Evaluation of the effect of conflict on fire and GPP in Ukraine

Abstract: The war in Ukraine in 2022 has caused environmental damages on different scales which come with their own challenges. One of the factors that can cause environmental damage is vegetation fire. As earlier studies have concluded, in conflict regions the amount of vegetation fires can increase due to (forced) migration, change in agriculture and warfare tactics. Not only conflict can change fire occurrence but also the climate. Climate is predicted to change more dramatically in most regions of the world due to climate change. Ukraine has been already experiencing climate change in terms of for instance temperature increase by 1.5°C (average air temperature 9.3°C) over the last 30 years and the change in precipitation patterns. Moreover, Ukraine was invaded by Russia in February 2022. In this report the evaluation of fire (VIIRS Active Fire) and the change in GPP (MODIS Gross Primary Productivity) caused by armed conflict (UCDP) was done. It has been concluded even though fire and conflict are not correlated according to the spearman rank correlation analysis (ρ = 0.30, p > 0.05), the Bivariate Local Moran’s I Analysis shows a temporal and spatial correlation in the year 2020, 2021 and 2022. Furthermore, the fires during 2022 and 2020 are in comparison to 2021 not primarily on agricultural land but more spread out into forests. The analysis of the change in GPP during the years 2020, 2021 and 2022 show no specific pattern that can be linked to conflict, but the GPP has decreased from 2021 to 2022. The analysis is complemented with a discussion of the results.