Zhe Guo, Hala Abushama, Khalid Siddig, Oliver Kirui, Kibrom Abay and Liangzhi You
Conflicts disrupt economic activity and adversely affect the livelihoods of populations. This peer-reviewed article investigates the impact of violent conflict in Sudan on economic activity. Armed conflicts make it difficult to monitor economic activity because they impede conventional data collection attempts. The second-best possibility is made available by the development of remote sensing tools and unique satellite data collection techniques. We use NO2 data to map the locations of human and economic activities in different regions of Sudan. To examine the differences in trends of NO2 emissions before and after the conflict (i.e., before and after April 15th, 2023), we map human and economic activities for 2022 as a baseline and develop a 5-day composite for each of the two periods. And for visualizing the regional variability and patterns, we produce national maps of NO2 for the two periods. Our initial findings denote drastic declines in economic activity vis a vis the increased intensity of conflict and increases in economic activity in safer regions (host communities of displaced people) – indicating geographic shifts in economic activity and human mobility. These findings showcase the centralization of economic activity in the capital city of Khartoum, which is the epicenter of the conflict, posing significant challenges to food production, transportation, financial sector, government sector, and agri-food processing. Our alarming results of remote sensing tools to trace the impact of the conflict on economic activity call for urgent interventions to alleviate the devastating impacts of conflict on agriculture, food value chains, and food security.
