susceptibility Mapping in the Western Region of Syria

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