{"title":"Land abandonment as an indicator of Ukrainian agricultural resilience during Russia's war against Ukraine","authors":"Sarah Hartman , Rachel Whiteside , Anatoliy Smaliychuk , Iryna Dronova","doi":"10.1016/j.apgeog.2025.103744","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Amidst the war, the resilience of Ukraine's export agriculture sector – among the top 10 worldwide and critical for food security – remains a global concern. Here we investigate agricultural resilience in eastern and southern Ukraine by testing the linkage of war and weather on satellite-assessed agricultural abandonment since 2011. We find that less than 0.05 % of the area has been fully abandoned since the war's start in 2014, with another 0.7 % since 2016, and 5 % in early abandonment since 2022. Meanwhile, 0.3 % of the area was fully abandoned then recultivated. Russian occupation is most strongly and positively associated with total abandonment followed by annual precipitation and annual agricultural extent since 2018. In 2023, uncultivated fields were ∼3 times more common in regions previously supplied by the Kakhovka Reservoir than outside those. This study demonstrates how integrating satellite imagery and open data can deepen our understanding of agricultural resilience and inform post-conflict recovery.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48396,"journal":{"name":"Applied Geography","volume":"183 ","pages":"Article 103744"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4000,"publicationDate":"2025-08-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Applied Geography","FirstCategoryId":"89","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0143622825002395","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"GEOGRAPHY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Amidst the war, the resilience of Ukraine's export agriculture sector – among the top 10 worldwide and critical for food security – remains a global concern. Here we investigate agricultural resilience in eastern and southern Ukraine by testing the linkage of war and weather on satellite-assessed agricultural abandonment since 2011. We find that less than 0.05 % of the area has been fully abandoned since the war's start in 2014, with another 0.7 % since 2016, and 5 % in early abandonment since 2022. Meanwhile, 0.3 % of the area was fully abandoned then recultivated. Russian occupation is most strongly and positively associated with total abandonment followed by annual precipitation and annual agricultural extent since 2018. In 2023, uncultivated fields were ∼3 times more common in regions previously supplied by the Kakhovka Reservoir than outside those. This study demonstrates how integrating satellite imagery and open data can deepen our understanding of agricultural resilience and inform post-conflict recovery.
期刊介绍:
Applied Geography is a journal devoted to the publication of research which utilizes geographic approaches (human, physical, nature-society and GIScience) to resolve human problems that have a spatial dimension. These problems may be related to the assessment, management and allocation of the world physical and/or human resources. The underlying rationale of the journal is that only through a clear understanding of the relevant societal, physical, and coupled natural-humans systems can we resolve such problems. Papers are invited on any theme involving the application of geographical theory and methodology in the resolution of human problems.