Soil health in a conflict-affected area: An open-source Google Earth Engine framework to map land degradation in Gaza
Armed conflict accelerates soil and vegetation degradation, but field assessments and monitoring are often only possible at a later stage and/or indirectly, for example, through remote sensing data. We used the Dynamic World v1, a land-cover open-source dataset derived from Sentinel-2 imagery, to quantify land-cover change in Gaza (Palestinian territories) between September 2023 and September 2025. After cloud/shadow masking and 10 m spatial estimation, cropland and grassland declined from 5941 to 2056 ha (−65%), while bare soil expanded from 3918 to 17,663 ha (+351%). A comparator region in Israel showed modest changes (−4.5% and +3.4%, respectively), indicating that the Gaza trends are conflict-related rather than regional. High-resolution imagery reveals widespread transition from vegetated surfaces to debris fields and exposed soils. Our findings corroborate recent analyses based on commercial imagery while extending the assessment to 2025 through a fully open-source workflow. We present a fully reproducible workflow in Google Earth Engine to document and quantify land degradation using open Earth observation data under conditions of restricted ground access. These results provide a quantitative baseline for assessing soil and vegetation damage in conflict-affected areas.
Authors
- Franz Zehetner (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8848-9650)
- Michele Torresani (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7270-3619)
- Luigimaria Borruso (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7445-3454)
- Benedetta Turchetti (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7370-3028)
- Stefano Cesco (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5191-0520)
- Ilaria Fracasso (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9448-9975)
- Heribert Insam (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5136-2752)
- Roy Neilson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4544-2227)
- Oussama Bouaicha (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8901-143X)
- Elisa Gamalero (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8273-9500)
- Claudio Zaccone (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4391-354X)
- Roberto Tognetti (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7771-6176)
- Pietro Buzzini (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6793-0606)
- Duccio Rocchini (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0087-0594)
- Raphael Tiziani (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8108-9905)
- Gianmarco Mugnai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0130-7683)
- Anna Sandionigi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5257-0027)
- Giuseppe T. Cirella (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0810-0589)
- Ciro Sannino
- Manuel Esperon-Rodriguez
- Marco Fusi
- Vittorio Capozzi
- Alessio Russo
- Michel Hanania
- Omar Darissa
- Leonardo Montagnani
- Tanja Mimmo
Institutions
- University of Verona (IT)
- Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale “Amedeo Avogadro” (IT)
- University of Padua (IT)
- James Hutton Institute (GB)
- Bethlehem University (PS)
- Queensland University of Technology (AU)
- Bangor University (GB)
- Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (IT)
- University of Zurich (CH)
- Czech University of Life Sciences Prague (CZ)
- University of Perugia (IT)
- University of Gdańsk (PL)
- Institute of Sciences of Food Production (IT)
- National Research Council (IT)
- BioCrea (Germany) (DE)
- Western Sydney University (AU)
- University of Milano-Bicocca (IT)
- Newcastle University (GB)
- University of Bologna (IT)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Progress in Physical Geography Earth and Environment
- Published
- 2026-06-17
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1177/03091333261461125
- Primary Topic
- Remote Sensing in Agriculture
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00