GIS Final Project
Spring 2013
Ana Garcia
Project Description
Since the beginning of the Syrian war in March 2011, the number of civilian casualties has been
constantly increasing. Although there are no official numbers – due to the lack of accessibility of
information – we can analyze a number of different unofficial sources of information to give us
estimate numbers.
The goal of this project is to analyze the spatial dimensions of violence and casualties throughout
the war in Syria. Identifying the geographic areas in which civilian population have suffered high
levels of violence and increased violation of human rights in Syria will have different applications
in a post conflict setting. The identification of these areas also will potentially help identify any
correlation between the areas where these crimes have been committed and any ethnic, religious,
gender or political affiliation pattern. GIS technology can help to identify these aspects, as well as
serve as a tool to post – conflict interventions in the aftermath of a ceasefire and a transitional
period.
The main two spatial questions this project will try to address are:
 Which are the areas with a higher number of civilian casualties?
 Is there any spatial relationship between these areas and the geographic distribution of
religious groups in Syria?
Data Sources
Documented Killings from March 18, 2011 to January 27, 2013
1. Description: Excel document with the numbers of Syrian civilian casualties since the
beginning of the Syrian war until January 27th,, 2013 The casualties are divided by Admin area
– both in Arabic and in English (Admin1, Admin2 and Admin3) and also by gender (male and
female casualties) between others. We will choose the most relevant categories to be displayed
in our analysis. The data set contains other details too. The data is collected by latitude and
longitude. (X and Y axes).
2. Data Source Agency: Humanitarian Tracker Project – Syria.
3. URL: https://syriatracker.crowdmap.com/reports/view/3004 (in
https://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?docid=15IysHPcziTFeQb8uVo1TF9rAhwC
bFHVYswMoR4c#rows:id=1
4. Time Period: March 18, 2011 to January 27, 2013
5. Data format: Excel File
6. Scale: N/A
7. Key Attribute Information: Latitude and Longitude; numbers of civilian casualties by
geographic area between March 2001 and January 2013.
Cities Syria – M Tufts Drive
1. Description: Main cities in Syria
2. Data Source Agency: Tufts University M Drive. ESRIDataMaps10
3. URL: M/World//ESRIDataMap10/world/data/cities
4.
5.
6.
7.
GIS Final Project
Spring 2013
Ana Garcia
Time Period: 2010
Data format: Shape File
Scale: N/A
Key Attribute Information: Information on the name of the main cities in Syria
Religious composition in Syria
1. Description: Map layer (converted to Shapefile) that shows the religious distribution in Syria.
It contains the distribution of Sunni, Shiia, Alawites, Alevis, Yezidies, Christians, Druzes and the
overlap of those (Christian/Sunni; Christians/Druzes; Alawite/Sunni)
2. Data Source Agency: Georgetown map project
3. URL: From Tufts University Drive – Student work project. Modified.
4. Time Period: N/A
5. Data format: Shape File (final)
6. Scale: N/A
7. Key Attribute Information: Geographic distribution of the religious distribution of groups in
Syria
Global Administrative Areas – Syria
1. Description: Shapefile with the administrative boundaries in Syria by Admin0 (country),
Admin1 (Governorates) and Admin2 (districts).
2. Data Source Agency: Global Administrative Areas (Gadm).
3. URL: http://www.gadm.org/download
4. Time Period: January 2012
7. Data format: Shapefile, but also you can download the same file as an ESRI geodatabase,
RData, and Google Earth kmz format.
8. Scale: Not documented on the file.
9. Key Attribute Information: Administrative Boundaries in Syria for Country, Governorates
and Districts.
Syrian areas controlled by forces
1. Description: Map layer (converted to Shapefile) that shows what areas in Syria are
controlled by which forces in the current Syrian civil war. It represents the areas under Anti
Government Forces, current contested areas, Kurdish areas and areas under the control of
the Free Syrian Army.
2. Data Source Agency: Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) – from Multiple
Media Sources – Interpolation of General Areas
3. URL: From Tufts University Drive – Student work project. Modified
4. Time Period: January 2013
5. Data format: Shape File (final)
6. Scale: N/A
7. Key Attribute Information: Geographic distributions of what areas are controlled by which
force.
World Landcover GLC 2000
1.
2.
3.
4.
Description: World Land Cover
Data Source Agency: GLC 2000
URL: Tufts M Drive. M/World/GLC2000/World/glc2000
Time Period: Unknown
GIS Final Project
Spring 2013
Ana Garcia
5. Data format: GRID
6. Scale: 540.7877028 square meters
7. Key Attribute Information: Syria land cover distribution. Although it contains the world
land cover, I selected and used the area of Syria.
Methodology
A. Pre – Analysis (Data Set Up)
1. Download and review of the “Documented Killings” Dataset Excel File
After downloading the excel file with the data of the civilian casualties since January 2012, I
formatted and organized the data in order to make it compatible to use it in ArcGIS. The latitude
and longitude data numbers were converted into feasible formats (from xx.xx.xx format to
decimal degrees xx.xxxxx). All columns containing irrelevant data for my analysis were deleted.
The columns remaining to be used for the analysis were double checked to make sure their format
was correct in terms of spaces, text or number format, or percentages. Finally, display by latitude
and longitude of the excel file and conversion to shape file.
2. Review and Edition of the digitalized Syria Map on religious distribution
I used a digitalized Syria map from a Tufts student. I modified and adjusted some aspect of it to
make it closer to the digital version. In particular:
 Comparing the digitalized version with the original download version and checking the
digitalized areas one by one. After comparing all the checks, the “error” areas were
identified and corrected on the digitalized map. The “Edit” toolbar was used to do this and
to modify the needed fields. A column by “category” was added to show the religious
group related to each number ID.
 Georeferenced the map again, to add 9 points. I digitized the Kurdish areas and created a
shapefile out if it.
3. Review and Edition of a Syrian map, which shows a geographic distribution of what areas
in Syria, are under the control of which forces.
Using the Editor Tool also modified the map file obtained. It was compared to a map updated to
January 2013.
4. Projection of all the Data Layers and Data Frame under the same coordinate system
Both the data frame and all each one of the data layers have been projected into the same
coordinate system:
Projection: Tranverse Mercator
Linear Units: Meters
Coordinate System: WGS_1984_UTM_Zone37N
GIS Final Project
Spring 2013
Ana Garcia
B. Analysis
1. Density of Civilian Casualties  Host Spots of Civilian Casualties
Using the Kernel Spatial Analyst, I calculated the hot spots of civilian casualties for the period
between March 2011 and January 2013. I classified the analysis by five categories. This analysis
indicated that the higher areas of concentration of violence were located in the western area of
Syria – in major cities such as Aleppo, Homs, Hama, and Dar’a. I saved this analysis as new layer
and converted into a shapefile, so I could proceed with further analysis.
After that, I reclassified the file to show the two highest density areas of violence. This data layer
was exported into a shapefile, in order to be able to overlap this information with the religious
distribution map. The combination of both files gives the representation of the highest areas of
violent conflict, we can see to which majority religious groups these areas correspond. The result
is that areas with majority of Sunni, Christian / Sunni and Alawite Sunni are the areas of highest
levels of civilian casualties between March 2011 and January 2013.
2. Mapping of the number of violent incidents in Syria
Using the data from the excel file – number of deaths of civilian casualties between March 2011
and January 2013 – I created a map showing the number of civilian casualties. Using a classified
graduated symbology, I showed the number of casualties by 5 different sized categories. This
gives an idea not just of the location of the violent incidents but of the intensity on number.
3. Analysis of the number of casualties per type of land cover
To be able to identify the most predominant areas of civilian casualties in by type of land cover, I
had to combine the information contained in the attribute tables from both the land cover
shapefile and the casualties file. The steps taken were:
GIS Final Project
Spring 2013
Ana Garcia


Converted the land cover shapefile from raster data into polygon data. The tool used was
to convert  from Raster to Polygon data. Once this was done, I joined the two attribute
tables from each file to figure out the total land cover area affected by violence incidents.
To obtain the square kilometers affected by type of land cover area, I first needed to
calculate it in meters; then convert it to kilometers. The whole process – calculating the
areas and the conversion to kilometers – was done using the Calculator tool.
In order to map the relevant information, I exported the joined attribute table to AdBase,
and then, by combining the information in different columns, I used excel to create three
different graphs of casualties per religious group, square kilometers of land cover
impacted by violence against civilians, and the number of violent incidents per land cover
occurred.
Limitations and Additional Difficulties
The main limitations of this project are related with the lack of accessibility to GIS data and
accuracy of the information used. The lack of accessibility to reliable updated data on civilian
casualties posed a major challenge to make the analysis. Although different non-governmental
organizations and United Nations Agencies have supported the compilation of these numbers, the
hardship conditions of the context, and the ongoing increase of violence impede the compilation
of reliable field data on casualties.
Another major limitation of this analysis is the access to GIS data on ethnic and religious
distribution in Syria. Due to the lack of access to this information, this project has used previously
digitalized copied maps from Syria. This also limits somehow high levels of detail and accuracy
with current religious distribution. Also, this analysis does not take into account the internal
displacements of population, neither the refugee flows.
In addition to this, this project is unable to show who originates the violence against the civilian
casualties. This limitation is based on the lack of availability of data.
There were no major difficulties in the elaboration of the analysis. The initial major difficulty was
to find GIS data of the ethnic/religious geographic distribution of population in Syria, but I was
able to count with a georeferenced and digitalized copy of an accurate map. The difficulty was to
reedit some of the elements of the map, based on the original.
Conclusions
The GIS analysis has proven to be a successful tool to clearly identify the highest areas of violence
against civilian in Syria for the period of study. The analysis has shown that the majority of the
violence is concentrated in cities, which have been commonly reference by the media as places
where grave violations of human rights and massacres have occurred (Homs, Hama, Dara’a,
Aleppo) and also the capital (Damascus).
When looking at the religious groups mainly affected by the conflict, Sunni population is with
difference the main group affected by it. Alawites – the group identified with the government of
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Ana Garcia
Bashar el-Assad – and Druzes – a type within the Shii’a sect – are the less affected by the conflict
for the period between March 2011 and January 2013.
In addition to this, the analysis has been able to show that the main fighting is taking place in bare
areas and (uncovered areas) and in sparse shrub cover areas. This result is interesting when
thinking about the current fighting strategies in the Syrian civil war.
Although, as we have explained before, this analysis has some limitations, it is able to show main
patterns and areas of incidence of high density of violence. This information becomes highly
relevant in post conflict interventions, to analyze past patterns and implement programs of social
support, infrastructure, and peace building.
Annotated Source Citations
1. Levinger, Matthew (2009): “Geographical Information Systems Technology as a Tool for Genocide
Prevention: The Case of Darfur”, Space and Polity, 13:1, 69-76. Available at:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13562570902781249
This article raises the question of the potential use of GIS in future application in preventing
genocide crimes. It uses the case of Darfur as an example of how to use GIS applied to a specific
case and to project what happened into other cases. Also, this article points out the relationship
between GIS as a tool to bring public awareness about a mass violation of human rights.
2. Weidmann, Nils B. and Salehyan, Idean: "Violence and Ethnic Segregation: A Computational Model
Applied to Baghdad” April 19th, 2010. Available at: http://qssi.psu.edu/files/weidmann_salehyan.pdf
This article points out the validity of GIS in relating two variables in the Iraqi context: ethnicity
and violence after the Samarra bombing in 2006. The author explains how GIS has helped to
identify different levels of ethnic segregation and violence linked to it. This article helps
understanding how these two variables can be related using a GIS model and what different types
of analysis can be done. In this specific case, the author uses a pre-insurgent / post-insurgent
model to compare two moments in time.
3. Steinberg, Michael K., Height, Carrie; Mosher, Rosemary; and Bampton, Matthew: ”Mapping
massacres: GIS and state terror in Guatemala”, Science Direct, April 22, 2003. Available at:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016718505000278
This paper explains how GIS has been used to display the locations of the massacres, which were
associated with Guatemala’s civil war. While doing this, the author raise the importance, not only
of the visual display of this type of information, but also, as a tool of empowerment in Latin
America as a source of information to fight for rights, acknowledging past crimes and support
transitional processes.
4. Gulden, Timothy R: ”Spatial and Temporal Patterns in Civil Violence: Guatemala 1977-1986”, Center
on Social and Economic Dynamics, Working Paper No. 26 February 2002. Available at:
http://dspace.cigilibrary.org/jspui/bitstream/123456789/18215/1/Spatial%20and%20Temporal%20Pat
terns%20in%20Civil%20Violence%20Guatemala%201977%201986.pdf
This article shows the results of a GIS study that relates the variables of geographic distribution of
population based on ethnicity and the violence committed against individuals. These empirical
data, as the author mentions, may have further implications in areas such as conflict prevention,
GIS Final Project
Spring 2013
Ana Garcia
peacekeeping, and post – conflict analysis of that reality. Furthermore, It can be used as a model to
be applied in other regions, such in the case of Syria. These results provide an empirical
benchmark for the modeling of civil violence and may have implications for conflict prevention,
peace keeping, and the post-conflict analysis of command structures.
Additional Maps
1. Distribution of areas in Syria under control of different forces (government forces,
Kurdish forces, opposition forces, and more contested areas).
This map also shows the geographic location of civilian casualties per religious group.
Although I counted with a digitalized copy of this map, It was necessary to re-edit the map
to update it with data from January 2013.
2. Representation of civilian casualties per contested area.
GIS Final Project
Spring 2013
Ana Garcia
3. Land cover in Syria
Although the original file used for land cover type had more than 10 different
classifications of land cover, for the purposes of this project I regrouped categories under
the same type (trees; herbaceous; bare areas; managed and cultivated areas) to make the
analysis easier to manage and clearer to show.
4. Result of final edition of digitalized map
GIS Final Project
Spring 2013
Ana Garcia
5. Mapping of total casualties