Socio-economic shocks, technogenic catastrophes, and armed conflicts often have drastic
impacts on local and regional food security through disruption of agricultural production and
food trade, reduced investments, and deterioration of land and infrastructure. Recently, more
research has focused on the effects of armed conflict on land systems, but still little is known
about the processes and outcomes of such events. Here we use the case of Syria and Iraq
and the seizure of land by the Islamic State (IS) since 2014 as an example of armed conflict …

… Recently, more research has focused on the effects of armed conflict on land systems,
but still little is known about the processes and outcomes of such events. Here we use the
case of Syria and Iraq and the seizure of land by the Islamic State (IS) since 2014 as an
example of armed conflict, where we investigate the effects on agricultural land use. We
apply a reproducible approach using 250 m satellite-based time-series data to quantify the
areas under cultivation from 2000 to 2015. Despite a common belief about widespread …