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

Mohamed Ali Mohamed

doi:10.3390/land10020191

Abstract

In Syria, 76% of the forests are located in the Syrian coast region. This region is witnessing a rapid depletion of forest cover during the conflict that broke out in mid-2011. To date, there have been no studies providing accurate, reliable, and comprehensive data on the qualitative and quantitative aspects of forest change dynamics and the underlying drivers behind this change. In this study, changes in the dynamics of forest cover and its density between 2010 and 2020 were detected and analyzed using multi-temporal Landsat images. This study also analyzed the relationship between changes in forest cover and selected physical and socio-demographic variables associated with the drivers of change. The results revealed that the study area witnessed a significant decrease in the total forest area (31,116.0 ha, 24.3%) accompanied by a considerable decrease in density, as the area of dense forests decreased by 11,778.0 ha (9.2%) between 2010 and 2020. The change in forest cover was driven by a variety of different factors related to the conflict. The main drivers were changes in economic and social activities, extensive exploitation of forest resources, frequent forest fires, and weakness of state institutions in managing natural resources and environmental development. Forest loss was also linked to the expansion of cultivated area, increase in population and urban area. Fluctuating climatic conditions are not a major driver of forest cover dynamics in the study area. This decrease in forest area and density reflects sharp shifts in the natural environment during the study period. In the foreseeable future, it is not possible to determine whether the changes in forest cover and its density will be permanent or temporary. Monitoring changes in forest cover and understanding the driving forces behind this change provides quantitative and qualitative information to improve planning and decision-making. The results of this study may draw the attention of decision-makers to take immediate actions and identify areas of initial intervention to protect current the forests of the Syrian coast region from loss and degradation, as well as develop policies for the sustainable management of forest resources in the long term.

Highlights

Forests represent a main natural resource and provide many ecological, economic, and societal benefits, including conservation of biological and genetic diversity, contributions to nutrient cycling, soil erosion mitigation, air filtration, climate regulation, and the provisioning of food, fiber, and fuel [1,2,3,4,5,6]
Deforestation in the world due to influence of human activity goes back many centuries, but the severe and rapid depletion of forests and their degradation in recent decades and the resulting significant environmental, social and economic consequences have led to an increase in global interest in monitoring and estimating areas covered by forests in different parts of the world [4,7,8,9]
To improve detection of changes in forest cover during the classification, Landsat images captured in the dry season were chosen because the increase in vegetative surface cover in the growing season may lead to spectral confusion, which creates a complication in distinguishing among the various land use categories on the classified images [7,15], especially since the study area contains several tree crops that are planted on the terraced hillsides [51]

Summary

Introduction

Forests represent a main natural resource and provide many ecological, economic, and societal benefits, including conservation of biological and genetic diversity, contributions to nutrient cycling, soil erosion mitigation, air filtration, climate regulation, and the provisioning of food, fiber, and fuel [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Deforestation in the world due to influence of human activity goes back many centuries, but the severe and rapid depletion of forests and their degradation in recent decades and the resulting significant environmental, social and economic consequences have led to an increase in global interest in monitoring and estimating areas covered by forests in different parts of the world [4,7,8,9]. There has been a decline in forest cover in arid and semi-arid regions at a faster rate than in tropical forests [3,12] This can be attributed to increased human pressures on forests such as overexploitation, urbanization, agricultural expansion, overgrazing, as well as variability in climate and escalating social unrest [3,9,13]. This has various consequences such as changes in the local and regional climate and negative impacts on the livelihood of the population in these areas inhabited by more than one billion people [8,15]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion