Land use/cover changes in the war-ravaged Jaffna Peninsula, Sri Lanka, 1984–early 2004 K. Suthakar 1 and Elisabeth N. Bui 2 1 Department of Geography, University of Jaffna, Thirunelveli, Jaffna, Sri Lanka 2 National Institute of Education, Humanities and Social Studies Education, Singapore Correspondence: Elisabeth N. Bui (email: elisabeth.bui@csiro.au) Temporal and spatial information on land use/cover is a prerequisite for effective planning deci- sions in the context of social and economic development. Satellite remote sensing data have become increasingly important in the study of land use/cover changes. This paper uses multitem- poral satellite data to measure and spatially characterize land use/cover changes in the Jaffna Peninsula, northern Sri Lanka over the two decades from 1984 to early 2004 in terms of potential drivers. Over this period, the Jaffna Peninsula has been impacted severely by armed conflict between the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. A postclassification method is used to compare land use/cover classes from satellite images using Geographical Infor- mation Systems (GIS) to analyze the spatial pattern of land use/cover changes over the study period. Results indicate that the land use/cover pattern has been very dynamic since early the 1980s, showing a remarkable decrease in agricultural land use and concomitant increase in non-agricultural land uses. The ethnic conflict and its consequences, particularly large-scale popu- lation migrations, have been the main driving forces for such land use/cover changes in the Jaffna Peninsula. The results of this study are not only important in aiding efforts to reconstruct this area after decades of physical and socioeconomic devastation, but should also prompt similarly urgent studies in other inaccessible war-torn areas of the world. Keywords: ethnic conflict, GIS, high security zone, Jaffna Peninsula, land use/land cover change, remote sensing Introduction Knowledge of the land use/cover patterns of a region is one of the prerequisites for the planning and implementation of effective land use policies and schemes for sustainable regional development (Anderson et al., 1976; Lillesand & Kiefer, 1994). The spatiotem- poral pattern of land use/cover as documented by satellite imagery has provided the scientific community with an excellent opportunity to uncover the causes and conse- quences of changes when compared to the corresponding patterns of human activity (Cardille & Foley, 2003). Therefore, the study of land use/cover change has been identified as a key research theme in remote sensing spatial analysis since the 1970s (Adeniyi, 1980; Lo & Shipman, 1990). Land cover is defined as the layer of soils and biomass, including natural vegetation, crops and human structures, that comprises the land surface. Land use refers to the purposes for which humans exploit the land cover. Land cover and land use are closely related and interdependent, and in many cases treated interchangeably (Campbell, 1996; Verburg et al., 2003). Land use/cover change is the effect of many interacting processes that are active over a wide range of scales in space and time. According to Lambin and Ehrlich (1997) and Groeneveld et al. (2003), three categories of causes for land use changes occur at different rates and different scales: biophysical factors, tech- nological and economic considerations, and institutional and political arrangements. To these can be added changes precipitated by wars or violent civil conflicts – the focus of this case study on the Jaffna Peninsula, northern Sri Lanka. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9493.2008.00329.x Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 29 (2008) 205–220 © 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © 2008 Department of Geography, National University of Singapore and Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd