Armed conflict and land-use changes: Insights from Iraq-Iran war in Zagros forests

The role of armed conflicts on land use/cover changes (LUCC), especially in Zagros forests of Iran, remains ambiguous after 30 years of the Iraq-Iran war. Our goal in this study was to assess LUCC in Sardasht related to the Iraq-Iran war in a 22 year period (1976–1998). LUCC of Sardasht city was evaluated using Landsat satellite image time series of MSS and TM data. We classified multi-temporal Landsat imagery using Random Forest classifier, then Land Change Modeler (LCM) was used to change detection and analysis. Change detection results showed that during 1976–1998, 5363.37 ha of forest areas were declined and converted to the croplands, rangelands and built-up areas. The highest decrease of forest areas was in periods of before (1976–1984) and after the war (1988–1993 and 1993–1998), 1331, 1734, and 2066 ha, respectively. While, during the war (1984–1988), only 54 ha decrease has taken place in forest lands of Sardasht. Also, increasing in other land uses during this period was significantly less than other periods. Calculation of annual rate of deforestation showed that the period of 1993–1998, has the highest rate of degradation in forest areas with a rate of −0.45%. While, during and before the war, it was −0.01% and − 0.20%, respectively. With the start of the war, residents of the region migrated to safe areas. The result of this migration was reducing forest conversion to other land uses. Trends in deforestation and forest degradation intensified after the end of the war. The causes of this destruction were destroying regulatory and control infrastructure on forests and natural resources in addition to the return of the inhabitants and an increase in demand for food and agricultural development. Moreover, after the war, the attention of the government was towards supplying the needs of human societies. Therefore, not enough attention was paid to monitoring and controlling over the degradation of natural resources. It is therefore necessary to reduce residents' dependence on natural resources through accurate and detailed planning and to increase their participation in forest conservation. In this regard, conservation programs should be continued strongly.