Influence of War on the Forest Plantations of the Left Bank Kherson Region

Abstract

Mapping burnt areas of forest plantations is needed to understand the scale of the violation and plan the post-fire activities to save the biggest artificially made forest in the world. The military actions due to the ongoing war in Ukraine complicate the monitoring by traditional and standard methods. Given the complexities of military actions, our study during this period is heavily reliant on remote sensing, marking a significant shift from traditional methods. The article is dedicated to the impact of hostilities resulting from Russian armed aggression against Ukraine on the state of forest plantations and shelterbelts of the left bank Kherson region. The research was conducted using images of Sentinel-2 L2A satellite, focusing on the study of forest burnt areas from the beginning of hostilities on the territory of the occupied Kherson region in February 2022 to March 2024. The pre-war year 2021 was used as a benchmark for comparing the state of forest plantations. Satellite images were used to generate the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Normalized Burn ratio (NBR) index to determine and monitor forest cover changes and burnt areas in forest plantations as a result of hostilities on the research territory using ArcGIS Pro. The area of study is 44 657 hectares, and the burnt area of Oleshky forest in March 2024 was 7 833 hectares (17.5 %). The conducted studies have proved the critical situation with forest plantations on the left bank of the Dnipro River within the Kherson region. This situation necessitates immediate and collaborative intervention to save the ecosystem of Oleshky forest.