Agricultural abandonment and re-cultivation during and after the Chechen Wars in the northern Caucasus

Abstract

Armed conflicts are globally widespread and can strongly influence societies and the environment. However, where and how armed conflicts affect agricultural land-use is not well-understood. The Caucasus is a multi-ethnic region that experienced several conflicts shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, most notably the two Chechen Wars, raising the question how agricultural lands were changed. Here, we investigated how the distance to conflicts and conflict intensity, measured as the number of conflicts and the number of casualties, affected agricultural land abandonment and subsequent re-cultivation, by combining social, environmental and economic variables with remotely-sensed maps of agricultural change. We applied logistic and panel regression analyses for both the First Chechen War (1994-1996) and the Second Chechen War (1999-2009) and interacted conflict distance with conflict intensity measures. We found that agricultural lands closer to conflicts were more likely to be abandoned and less likely to be re-cultivated, with stronger effects for the First Chechen War. Conflict intensity was positively correlated with agricultural land abandonment, but the effects differed based on distance to conflicts and the intensity measure. We found little re-cultivation after the wars, despite abundant subsidies, indicating the potentially long-lasting effects of armed conflicts on land-use. Overall, we found a clear relationship between the Chechen Wars and agricultural land abandonment and re-cultivation, illustrating the strong effects of armed conflicts on agriculture.

Impact of Farmland Abandonment on Water Resources and Soil Conservation in Citrus Plantations in Eastern Spain

“…The use of developing countries as food producers, an increase in agricultural productivity, and the use of fossil fuels that reduce the need for animal traction and then for food production for them has reduced the need to use part of the agriculture land [27,28]. This abandonment has environmental consequences such as changes in water resources, vegetation cover and floristic composition, fauna, and soil properties, which will affect also earth system functioning as they will control the biogeochemical cycles [29][30][31][32][33]. Agriculture land abandonment is not a new issue from a social, economic, and environmental point of view [34], but what is new is the agriculture technology that was developed after War World II which has led to the widespread abandonment and contributed to the restoration of the vegetation and fauna and the reduction in the soil losses in many parts of the world [35,36].…”

Unraveling the Diversity of Trajectories and Drivers of Global Agricultural Land Abandonment

“…A separate study in this SI points toward a detrimental impact of the ethnic conflict in the Rakhine State of Myanmar and attributes the decline of cropping intensity and partial abandonment of paddy rice fields to this conflict [8]. The study of Huang contributes to the literature on the adverse effects of armed conflicts on land cover and land use [33][34][35][36] and underscores the role of triggers and shocks on agricultural systems, echoing findings showing that they often result in agricultural land abandonment [33,[37][38][39].…”

How did the suspended sediment load change in the North Caucasus during the Anthropocene?

“…At the same time, in the foothill zone, after a slight decline in agriculture in the 1990s, there was a gradual expansion of cultivated land area (Buchner et al, 2020). In particular, the number of orchards and the area under cultivation of raw crops has been increasing during the last decades (Yin et al, 2019). In addition, the creation of a network of small ponds and reservoirs in the foothill zone contributes to the redeposition of sediments coming from slopes into permanent streams.…”