Jan Nyssen

• PhD, Physical Geography
• Professor (Em. Senior Full Professor) at Ghent University

This Special Issue of Land Degradation and Development addresses the past and the future of land management in Africa with a focus on northern Ethiopia. How did the status of soils and forests change over the last century? How does this impact people's livelihoods? In the late 19th century, gullies were already present in northern Ethiopia, though...

The aerial photographs (APs) acquired by the Istituto Geografico Militare (IGM) in the period of the Italian occupation of Ethiopia (1935-1941) have recently been discovered, scanned and organised. Until recently, the oldest APs of the country that were available had been taken in the period 1958-1964. The APs over Ethiopia in 1935-1941 consist of...

Although thousands of gabion check dams have been installed to control gully erosion in Ethiopia, several challenges still remain, such as the issue of gabion failure in ephemeral streams with coarse bed load, which abrades at the chute step. As an alternative for gabion check dams in torrents with coarse bed load, boulder-faced log dams were conce...

Lindenleaf sage (Salvia tiliifolia Vahl) is an annual plant native to Mesoamerica that thrives in tropical, seasonally dry environments. It was introduced to Ethiopia in the late 20th century and made its way to the Tembien highlands in Tigray in 2018. With its many branching stems and profusion of seeds, this upright pioneer plant becomes dominant...

A heavy armed conflict erupted in Tigray region of Ethiopia in 2020, and the crisis continued up to 2022. This study investigates the impacts of this crisis on the status of natural resources and soil and water conservation (SWC) efforts. We collected primary data through observations, measurements, interviews and group discussions during the warti...

This series of Working Papers seeks to highlight fruit landraces (native varieties) in Tigray (northern Ethiopia) in their landscape and phytogeographical context. A literature search, using Scopus (title, abstract, key words) and Scholar Google (title) yielded only four publications about bananas in Ethiopia (one agronomic study and three about pa...

Tree heath (Erica arborea L.) is a rare and endangered native tree species that is facing an incessant population decline due to climatic and anthropogenic factors. The objective of this study was to analyse the impacts of future climate change on the potential distribution of the species in the alpine areas of Tigrai (Ethiopia). A species distribu...

Rainfall distribution over the horn of Africa is notably influenced by the region's complex topography and circulation patterns, presenting significant challenges for water-resource management and agricultural practices. Additionally, reliable and widespread climate observations are lacking in this area. High-resolution climate models, however, may...

Soil moisture data is crucial for enhancing drought monitoring, optimizing water management, refining irrigation schedules, forecasting floods, and understanding climate change impacts. Despite the existence of long-term global satellite and reanalysis products, the performance of global satellite products in Ethiopia is underexplored, highlighting...

The new salvia weed that invades farmlands and rangelands in Tigray, formally called Salvia tiliifolia, is an annual plant native to Mexico and surroundings. It thrives in tropical, seasonally dry environments. It was introduced to Ethiopia in the late 20th century and made its way to Tigray after 2010. With its many branching stems and profusion o...

In this database, we attempt to document the widespread involvement of Ethiopian public universities in the war in Tigray. In general, Ethiopian universities have provided financial and material support to the Ethiopian army and allied forces, practiced discrimination of their students and staff members of Tigrayan origin, including harassment and...

Salvia tiliifolia Vahl is an annual plant native to Mesoamerica that thrives in tropical, seasonally dry environments. It was introduced to Ethiopia in the late 20th century and made its way to the Tembien mountains in Tigray in 2018. With its many branching stems and profusion of seeds, this upright pioneer plant becomes dominant in the herbaceous...

Emnet, ወዲ ዓዲና, In October 2020, you arrived from Mekelle in Tigray to begin a PhD study on rainfall variability in Ethiopia, at the very local scale, and the implications for farmers’ smallholder agriculture in the rugged mountain landscape. Earlier on, in January, you had already started setting up monitoring installations all around the Dogu’a...

ሓያል ኣምበጣ ግራትካ በሊዑስ ኣብ ደጎልካ ይሰፍር:: --------------- A locust swarm that ravaged your crops camps in your backyard. ------------Abstract: This study investigates the impact of the Tigray war on agricultural activities in the region during the 2021 cropping season. The conflict, beginning in late 2020 amidst a desert locust infestation, resulting in a...

Soil moisture data is crucial for enhancing drought monitoring, optimizing water management, refining irrigation schedules, forecasting floods, and understanding climate change impacts. Despite the existence of long-term global satellite and reanalysis products, the performance of global satellite products in Ethiopia is underexplored, highlighting...

In this letter, we point out three major errors in the article by Kassaw and Veneranda (2024) in Cogent Social Sciences: (1) they characterise scientific research that contradicts their position as coming from the "Tigray elite," (2) they favour individually chosen single maps over a meta analysis of all historical maps, and (3) they deny or even s...

Following two years of combat, blockade, and power outage, the Tigray war in northern Ethiopia has had a substantial negative impact on the environment (2020–2022). This photographic dataset, part of a rare study carried out by the same research team before and after a war, compares 26-year legacy data on land degradation, with post-war observation...

The Tigray war in northern Ethiopia has had significant environmental effects on the land, after two years of fighting, blockade and power outage (2020-2022). This study contrasts post-war observations at 56 sites in Tigray’s Dogu’a Tembien district with 26-year legacy data on land degradation, a rare study conducted by the same research team befor...

Spatially distributed water balance model WetSpass was chosen to estimate spatial and temporal recharge and evapotranspiration of Mt. Guna. Field based data and remote sensing data were used to successfully run WetSpass Model. The observed meteorological input data were corrected to minimize topographical effect by developing a regression equation,...

This presentation discusses the little-known deposits of calcareous tuff in obsequent rivulets draining the eastern edge of the Hesbaye Plateau. Hollogne-aux-Pierres has been known for its remarkable tufa deposits. Nowadays, the tufa (located in the municipal park) is inactive. Before the stream (the Mahai) was buried in a culvert, there were activ...

Armed conflicts can lead to environmental degradation, threatening the basis of people’s livelihoods and wellbeing. Identifying areas where conflicts drive environmental degradation is important for designing effective recovery strategies, but this is inherently challenging in insecure contexts. We here use a case study in Tigray, Ethiopia, to illu...

The literature on the relationship between ‘people’ and ‘parks’ underreports the impact of nature conservation on women. While researching the influence of Nechisar National Park in Ethiopia on the livelihoods of local people, we discovered a troubling pattern of violence against women. In this paper, we investigate gendered access to natural resou...

Sediment connectivity indexes serve as a diagnostic tool for investigating the overall hydro-geomorphological functioning. The primary factors influencing sediment connectivity are rainfall and changes in land cover. For the period 1995–2016, we investigated changes in sediment connectivity in two ca.1000 km² catchments located in the Ethiopian Hig...

Prickly pear (Opuntia ficus-indica) is a multipurpose plant in drylands. The objective of this study was to synthesize the livelihood benefits, survival threats and management of cactus pear in Tigray (Ethiopia). Metadata were generated from 63 available articles. Accidental interviews (n = 35) and frequent field observations were also used to subs...

Information on the spawning migration and habitat use of migratory fish is critical to protect and restore threatened or endangered populations. Twenty-two individuals of three species, namely Labeobarbus platydorsus, L. megastoma, and L. truttiformis, were implanted with radio tags to study their spawning migration in the Gumara River and its trib...

HARDCOVER AND EBOOK AVAILABLE THROUGH AMAZON - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D92CFK7C --- The Tigray region in Ethiopia faced a catastrophic humanitarian situation, with the Aksum massacre and others causing widespread disarray. The situation was exacerbated by the ethnic cleansing in Western Tigray. The situation was documented in the Atlas of the...

In Chapter 35 of his “History of Ethiopia”, which was published in Tigrinya around 1895, Fesseha Giyorgis Abyezgi wrote of warfare, massacres and starvation. The Shewan army, which pertained to central Ethiopia and was led by Emperor Menilek, swept over the northern Tigray frontiers.

The war in Tigray, Ethiopia has triggered a massive humanitarian crisis, displacing millions. Yet, the impact on cultivated land and local food production remains poorly understood, impeding effective aid. Leveraging Sentinel-2 satellite imagery and a decision tree algorithm with Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) time series, we develop...

This piece intends to point out some serious factual errors and clarify scientific misconduct found in the article "Gender-based violence in the context of armed conflict in Northern Ethiopia" by Tewabe et al. [1], published in Conflict and Health. Our critical analysis identified several substantive concerns that undermine the scientific credibili...

This piece intends to point out some serious factual errors and clarify scientific misconduct found in the article "Gender-based violence in the context of armed conflict in Northern Ethiopia" by Tewabe et al. (2024), published in Conflict and Health. Our critical analysis identified several substantive concerns that undermine the scientific credib...

A comprehensive evaluation of satellite-based and reanalysis soil moisture products over the upper Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia Addis A. Alaminie, Sofie Annys, Jan Nyssen, Mark R. Jury, Giriraj Amarnath, Muluneh A. Mekonnen, Seifu A. Tilahun • SMAP and SMOS emerge as the most accurate, with SMOS notably excelling in spatial representation and remarkab...

La région biogéographique afro-montagnarde comprend des espèces végétales trouvées dans les hautes terres d'Afrique. Les températures dans ces régions sont comparables à celles rencontrées dans les climats tempérés, le contraste de température majeur étant entre jour et nuit. Le massif du Dogu'a Tembien dans le Tigray est une « île du ciel », qui a...

The Afromontane biogeographic region includes plant species found in Africa's highlands. Temperatures in these regions are comparable to those encountered in temperate climates, with the major temperature contrast being between day and night. The Dogu'a Tembien massif in Tigray is a ‘sky island’, that served as model for the establishment of a mode...

Plant available soil moisture and its spatial variability is among the most important limiting factors for crop and livestock productivity in semi-arid Ethiopia. The objectives of this study were therefore: 1) to measure the effects of land use and slope gradient on spatial variability of topsoil moisture content. 2) to analyze the variability of t...

The soils of the high-elevation mountains along the East African Rift Valley are poorly understood. Assessing the potential of soils for agriculture, climate change mitigation, and environmental functioning requires insight into how they relate to the factors influencing soil formation. Between 3000 and 4120 m a.s.l., 85 soil profiles of Mount Guna...

Wars have serious negative effects on the total environment. This study reviews 193 case studies worldwide in order to better understand these impacts and their potential management before, during and after war. The synthesis of the evidence shows that military actions damage landscape resources. Aerial bombings have great negative impacts by damag...

The establishment of wind-energy resources in Ethiopia has seen tremendous growth in the past few years. Ethiopia, however, features a complex topography rendering a detailed wind-resource assessment essential. This requires detailed modeling and a reliable observational dataset for validation. In this study, we compare the ability of a regional cl...

Topoclimate, orographically enhanced rain on windward slopes and leeward rain shadows, control rainfall variability in tropical mountains. Such variability may cause a substantial societal impact in populated highlands such as in Ethiopia. This study aims at understanding the rainfall diurnal cycle and the orographic driving factors over the Ethiop...

Appropriate use of agricultural technologies and diversifying the farming activities is critical to addressing food security problems in Africa, including Ethiopia. The country is experimenting with the new Agricultural Innovation System (AIS) approach alongside the well-established Transfer of Technology (ToT) approach. This paper analyzes the gap...

Wars have multifaceted effects on small-scale farming systems. Due to the paucity of field data, researchers take remotely sensed data as the best option to monitor and map changes in farming systems in relation to war. However, unless supported by ground data, such an approach hardly considers the diversity in local conditions as experienced by lo...

In recent years, armed conflicts are globally on the rise, causing drastic human and environmental harm. The Tigray war is one of the recent violent conflicts that has abruptly reversed decades of ecosystem restoration efforts. Although field-based investigation into the level of damage is complicated by access and safety issues, recent advances in...

In November 2020, war erupted in Tigray, N. Ethiopia. With our long-term insight in Tigray’s geography, we involved in monitoring and mapping landscapes in war. We first created an “Atlas of the Humanitarian Situation” to document and map the conditions in which approx. 6 million Tigrayans found themselves, with 27 original maps. AGRICULTURAL ACTIV...

While the Ethiopian highlands constitute over 90% of the population and total area suitable for agriculture, livelihood of 66% of the population depends on subsistence rainfed agriculture. Small rainfall variability could therefore cause massive economic loss. This work aims at understanding the sub daily distribution of average and extreme summer...

The soils of the high-altitude mountains along the East African Rift Valley are poorly understood. Understanding the potential of soils for agriculture, climate change mitigation, and environmental functioning necessitates an understanding of their relationship to soil-forming factors. Therefore, this study focuses on the volcanic soils of Mount Gu...

In recent years, armed conflicts are globally on the rise, causing drastic human and environmental harm. The Tigray war in Ethiopia is one of the recent violent conflicts that has abruptly reversed decades of ecosystem restoration efforts. This paper analyzes changes in woody vegetation cover during the period of armed conflict (2020–2022) using re...

Dissertations have come under scrutiny because decision-makers frequently use their academic credentials to increase their national and international credibility. It would have been challenging for the Nobel Peace Prize committee to have given Colonel Abiy Ahmed the honor instead of Doctor Abiy Ahmed. Soon after, the Tigray War and its related war...

In most water balance studies, basins are considered closed systems; however, interbasin groundwater flow (IGF), which is an unaccounted hydrological component in most studies, could occur at basin boundaries where there is a hydraulic gradient and appropriate permeability of the geologic formations. IGF is a complex hydrogeological process and hid...

Ecosystem services (ES) are the connection between nature and society, and are essential for the well-being of local communities that depend on them. In Ethiopia, church forests and the surrounding agricultural matrix supply numerous ES. However, the ES delivered by both land use types have not yet been assessed simultaneously. Here we surveyed bot...

The geographical configuration of northwest Ethiopia has changed often and significantly during the previous four centuries, according to a meta-analysis of historical maps. Boundary lines of languages in use and of territorial control were reported on the Main Map. Sixty-six coeval historical maps depict the territorial control of Western Tigray,...

This project focuses on the rural livelihoods in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, which heavily relies on small-scale subsistence farming. However, sustainable resource management is hindered by limited resources, capacity, climate disruptions, and change. This leads to low agricultural productivity and high food insecurity. Despite progress...

Pesticide use has increased in the Lake Tana sub-basin due to increased agricultural activity, potentially endangering nontargeted organisms. To assess its potential impact on fish health and fish-consuming human populations, pesticide concentrations in the fillet and liver tissue of three fish species, namely Labeobarbus megastoma, Labeobarbus tsa...

During the 2021 conflict in Tigray (north Ethiopia) crop cultivation has been hampered by warfare. Oxen have been looted and killed, farm inputs and tools destroyed by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers. Farmers felt vulnerable out in the open with their oxen. To produce, farmers evaluated risks involved with ploughing and organised lookouts. Overall,...

There is a wide array of historical maps and records which jointly reveal that the territorial organisation of northern Ethiopia has tremendously changed over the last four centuries. Historical maps representing the Western Zone of the Tigray Region (Welkait and adjacent districts, Fig. 1) have been retrieved from well-established repositories. On...

En cause : des détournements de l’aide alimentaire. Conséquence dramatique, des milliers de personnes meurent de faim. Mais les mesures doivent cibler les coupables, pas les victimes. IN ENGLISH What it's all about: misappropriation of food aid. As a dramatic consequence, thousands of people are dying of hunger. But measures must target the perpet...

READ THE ARTICLE HERE ---> https://roape.net/2023/06/15/a-response-to-the-pretoria-agreement-mere-cessation-of-hostilities-or-heralding-a-new-era-in-ethiopia/ In a response to Fana Gebresenbet and Yonas Tariku’s recent Debate piece in ROAPE’s journal, ‘The Pretoria Agreement: Mere cessation of hostilities or heralding a new era in Ethiopia?’ asser...

READ THE ARTICLE AT: https://theconversation.com/ethiopia-how-a-lucky-village-in-tigray-survived-the-devastating-war-205023 _______________________ The war waged by the Ethiopian Federal Government and Eritrea against the Tigray regional government, which lasted from November 2020 to November 2022, caused massive devastation. Multiple war crimes we...

Two professors of Addis Ababa University (AAU) have stated that the maps produced in our publication “Western Tigray in 109 historical and 32 ethno-linguistic maps (1607-2014)” (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/360630783_Western_Tigray_in_109_historical_and_32_ethno-linguistic_maps_1607-2014) have been “doctored”. On 13 April, the Andafta Y...

The Ethiopian highlands are home to more than 90% of the Ethiopian population and constitute for 90% of total area suitable for agriculture (Hurni et al., 2010). The livelihood of 66% of Ethiopia's population depends on subsistence agriculture, mostly rainfed. Little rainfall variability can therefore cause massive economic loss for farmers reliant...

On November 4th, 2020 a deadly civil war broke out in Tigray, Ethiopia displacing close to 2 million people internally and more than 48,000 refugees in neighboring Sudan by August 2021[1]. Given agriculture is the livelihood of millions of people in Tigray, evaluation of the conflict’s impact on cultivated land and the consequent crop production is...

Internationally, the work of anthropologist Eike Haberland in the mid 20th C. has remained under the radar, as it was published in German. Here we translate some snippets of one of his books, as a teaser. With the availability and quality of automatic translations, such works become increasingly accessible. Read it here: https://tghat.com/2023/04/1...

Ever since Abiy Ahmed was awarded his PhD degree at the Institute of Peace and Security Studies (IPSS) at Addis Ababa University in 2017, questions have been asked about whether this was a legitimate doctorate. This post brings evidence for huge similarities with earlier works. READ IT HERE: https://sites.tufts.edu/reinventingpeace/2023/04/12/plag...

A supplementary data for the article https://doi.org/10.1080/02723646.2018.1458577

The prestige of having an advanced degree is quite high in Ethiopia, and as a result, the temptation for shortcuts may be strong. We documented three instances of possible MSc thesis plagiarism at Addis Abeba University (AAU): Abraham Belay (2007), Takele Uma (2014), and Dagmawit Moges (2019), all of whom are (or were until recently) ministers in t...

De geografie van oorlogsmisdaden, humanitaire crisis en bijhorende slechte oogsten in Tigray (Noord-Ethiopië) --- The geography of war crimes, humanitarian crisis and associated poor harvests in Tigray (northern Ethiopia) https://alumnidag.ugent.be/nl-be/programma/activiteiten/de-geografie-van-oorlogsmisdaden-humanitaire-crisis-en-bijhorende-slecht...

EDITOR's NOTE: The people of Tigray owe their survival to no-one but themselves. This remarkable report is by a multi-author team from the universities of Mekelle and Ghent. It focuses on the small village of Dabba Selama and tells this story. As Tigray emerges from its imposed isolation and silence, this is one tale among many. In this case it’s a...

The war in Tigray, Ethiopia has displaced millions of people and created a humanitarian crisis. However, the impacts of the conflict on cultivated land area and local food production remains poorly quantified, hindering aid efforts. We used Sentinel-2 satellite imagery and developed multiple cultivation detection criteria based on Normalized Differ...

In the Ethiopian Upper Blue Nile Basin, like in other regions in the world, agricultural productivity is declining due to water scarcity owing to longer dry seasons coupled with soil acidity−induced fertility problems. Wheat is one of the major food security crops in Ethiopia but its productivity is reduced due to water scarcity, especially during...

Planning and management of water resources is crucial to enhance agricultural productivity and ensure food security in drylands. For this, adaptable and reliable runoff prediction models are urgently needed to support water harvesting and irrigation development. In this study we explored the potential of the runoff Curve Number (CN) method to estim...

Owing to growing uncontrolled land-use change and urban expansion, farmers in urban fringes are struggling to sustain their livelihood. Farmers have been expressing their dissatisfaction at different times. This study analyzes the stakeholders’ perspectives on the causes and outcomes of farmers’ resistance to land-use change and urban expansion pro...

Tigray's wartime landscape-a regional geographical study in the Tembien highlands (HANDOUT) Highlights • We made harrowing observations that are consistent with our past findings on failing crop yields, famine, and death toll in the Tigray war. • Many major findings hold true across the ten studied settlements and their surroundings. • In terms of...

Erosion of agricultural land endangers the livelihood of millions of people who depend on natural resources. Soil and water conservation practices (SWCP) are intended to reduce runoff production and erosion. Understanding surface runoff drivers are crucial for the effective design and implementation of SWCPs. We present field observations of comple...

• With at least 600,000 dead, the civil war in Ethiopia is one of the bloodiest conflicts of the 21st century, surpassing Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine. A group of Belgian geographers tried to tell the world what is happening in the country. • Today, the famine in the region continues, part of the territory is still occupied by Eritrean troops, wh...

I was sailing through the waters of good wars, those of television, when I read in “El País” the following headline: “Ethiopia, the deadliest war of the century: 600,000 civilians killed in two years”. The reader is perhaps unaware that this genocide takes place in a region called Tigray, one more name to add to the words whose syllables mean crime...

On Tuesday 22 June 2021, the Ethiopian Air Force targeted the market place of Addilal in Tigray's Gheralta district (north Ethiopia). Fortunately, the bomb missed the market, but it fell on the school compound. There were no students in school, as all schools in Tigray are closed since 2020. Damages to the school buildings were considerable. Up to...

English translation of an article in Corriere della Sera https://www.corriere.it/opinioni/23_gennaio_27/etiopia-profezia-jan-nyssen-4a6afddc-9e6a-11ed-b818-21dee78ee2f7.shtml ------------------------ The “prophecy” is in the end of the article: «They wanted - Nyssen said - to convert Tigray into a new Biafra. Depriving the civilian population o...

The civil war in Ethiopia has resulted in the death of some 600,000 civilians, a staggering estimate for a conflict that has lasted only two years and has been focused on a single region, Tigray, of around six million inhabitants. However, in the absence of official counts, the calculations of the European Union, international organizations and exp...

In early November 2020, after months of growing political tensions, an armed conflict emerged between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray regional government. Numerous war crimes were committed and since July 2021, there has been a medieval siege of Tigray, hindering all humanitarian access. Our calculations of the total number of civilian deat...

Despite many years of establishment of exclosures in the semi-arid environments of north Ethiopia for rehabilitation of degraded areas, its effectiveness is constrained by water deficit. There is lack of empirical data on the response of vegetation to additional water (spate irrigation) application. This study was aimed to evaluate the effects of s...

In Ethiopia, the historical maps of Western Tigray are under scrutiny. Western Tigray is not only notable for the multiple war crimes committed there during the Tigray War, but is also a contested area between the Tigray and Amhara regions. It has been forcefully occupied by Amhara Special Forces and militias since the end of 2020. If one were to...

In Ethiopia, the state owns all lands within the territory of the country. Cities are incorporating large parcels of land from their surrounding rural agricultural areas through land expropriation. However, these land developments do not consider the nonmarket value of ecosystem services (ES), which is causing a deterioration of the existing ES and...

Jan Nyssen hat als Erster erhoben, dass im Tigray-Krieg eine halbe Million Menschen gestorben sein könnten. Er tat das mithilfe wissenschaftlicher Werkzeuge und mit Informationen von Menschen, denen er sich moralisch verpflichtet fühlte. --- Interview by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Switzerland). Title and header translated: «We have been doing field...

Lake Tana is the largest freshwater lake in Ethiopia and is the source of the Blue Nile. The lake shorelines and those of its tributary river, Gilgel Abay, are characterized by the occurrence of extensive papyrus swamps (Cyperus papyrus L). While such papyrus swamps are highly recognized for their outstanding ecological and economical importance, t...

--- ETHIOPIA INSIGHT --- The principles of academic freedom have been violated amid the civil war and universities have contributed to wartime abuses in a variety of ways. ----- FULL ARTICLE ---> https://www.ethiopia-insight.com/2022/12/24/ethiopian-universities-have-infringed-on-human-rights-during-the-tigray-war/

https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.951344 -------> Since late 2020, one of the worst wars has been raging in Tigray, Ethiopia's northernmost region. A humanitarian tragedy has been caused by the fighting (Dedefo Bedaso 2021; Annys et al. 2021). Intense fighting occurred throughout the whole region, and looting and damage were rampant. Farmers...

On November 4th, 2020 a deadly civil war broke out in Tigray, Ethiopia characterized by communication blackout leaving the region without access to cell service or internet. Given agriculture is the livelihood of millions of people in Tigray, evaluation of the conflict’s impact on cultivated land and the consequent crop production is critical for g...

Hoewel de mensenrechtenschendingen in Qatar nu veel aandacht krijgen, blijven andere humanitaire rampen compleet onder onze radar. Een schrijnend voorbeeld hiervan is Tigray (Ethiopië). Bovenop een gewapend conflict, kreeg de regio de COVID-19-pandemie en een sprinkhanenplaag te verwerken. Professor in de geografie Jan Nyssen en zijn team (UGent)...

Due to war conditions, the local farmers had to largely rely on their own crop production, mainly by subsistence farming, in Tigray, North Ethiopia. We assessed the crop stands in 2021 and evaluated the level of resilience of the indigenous farming system. Quantitative data were collected from 161 farm parcels in various ecoregions of this tropical...

Due to war conditions, the local farmers had to largely rely on their own crop production, mainly by subsistence farming, in Tigray, North Ethiopia. We assessed the crop stands in 2021 and evaluated the level of resilience of the indigenous farming system. Quantitative data were collected from 161 farm parcels in various ecoregions of this tropical...

Knowledge of hydrologic connectivity is important to grasp the hydrological response at a basin scale, particularly as changes in connectivity can have a negative effect on the environment. In the context of a changing climate, being able to predict how changes in connectivity will affect runoff and sediment transport is particularly relevant for l...

During the civil war in Ethiopia between the military “Derg” regime and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) the Dejena mountain range in Welkait became, around 1980, the main base for Tigray resistance against the Derg regime that was in power at the time. In the Ethiopian federal state, after 1991, Welkait became part of Tigray, Western Ti...