Governance, war, and rain: Statistical analysis to evaluate agricultural dynamics in Northern Syria

Sueco. In the conflict zone of Northern Syria, agriculture is the livelihood of a major part of the population. Nevertheless, the reasons for changes in agricultural land are manyfold. This paper looks at two areas in North Syria which have been under Syrian governance until the Syrian Civil War (2011) and were contested territory until 2016. Since then, the Rojava area has been governed by the PYD, a Kurdish political party advocating social ecology and promoting the diversification of crops. The Euphrates Shield, in contrast, is controlled by Syrian oppositional forces backed by Turkey, where most of the cropland consists of monocultures of wheat. By looking at cropland extent in these two areas over a 22-year timespan (2000 – 2022), this paper aims to study changes in cropland extent to political governance, conflict, and precipitation. The data for this project was derived from a model that classifies satellite images to different land use classes using plant phenology. Through statistical analyses, cropland extent is related to conflict events, differences in governance, and precipitation data. No significant correlation between governance and cropland extent was found. Precipitation is found to influence only Rojava. It was argued that this could be due to the inability to irrigate in the area, while it is possible in the Euphrates Shield through water supplies from Turkey. As for conflicts, it is found that both areas are affected by events such as the Arab Spring and the Civil War. Only the Euphrates Shield area is found to be influenced by the Turkish military operation in 2016 and to have a statistically significant difference in land use comparing pre-conflict years (2000 – 2011) with conflict years (2011 – 2022).