The Levant is a climatically sensitive region that suffers from prolonged heat waves contributing to societal crisis and massive population displacements. At least since 2010 and the so-called Arab Spring, the region has experienced recurring socio-political turmoil and the Syrian civil war, which amplified economic and ecological pressure on the neighbouring countries. Particularly in Jordan, the strong population growth in addition to the immigration of hundreds of thousands Syrian refugees has led to massive changes in land-use and built-up infrastructure, resulting in an over-exploitation of the landscape through irrigated crop plantations and unregulated construction activities. Currently, the situation is further socio-politically fuelled by the so-called Palestinian-Israeli Conflict. The interplay of climate variability, built-up change, landcover transformation, and population development, however, is not yet fully understood. In this article, a multicomponent trend analysis from climate variables, satellite imagery, and landcover datasets is presented that highlights the strong increase in building activity over the past decades and emphasizes the interconnection of climate change prediction models and current socio-political development in the Levant. Groundwater exploitation for domestic use, crop production, and industrial purposes will further enhance social inequality, the pressure on the local ecological functionalities, and risks severe and irreversible land degradation.

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气候变化、阿拉伯之春和 COVID-19 - 对黎凡特土地覆盖变化的影响

黎凡特是一个气候敏感地区，长期遭受热浪侵袭，导致社会危机和大规模人口流离失所。至少自2010年和所谓的“阿拉伯之春”以来，该地区经历了反复出现的社会政治动荡和叙利亚内战，加剧了邻国的经济和生态压力。特别是在约旦，人口的强劲增长以及数十万叙利亚难民的移民导致土地利用和基础设施建设发生巨大变化，导致灌溉作物种植园和不受监管的建筑对景观的过度开发活动。目前，所谓的巴以冲突在社会政治上进一步加剧了局势。然而，气候变化、建成变化、土地覆盖变化和人口发展之间的相互作用尚未得到充分了解。本文提出了来自气候变量、卫星图像和土地覆盖数据集的多成分趋势分析，强调了过去几十年建筑活动的强劲增长，并强调了气候变化预测模型与黎凡特当前社会政治发展的相互联系。民用、农作物生产和工业用途的地下水开采将进一步加剧社会不平等，对当地生态功能造成压力，并带来严重且不可逆转的土地退化风险。