A Digital Revolution to Save Nature and Build Peace
By Wim Zwijnenburg (PAX/Bellingcat) @wammezz
in collaboration with David Jensen (UN Environment) @davidedjensen
The revolution in space-based technologies is creating a wealth of opportunities to track environmental degradation and its impact on lives and livelihoods. From rapid urbanisation to climate change to industrial incidents, satellites and sensors are capturing these challenges in an unprecedented manner. A lesser known problem is the devastating environmental damage caused by wars and armed conflicts. In the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War oil fires in Kuwait, when 600 burning wells blackened the skies for months, the UN made November 6, the International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict, to serve as a reminder.
Building multilateral solutions to protect people, planet and peace are key to prevent impact of armed conflicts on the environment and people depending on it, is also the message of UN Environment’s Director Inger Anderson
The need for digital innovation to address conflict and the resulting impacts on natural resources, health and the future of our planet was is also underscored by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in his annual message for November 6, stating that :
“Better management of natural resources and ecosystems could pave a path for peace in war-torn societies, helping crisis-affected countries move a step closer to achieving the SDGs. This requires collaboration among Governments, civil society, the private sector and specialized institutions; building local capacity and resilience; harnessing data and digital technologies for risk analysis and collaborative management; investing in women as change agents; and strengthening legal and policy discussions within a coherent framework of international actors.”
Over the last five years, we have been using various satellite datasets in our work at PAX, UNEP and Bellingcat to identify and monitor how war can result in environmental damage that can pose acute and long-term risks to the health and wellbeing of people. While we use a range of different providers, we have found Planet imagery to be an essential part of our toolkit due to its rapid revisit rates and high spatial resolution. These two characteristics are fundamental for witnessing conflict dynamics and environmental damage from space as they unfold on the ground. Planet imagery is increasingly made available to media, research groups and non-profit organizations in an effort to provide the data needed to create a more transparent planet.
Earth observation contributes to a better understanding of the complex environmental and related humanitarian dynamics in conflict zones, especially when combined with ground verification and further triangulated with information from social media or citizen science. This suite of information is key for assessing the environmental footprint of military operations and the damage resulting from targeting specific sites. It can also help humanitarian response operations by identifying potential risks to local communities or refugee camps from conflict-born pollution. For a full overview of ideas and opportunities, see the 2019 paper ‘Solving the jigsaw of conflict-related environmental damage: Utilizing open-source analysis to improve research into environmental health risks’ in the International Journal of Public Health.
In this article we will briefly outline a handful of recent case studies and propose how to better systematically harness Earth Observation technologies to monitor and assess the environmental dimensions of armed conflicts. We highlight how international collaboration and analysis can contribute to minimizing and mitigating the impacts on health, livelihoods and ecosystem services.
These cases made use of Planet satellite imagery. This commercial imagery is interoperable with a wider digital ecosystem of open-source imagery such as the European Space Agency’s Sentinel systems, which can be accessed through Sentinel Hub’s EO Browser, and NASA’s various sensors available through their EOSDIS Worldview online hub.
Conflict-linked wildfires in northern Iraq
Airstrikes, artillery shelling and military operations carried out by Turkey and Iran against Kurdish armed groups in northern Iraq resulted in a significant increase of wildfires. Climate-crisis induced droughts and increase of heat is is contributing to drier vegetation and major fire risks. This problem was documented in 2018 by a Bellingcat investigation, while in 2019, a follow-up investigation documented how the so-called Islamic State deliberately torched croplands in central Iraq, impacting farmlands and threatening oil infrastructure. PAX is currently using Planet imagery to track and trace these fires. They are driving people from their houses, destroying orchards and posing risks to firefighters as the area is heavily contaminated with landmines and unexploded ordnance.
Oil pollution in north east Syria
The oil-rich eastern part of Syria was subjected to widespread environmental degradation since the conflict erupted, resulting in ongoing pollution incidents born from bombed locations, absence of maintenance, leaking pipelines, and civilian-operated makeshift refineries. A combination of spills and oil waste dumping took a heavy toll on water supplies and soil while also contributing to severe air pollution, posing health risk to nearby communities.
On various occasions Planet imagery was used to document spills and other pollution incidents. For example, in July 2019, Planet imagery was instrumental in documenting marine pollution from a sabotage action at an offshore oil loading station at the Baniyas refinery in the west of Syria. Early this year in March, a large oil spill in north east Syria flooded local rivers and agricultural lands. PAX analysed this damage and summarized findings in the report ‘ A River of Death’.
A year earlier, heavy rains contributed to rivers filled with oil waste dumped from Gir Zero, a nearby oil storage facility, flooding agricultural lands in the same area, near the village of Tall Mashan.
Other issues around the environmental health concerns born from conflict-pollution in north west Syria are documented by a Bellingcat investigation published in April 2020, that looked at makeshift refineries that were set up near IDP sites in north west Syria. Their findings were published in the article ‘Dying to Keep Warm’, outlining the developments around oil, pollution and health risks in this part of the country.
Risk of an environmental disaster in Yemen
The ongoing conflict in Yemen has resulted in one of the largest humanitarian crises known today. On top of that, there is an imminent risk of catastrophic environmental disaster, as a large and rusty oil storage tanker off the coast of Yemen, with 1.1 million barrels of oil, is at risk of breaking down. The Houthis continue to discuss terms of access for a United Nations assessment mission that would facilitate finding a solution.. If this catastrophe unfolds, the crude oil will affect millions of lives and precious marine ecosystems for years to come. Several incidents and false alarms of a spill already went out, but with Planet’s high-resolution SkySat imagery it was possible to double check the situation, and make a distinction between oil spills and algae.
Conflict-linked Food Security in Yemen
The war in Yemen devastated agricultural output threatening livelihoods across the country. This compounded a situation where farmers were already suffering from increased droughts, desertification and locusts. Local NGOs raised concerns over the impact of the conflict on food production, including the 4 million date palms in Yemen’s heart of agricultural production, Tihama. In this Bellingcat environmental open-source investigation, existing data sets were combined with novel tools to map the impact of the conflict on agriculture and food security. By combining these data sets with near-infrared (NIR) imagery from Planet, the disappearance of date palms in the Tihama plains over the last three years was apparent. Imagery and open-source information both contributed to rapid analysis and understanding of this particular problem.
Digital Innovation to Identify Conflict Sensitive Environmental Flashpoints and Trends
Effectively protecting the environment during armed conflict requires an understanding of a range of complex issues including the magnitude of conflict-damage, the status and distribution of natural resources, the relationships between meteorological and geographic conditions, urban and industrial infrastructure, movement of people, and socio-economic conditions. The digital revolution is offering a suite of new data and digital tools that can help understand these complex relationships and identify both acute and chronic environmental risks in near-real time. A digital ecosystem for the environment as currently proposed by the UN Environment Programme and partners could be a fundamental toolkit in our global efforts to prevent and mitigate environmental damage during conflict as well as anticipate future security risks from environmental degradation and climate change.
But more collaboration across public and private sector stakeholders is needed to transform this vision into operational reality. Calls to action to broaden collaboration on environmental monitoring and data analysis have been made by UN Member States in various UN Security Council meetings on the topic of conflict and environment and climate security. In response, the international community should now seek to build a real-time monitoring platform that is able to identify direct and indirect environmental damage during conflict by leveraging state of the art Earth observation, open-source information, field data and citizen science. Algorithms and machine learning can be deployed to quickly process and digest a range of data inputs in order to flag any potential issues that need to be verified through field assessment or high-resolution imagery. This could be a perfect application for the World Environment Situation Room, a new platform being created by UN Environment for global environmental monitoring and early warning.
With access to a wide array of data sources from both public and private actors, actors in armed conflict can be held to account for environmental damages. In particular, for potential violations of international legal principles and norms around the conduct of war in relation to the environment. Communities can also be notified of potential health risks from pollution and environmental damage in a more rapid manner — saving lives and livelihoods.
We extend an open invitation to governments, private sector actors, academics and experts to work with us to harness all available digital means and methods that can facilitate better analysis, prevention and response to the environmental dimensions of armed conflict.
Wim Zwijnenburg is Project Leader Huminarian Disarmament at PAX, a Dutch peace organisation and a long-time contributor to Bellingcat. Over the last five years, he developed a methodology for environmental open-source investigation in relation to armed conflicts, conducted field work in Iraq, Syria and Ukraine and received the UNEP/OCHA Green Star Award for PAX’ work on environmental emergencies in 2017
David Jensen is the Head of Policy and Innovation at the UNEP Crisis Management Branch and Coordinator of the UNEP Digital Transformation Task Force. He has been pioneering efforts to identify environmental applications of frontier technologies in conflict-affected countries and fragile states, including big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, the internet of things, block chain, virtual reality, and citizen science.
With thanks to Planet for providing the satellite imagery for this article, Sarah Bates and Brittany Roser for editing
For more information on UN Environment’s work see www.unenvironment.org and @unenvironment
For more work on Bellingcat’s environmental investigation, see www.bellingcat.com or on twitter @bellingcat
For more information on PAX’s work on Environment and Conflict, see https://www.paxforpeace.nl/our-work/programmes/conflict-environment and @paxforpeace
