Bjarne Neumann wrote his bachelors thesis during the spring of 2025 as part of the Critical Physical Geography working group. Here is his abstract:
This study investigates the impact of political regime change to the Taliban and their counter-narcotics policy on vegetation and agricultural practices in Nad-Ali district, Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Using a combination of remote sensing approaches including vegetation index based change detection, unsupervised land classification, and phenological modelling, the analysis focuses on the period before and after the Taliban’s return to power in 2021 and the subsequent nationwide opium poppy ban in 2022.
Results imply a significant decline in vegetative productivity, reflected in reduced NDVI values and shortened growing seasons. The phenological changes show an earlier end and later peak of the vegetation season, whilst the classification results indicate a decline in NDVI of cultivated areas and an increase in fallow land. These point to conflict typical changes, such as land abandonment and to alternative cropping strategies such as cotton, vegetables or wheat. However, the analysis is limited by methodological constraints, classification uncertainties and a lack of ground-truth data. All of which are typical challenges when working in conflict-affected and data-scarce regions.
Despite these limitations, the study shows the value of remote sensing in monitoring agricultural transitions in remote and inaccessible areas. It provides a local perspective on how policy changes affect local land use, crop cycles, and livelihoods. The findings show the demand for continued, local research, improved resolution data, and interdisciplinary methods to assess the ecological and socio-economic consequences of drug eradication efforts in rural Afghanistan.
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