Dr. Lina Eklund is an associate senior lecturer at the department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science at Lund University, Sweden. She specializes in land system dynamics in the context of migration and armed conflict, using mainly earth observation and spatial analysis. She is specifically interested in the Middle East and has been doing research primarily on Israel/Palestine, Iraq and Syria. She is associated with the strategic research areas The Middle East in the Contemporary World (MECW) and Biodiversity and Ecosystems in a Changing Climate (BECC). Currently, her research focuses on the issue of climate security in the Middle East, including climate induced migration and armed conflict. She also studies the environmental impacts of armed conflict, and is particularly interested in land use/land cover change and fire dynamics.
Lina currently teaches in the following courses:
NGEA03: Remote Sensing for Landscape Studies (course coordinator)
NGEA31: Geographical Information Systems, Introduction
NGEA09: Land Surface Processes and Landscape Dynamics
GISA21: Geographical Information Systems, introduction
She also supervises in the master and bachelor thesis courses.
Publications
Displaying of publications. Sorted by year, then title.
”Vårt engagemang tystas systematiskt ned av företrädare för Lunds universitet.”
Dalia Abdelhady, Cansu Bostan, Kaan Bür, Lina Eklund, Maira Viana Einarsson, et al.
(2025) Sydsvenskan
Newspaper articleGaza: we analysed a year of satellite images to map the scale of agricultural destruction
Lina Eklund, He Yin, Jamon Van Den Hoek
(2025) The Conversation
Journal articleEvaluating war-induced damage to agricultural land in the Gaza Strip since October 2023 using PlanetScope and SkySat imagery
He Yin, Lina Eklund, Dimah Habash, Mazin Qumsiyeh, Jamon Van Den Hoek
(2025) Science of Remote Sensing, 11
Journal articleECO-Syria Workshop Report Green Transitional Justice in Post-Assad Syria
Pinar Dinc, Maria Andrea Nardi, Mo Hamza, Lina Eklund, Abdulhakim M. Abdi, et al.
(2025)
ReportThe doom loop of conflict and unsustainability: Exploring cause and effect
Lina Eklund, Oleksandra Shumilova, Julia Loginova, Florian Krampe, Christene Halvorson, et al.
(2025) One Earth, 8
Journal articleNature at War, Nature at Peace
Pinar Dinc, Lina Eklund, Abdulhakim M. Abdi, Mo Hamza, Maria Andrea Nardi, et al.
(2025)
Web publicationSpatial Machine Learning for Exploring the Variability in Low Height-For-Age From Socioeconomic, Agroecological, and Climate Features in the Northern Province of Rwanda
Gilbert Nduwayezu, Clarisse Kagoyire, Pengxiang Zhao, Lina Eklund, Petter Pilesjö, et al.
(2024) GeoHealth, 8
Journal article”Studenternas aktivism visar en hoppfull strävan.”
Emma Eleonorasdotter, Dalia Abdelhady, David Bowling, Karin Zackari, Victor Pressfeldt, et al.
(2024) Sydsvenskan
Newspaper articleCMES Regional Outlook: Monitoring Israel’s Destruction of Gaza From Space
Lina Eklund, Abdulhakim M. Abdi
(2024) CMES Regional Outlook
Web publicationCropland abandonment in the context of drought, economic restructuring, and migration in northeast Syria
Lina Eklund, Berit Mohr, Pinar Dinc
(2024) Environmental Research Letters, 19
Journal articleFires as collateral or means of war: challenges of environmental peacebuilding in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq
Lina Eklund, Pinar Dinc
(2024) Ecology & Society, 29
Journal articleSpatiotemporal variability of dust storm source susceptibility during wet and dry periods: The Tigris-Euphrates River Basin
Seyed Amir Naghibi, Hossein Hashemi, Pengxiang Zhao, Sara Brogaard, Lina Eklund, et al.
(2024) Atmospheric Pollution Research, 15
Journal articleSyrian farmers in the midst of drought and conflict: the causes, patterns, and aftermath of land abandonment and migration
Pinar Dinc, Lina Eklund
(2024) Climate and Development, 16 p.349-362
Journal articlePolitikerna struntar i klimatforskningen : 420 forskare: Regeringens politik är katastrofal – nu måste fler svenskar kräva en omställning
Glenn Bark, Karin Gerhardt, Jeannette Eggers, Paul Glantz, Maria Wolrath Söderberg, et al.
(2023) Aftonbladet Debatt
Newspaper articleUnderstanding the spatial non-stationarity in the relationships between malaria incidence and environmental risk factors using Geographically Weighted Random Forest : A case study in Rwanda
Gilbert Nduwayezu, Pengxiang Zhao, Clarisse Kagoyire, Lina Eklund, Jean Pierre Bizimana, et al.
(2023) Geospatial health, 18
Journal articleSveriges utsläpp måste minska nu, regeringen : 531 forskare: Annars är sveket monumentalt – ni kan inte säga att ni inte visste
Alasdair Skelton, Kimberly Nicholas, Lennart Olsson, David Alcer, Tomas Persson, et al.
(2023) Aftonbladet
Newspaper articleReturning to traditional solutions in the face of climate challenges
Lina Eklund, Hossein Hashemi
(2023) Near East Policy Forum (NEPF)
Journal articleKlimat och konflikt i Syrien: Ett rumsligt perspektiv på torka, jordbruk och sårbarhet i Syrien under perioden 2000–2022 : Climate and conflict in Syria: a spatial perspective of drought, agriculture and vulerability in Syria during the period 2000–2022
Lina Eklund
(2023) Statsvetenskaplig tidskrift, 125
Journal articleSocietal drought vulnerability and the Syrian climate-conflict nexus are better explained by agriculture than meteorology
Lina Eklund, Ole Magnus Theisen, Matthias Baumann, Andreas Forø Tollefsen, Tobias Kuemmerle, et al.
(2022) Nature Communications Earth & Environment, 3
Journal articleWater
Martina Angela Caretta, Aditi Mukherji, Md Arfanuzzaman, Richard A. Betts, Alexander Gelfan, et al.
(2022) Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability : Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Report chapterThe Syrian Climate-Migration-Conflict Nexus: : An Annotated Bibliography
Gianna Angermayr, Pinar Dinc, Benedicte Anthony, Lina Eklund
(2022)
ReportDrought, war and rural livelihoods in Syria’s northeast : a spatiotemporal perspective
Lina Eklund, Pinar Dinc
(2022)
Conference paper: abstractOn the Geopolitics of Fire, Conflict and Land in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq
Lina Eklund, Abdulhakim M. Abdi, Aiman Shahpurwala, Pinar Dinc
(2021) Remote Sensing, 13 p.1575-1575
Journal articleFighting Insurgency, Ruining the Environment : the Case of Forest Fires in the Dersim Province of Turkey
Pinar Dinc, Lina Eklund, Aiman Shahpurwala, Ali Mansourian, Augustus Aturinde, et al.
(2021) Human Ecology, 49 p.481-493
Journal articleNature of Peace: An Interdisciplinary Enquiry into Research at the Intersection of Nature, Peace and Post-Conflict
Maria Andrea Nardi, Torsten Krause, Lina Eklund, Maria Ericson, Alejandro Fuentes, et al.
(2019)
Conference paper: abstractDebattinlägg: ”En nyanserad debatt om klimatflyktingar måste baseras på vetenskapligt grundad fakta.”
Lina Eklund, Mine Islar, Martin Lemberg-Pedersen
(2018) Sydsvenska Dagbladet, Debatt
Newspaper article9 Crisis and Agricultural Change in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, 1980s–2010s: an Interdisciplinary Approach
Lina Eklund, Katharina Lange
(2018) Crisis and Conflict in Agriculture
Book chapterWhat happens to land use in conflict settings? The case of Syria
Lina Eklund
(2018)
Conference paper: abstractDifferences in resource management affects drought vulnerability across the borders between Iraq, Syria, and Turkey
Lina Eklund, Darcy Thompson
(2017) Ecology and Society, 22
Journal articleIs Syria really a ‘climate war’? We examined the links between drought, migration and conflict
Lina Eklund, Darcy Thompson
(2017) The Conversation
Journal articleFeeding the Caliphate? Agricultural Activity in ISIS Zones of Iraq and Syria
Lina Eklund
(2017) Muftah.org
Newspaper articleHow conflict affects land use: agricultural activity in areas seized by the Islamic State
Lina Eklund, Michael Degerald, Martin Brandt, Alexander V Prishchepov, Petter Pilesjö
(2017) Environmental Research Letters
Journal articleDrought Not the Only Environmental Problem in Syria Before 2011
Lina Eklund
(2017) SyriaUntold
Newspaper articleFrom Producers to Consumers: The Challenges and Opportunities of Agricultural Development in Iraqi Kurdistan
Lina Eklund, Abdulhakim Abdi, Mine Islar
(2017) Land, 6
Journal articleWhat’s in a Name? The Changing Conceptualisations of ‘Drought’ in Syria
Lina Eklund, Darcy Thompson
(2017)
Conference paper: abstractAgriculture and Food Security in Syria and Iraq: Land Abandonment and the Islamic State
Lina Eklund
(2016)
Conference paper: abstractCropland changes in times of conflict, reconstruction, and economic development in Iraqi Kurdistan
Lina Eklund, Andreas Persson, Petter Pilesjö
(2016) Ambio: a Journal of the Human Environment, 45 p.78-88
Journal articleOn virtual water and food security in the Middle East and beyond
Lina Eklund
(2016) Your Middle East
Newspaper articleData and methods in the environment-migration nexus : A scale perspective
Lina Eklund, Clemens Romankiewicz, Martin Brandt, Martin Doevenspeck, Cyrus Samimi
(2016) Die Erde, 147 p.139-152
Journal article reviewA brief guide to Climate Change, COP21 and the Middle East
Lina Eklund
(2015) Your Middle East
Newspaper articleMeteorological, agricultural and socioeconomic drought in the Duhok Governorate, Iraqi Kurdistan
Lina Eklund, Jonathan Seaquist
(2015) Natural Hazards, 76 p.421-441
Journal article“No Friends but the Mountains” Understanding Population Mobility and Land Dynamics in Iraqi Kurdistan
Lina Eklund
(2015)
DissertationDemography, Land Use and Agricultural Development in the Rural Areas of Duhok Governorate, Iraq
Lina Eklund
(2013)
Conference paper: abstractDrought in Iraq : Implications for rural population, environment and agriculture in Duhok Governorate - Methodological challenges
Petter Pilesjö, Lina Eklund
(2012)
Conference paper: abstractDealing with drought – Water challenges in Iraqi Kurdistan
Lina Eklund
(2012)
Conference paper: abstractAssessment of Mobility Conditions Using Geographic Information System in the West Bank Territory: The Case of Bethlehem – Ramallah Route
Lina Eklund, Ahmad El-Atrash
(2012) Arab World Geographer, 15 p.127-138
Journal articleDrought in Iraq - Severity, Vulnerability and Adaptation
Lina Eklund
(2012)
Conference paper: abstractUsing geographical information systems to analyse accessibility to health services in the West Bank, Occupied Palestinian Territory
Lina Eklund, Ulrik Mårtensson
(2012) Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal, 18 p.796-802
Journal articleMigration Patterns in Duhok Governorate, Iraq, 2000-2010
Lina Eklund, Petter Pilesjö
(2012) The Open Geography Journal , p.48-58
Journal articleMigration Patterns to and from Rural Villages in Duhok Governorate, Iraq, 2000-2010
Lina Eklund
(2011)
Conference paper