Sofie Annys

Ghent University | UGhent · Department of Geography

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 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...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

In early November 2020, after months of growing political tensions, an armed conflict emerged between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray regional government. As the conflict arose in the wake of a destructive locust invasion and in addition to the covid-19 pandemic, it was soon realized that the conflict would have a major impacts on the popul...

Throughout Europe, numerous carbon farming schemes have been developed in the past decade, ranging from simple to more elaborated. Recently, schemes are increasingly being developed for the agricultural sector, with projects focusing on carbon removals (carbon sequestration) in agricultural soils and woody landscape elements, as well as focusing on...

In view of our geographical research expertise in the tropical mountains of Tigray (north Ethiopia) since 1994, our focus was deflected from geomorphology and environmental management to casualty recording and survival strategies, after the Tigray War started in November 2020. We created the "Atlas of the Humanitarian Situation", in which we chroni...

Military conflicts strongly affect agricultural activities. This has strong implications for people’s livelihoods when agriculture is the backbone of the economy. We assessed the effect of the Tigray conflict on farming activities using freely available remote sensing data. For detecting greenness, a Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) wa...

At the beginning of November 2020, an armed conflict emerged in Tigray, Ethiopia’s northernmost region. The objective of this ‘Atlas of the Humanitarian Situation’ is to document and map the situation in which approximately 6 million Tigrayans currently find themselves. For this, we contacted key informants in different districts of Tigray to colle...

Conflict has deep historical roots in the horn of Africa, particularly in Ethiopia. Such conflicts often go hand in hand with humanitarian catastrophes including famine and mass-displacement (Annys et al. 2021). The Tigray region of Ethiopia has experienced such conflict induced catastrophes in the 1984/85 (Deckers et al. 2020), and now again (Nyss...

In recent years, a renewed interest in large-scale hydraulic interventions has developed, frequently justified by the premise of making the agricultural and energy sectors climate-resilient. Despite this important climate effort, hydraulic interventions are controversial and have far-reaching impacts on river-dependent communities and the environme...

At the beginning of November 2020, after months of rising political tensions, an armed conflict emerged between the Government of Ethiopia and the - now ousted - Tigray Regional Government. As the conflict arose in the aftermath of a destructive locust plague and on top of the ongoing covid-19 pandemic, soon the realization came that the conflict w...

At the beginning of November 2020, an armed conflict emerged in Tigray, Ethiopia’s northernmost region, in the aftermath of a destructive locust plague and in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In the conflict, the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) and its allies – formal and informal military factions of the adjacent Amhara region...

Collecting field data on 161 sampling sites in very difficult conditions has allowed us to evaluate the status of cropping in part of the Tigray region of Ethiopia, by the end of August 2021. We have observed that local farming communities are remarkably resilient, also in times of conflict and instability. Relying on indigenous knowledge and local...

Based on extensive field information, farmer-led small-scale irrigation systems along the dam-regulated Tekeze River is investigated and the likelihood of future irrigation expansion within the area with modelled potential is discussed, considering facilitating and hampering factors. Due to dam-induced hydrologic alterations, downstream socio-ecolo...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT : https://theconversation.com/how-ethiopias-conflict-has-affected-farming-in-tigray-166229 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Since fighting broke out in November 2020 between the Tigrayan regional government and the Ethiopian army, the conflict has wreaked havoc on the lives of people livin...

Since November 2020, a civil war is taking place in Tigray (north Ethiopia), where about 75% of the active population are farmers. Here, we present the state of ploughing in Tigray’s war conditions, early in the 2021 rainy season and discuss contextual factors. Early May 2021, around Mekelle, very few croplands have been ploughed, as compared to th...

In recent years, a renewed interest in large dams and large-scale irrigation schemes has developed, justified by the premise to make the agricultural and energy sectors climate-resilient. Despite this important climate effort, large dams and interbasin water transfers are controversial and have far-reaching impacts for river-dependent communities a...

The 21st century revival of large-scale water resources development projects makes it important to keep assessing their impacts – preferably from an interdisciplinary perspective – in order to not repeat past mistakes and explore whether they could improve livelihood conditions for rural communities. In this study, costs and benefits of the World B...

Due to renewed interest in hydropower dams in the face of climate change, it is important to assess dam operations and management in combination with downstream impacts on rivers in (semi-)arid environments. In this study, the impacts of the Tekeze hydropower dam on downstream hydrology and river morphology were investigated, including impacts unde...

Therelationshipbetweenirrigationwateravailabilityandcroprevenueismultifaceted.However,most of the previous studies focused only on the direct effect of irrigation water on crop revenue or considered that the indirect effect passes only through the farmers’ improved farm inputs usage. Nevertheless, unlike previous studies,this study argues that a on...

Despite the high geoheritage value of caves and karsts, northern Ethiopia's largest cave at Zeyi (13.5586°N, 39.1454°E) in the Dogu'a Tembien district has received little attention so far. We have studied its geological, geomorphic, socio-cultural and historical dimensions in a holistic way. The basal member of the Antalo Limestone, in which the Ze...

Despite the high geoheritage value of caves and karsts, northern Ethiopia’s largest cave at Zeyi (13.5586°N, 39.1454°E) in the Dogu’a Tembien district has received little attention so far. We have studied its geological, geomorphic, socio-cultural and historical dimensions in a holistic way. The basal member of the Antalo Limestone, in which the Ze...

Despite the high geoheritage value of caves and karsts, northern Ethiopia's largest cave at Zeyi (13.5586°N, 39.1454°E) in the Dogu'a Tembien district has received little attention so far. We have studied its geological, geomorphic, socio-cultural and historical dimensions in a holistic way. The basal member of the Antalo Limestone, in which the Ze...

Focus: matching agricultural water demand and supply is a growing policy challenge in drylands. We investigated the water balance components in Raya (3507 km 2) and Ashenge (80.5 km 2) grabens. The rainfall depth, river discharge, abstraction, climate and soil data (2015-2017) were used to address the research question. New hydrological insights: t...

Despite public awareness of unintended impacts (1980s) and well-developed international standards (2000s), downstream impacts of large hydropower projects still very often are not properly assessed. Impacts of (hydropower-regulated) interbasin water transfers (IBWTs) are considered self-evidently positive, although they can have far-reaching conseq...

We have investigated the relevance of the notion of "peripheralism" in the Beles basin. In this lowland border area of Ethiopia, important investments require an evaluation of their socioeconomic and ecological impacts in the light of Ethiopia's Climate-Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) strategy. We contrasted literature of different periods with fiel...

Magnitudes of land cover changes nowadays can be assessed properly, but their driving forces are subject to many discussions. Next to the accepted role of human influence, the impact of natural climate variability is often neglected. In this paper, the impact of rainfall variability on land cover changes (LCC) is investigated for the western escarp...

QuestionsWhat are the potential drivers of tree line change in the tropical African highlands? Are the temperature-sensitive tree lines in these highlands shifting as a result of climate change?SignificanceThe high-altitude forests provide important ecosystem services for the vulnerable environment of the tropical highlands. Climate change is expec...