Armed-conflict, extractivism, and environmental degradation : remote sensing and discourse analysis from Kurdish territories
Dinc, Pinar LU
; Sardar, Purnendu
LU
and Ayvazyan, Milena
(2026)
In Environmental Research Letters
- Abstract
- Environmental destruction and extractivism are increasingly central to contemporary armed conflicts. Yet scholarship has paid limited attention to how these processes reshape landscapes over time and become embedded within strategies of war, governance, and resource control. This article examines the intersection of armed conflict, extractivism, and environmental change in Kurdish-dominant areas of the Middle East through a comparative study of Afrin in Syria and Şırnak in Turkey between 2017 and 2024. Both regions have experienced intense militarization, environmental destruction, and expanding resource extraction, making them critical cases for understanding war-driven landscape transformation. The study combines satellite-based land-use... (More)
- Environmental destruction and extractivism are increasingly central to contemporary armed conflicts. Yet scholarship has paid limited attention to how these processes reshape landscapes over time and become embedded within strategies of war, governance, and resource control. This article examines the intersection of armed conflict, extractivism, and environmental change in Kurdish-dominant areas of the Middle East through a comparative study of Afrin in Syria and Şırnak in Turkey between 2017 and 2024. Both regions have experienced intense militarization, environmental destruction, and expanding resource extraction, making them critical cases for understanding war-driven landscape transformation. The study combines satellite-based land-use and land-cover change analysis with qualitative analysis of official state discourse. High-resolution multispectral satellite imagery is used to detect vegetation loss and land-use transitions, while continuous time-series change detection distinguishes persistent transformation from seasonal variation. This analysis is complemented by a systematic examination of public statements, parliamentary records, and official communications to assess how environmental change is narrated and justified. The results reveal substantial and spatially uneven vegetation loss across both cases. In Afrin, tree-crop cover declined by approximately 19.5% at its lowest point, before partially recovering in 2024, indicating a fluctuating trajectory. In Şırnak, vegetation degradation is concentrated in sparsely vegetated zones alongside a more than fourfold expansion of mining areas. Across both regions, approximately 28 000 hectares of vegetation loss were detected. The findings demonstrate that environmental destruction in war operates both as a material process and a strategy of governance, legitimized through intertwined security, moral, and development narratives. By combining satellite-based environmental monitoring with discourse analysis, the study shows how environmental transformation becomes embedded within broader projects of territorial control and resource extraction. The study contributes to debates on political ecology, extractivism, environmental governance, and sustainability in war-affected landscapes. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/9dd66011-2271-4ed1-8b58-80093bab2823
- author
- Dinc, Pinar
LU
; Sardar, Purnendu
LU
and Ayvazyan, Milena
- organization
- publishing date
- 2026-09-21
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- extractivism, conflict, environment, olive trees, Kurds, Middle East
- in
- Environmental Research Letters
- publisher
- IOP Publishing
- ISSN
- 1748-9326
- DOI
- 10.1088/1748-9326/aeaa71
- project
- ECO-Syria: Exploring Conflict-Environment Interactions for Sustainable Development and Conservation
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 9dd66011-2271-4ed1-8b58-80093bab2823
- date added to LUP
- 2026-09-29 09:42:21
- date last changed
- 2026-10-01 10:17:06
@article{9dd66011-2271-4ed1-8b58-80093bab2823,
abstract = {{Environmental destruction and extractivism are increasingly central to contemporary armed conflicts. Yet scholarship has paid limited attention to how these processes reshape landscapes over time and become embedded within strategies of war, governance, and resource control. This article examines the intersection of armed conflict, extractivism, and environmental change in Kurdish-dominant areas of the Middle East through a comparative study of Afrin in Syria and Şırnak in Turkey between 2017 and 2024. Both regions have experienced intense militarization, environmental destruction, and expanding resource extraction, making them critical cases for understanding war-driven landscape transformation. The study combines satellite-based land-use and land-cover change analysis with qualitative analysis of official state discourse. High-resolution multispectral satellite imagery is used to detect vegetation loss and land-use transitions, while continuous time-series change detection distinguishes persistent transformation from seasonal variation. This analysis is complemented by a systematic examination of public statements, parliamentary records, and official communications to assess how environmental change is narrated and justified. The results reveal substantial and spatially uneven vegetation loss across both cases. In Afrin, tree-crop cover declined by approximately 19.5% at its lowest point, before partially recovering in 2024, indicating a fluctuating trajectory. In Şırnak, vegetation degradation is concentrated in sparsely vegetated zones alongside a more than fourfold expansion of mining areas. Across both regions, approximately 28 000 hectares of vegetation loss were detected. The findings demonstrate that environmental destruction in war operates both as a material process and a strategy of governance, legitimized through intertwined security, moral, and development narratives. By combining satellite-based environmental monitoring with discourse analysis, the study shows how environmental transformation becomes embedded within broader projects of territorial control and resource extraction. The study contributes to debates on political ecology, extractivism, environmental governance, and sustainability in war-affected landscapes.}},
author = {{Dinc, Pinar and Sardar, Purnendu and Ayvazyan, Milena}},
issn = {{1748-9326}},
keywords = {{extractivism; conflict; environment; olive trees; Kurds; Middle East}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{09}},
publisher = {{IOP Publishing}},
series = {{Environmental Research Letters}},
title = {{Armed-conflict, extractivism, and environmental degradation : remote sensing and discourse analysis from Kurdish territories}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aeaa71}},
doi = {{10.1088/1748-9326/aeaa71}},
year = {{2026}},
}