Eyes in the sky on Tigray - Monitoring the impact of armed conflict on cultivated land using satellite imagery in Ethiopia

Abstract

The war in Tigray, Ethiopia has displaced millions of people and created a humanitarian crisis. However, the impacts of the conflict on cultivated land area and local food production remains poorly quantified, hindering aid efforts. We used Sentinel-2 satellite imagery and developed multiple cultivation detection criteria based on Normalized Difference Vegetation Index time series validated using field observations from 2021 and 2022. Significant net losses of well cultivated land in highland croplands (elevation ≥ 1200 m) were observed between 2019/20 (pre-war) and 2021 (in-war), with greater losses in areas with higher density of conflict incidents. Sub-regions with high estimated loss of well cultivated land also exhibited high numbers of internally displaced people (IDP), consistent with a causal effect of the conflict on land abandonment. Our study estimated that the kilocalories lost due to abandonment of croplands (excluding Western Tigray zone) could have supported about 1.2 times the recorded IDPs in the region.