Weapons, Waste, and Pollution

When Bombs Turn the Taps Off: The Impact of Conflict on Water Infrastructure in Lebanon

2025 | Action Against Hunger, Insecurity Insight, and Oxfam

Action Against Hunger, Insecurity Insight and Oxfam have worked collectively to document the impact of the escalation of conflict in Lebanon on water infrastructure since…

Anchored in Action: Operationalizing NATO's Climate Security Plan in the Arctic Maritime Domain

2025 | Arctic Institute
Pauline Baudu and Fabio Lissi

Since 2021 and until recently, NATO has bolstered its commitment to addressing the security implications of climate change, demonstrated by the release of foundational guiding…

Russia-Ukraine War Has Altered the Pattern of Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Shipping in the Black Sea Region

2025 | Communications Earth & Environment
Yuanquan Xu, Pengjun Zhao, Tingting Kang, and Kun Qin

Recent geopolitical crises have reshaped global shipping patterns, profoundly impacting related carbon emissions. Here, we utilize automatic identification system data from March 2021 to February…

Weaponization of Natural Resources as a Hybrid Threat

2025 | CoESPU Magazine: The Online Quarterly of Stability Policing
Antimo Altomare and Marina Bizzotto

Environmental crimes is becoming more and more prominent as the widespread understanding of their short-term impacts and long-term consequences grows. Although violations of environmental laws…

War in Ukraine: The Case for Environmental Peacebuilding and Reparations

2023 | Journal of the British Academy.
Natalia Slobodian

Russia’s current large-scale unprovoked invasion of Ukraine demonstrates that the environment matters, even though it is considered a secondary issue during conflicts. The war has…

Can the Military Fight Climate Change? A review of Sherri Goodman, “Threat Multiplier: Climate, Military Leadership, and the Fight for Global Security” (Island Press, 2024)

2025 | Lawfare
Andrea H. Cameron

“If we believe the old adage ‘out of crisis, comes opportunity,’ the opportunity has never been greater.” This statement in Sherri Goodman’s “Threat Multiplier: Climate,…

The Environmental Impact Assessment and Military Conflicts – An Outline of the Problem Area

2023 | Opolskie Studia Administracyjno-Prawne
Sergiusz Urban

The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a legal, procedural tool that allows identifying, predicting, evaluating and preventing or mitigating the impacts of a planned project…

Russia-Ukraine War Has Altered the Pattern of Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Shipping in the Black Sea Region

2025 | Communications Earth & Environment
Yuanquan Xu, Pengjun Zhao, Tingting Kang, and Kun Qin

Recent geopolitical crises have reshaped global shipping patterns, profoundly impacting related carbon emissions. Here, we utilize automatic identification system data from March 2021 to February…

Protecting Water in Conflict [Video]

2025 | Center for Strategic & International Studies
David Michel

Armed conflict is rising worldwide. The ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine exemplify the toll that modern warfare can take on vital water systems and…

Making Peace with Nature: Contributions on Environmental Justice and Peacebuilding from Colombia [Video]

2025 | Hiroshima NERPS
Venesa Giraldo and Inge Valencia

In Colombia, the challenges of ecological degradation are deeply influenced by the dynamics of armed conflict in diverse and complex ways. Nature is a direct…

Wartime Geomorphological Damage and Geodiversity Loss in Ukraine

2025 | Conflict and Environment Observatory
Rob Watson and Stella Shekhunova

Since 2014, huge swathes of Ukraine’s geological heritage have been affected by fighting or militarily occupied, in many places causing irreversible damage to Ukraine’s landscapes.…

The Environmental Costs of the War in Sudan

2025 | Conflict and Environment Observatory

The ongoing conflict in Sudan has profoundly impacted its environment but these consequences have received little attention. CEOBS has been monitoring the conflict’s environmental dimensions…

From Conflict to a Climate Future: Unraveling the Nexus between Warfare and Environmental Degradation

2025 | Sustainable Futures
Musrat Nazir, Imran Khan, Syed Afzal Moshadi Shah, Talat Islam, Kamran Azam, Imran Naseem, and Khalid Zaman

The natural environment in conflict zones is often severely impacted by warfare, with long-lasting effects on water resources and ecosystems. The ongoing conflict between Ukraine…

Armed Conflict Causes Long-Lasting Environmental Harms

2025 | Environment and Security
Florian Krampe, Joakim Kreutz, and Tobias Ide

Armed conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza are very visible reminders of the severe negative impacts that armed conflicts have on the environment. Yet, despite knowledge…

Destruction of the Oskil Dam in Ukraine, March–September 2022: A Remote Assessment of Environmental Impacts

2024 | Conflict Observatory
CURIA Lab

This report investigates the March and September 2022 breaches of the Oskil Dam, the second of which rendered the dam inoperable for 22 months. The…

Assessing Pollution from Explosive Weapons in Southern Ukraine

2025 | Norwegian People's Aid and Conflict and Environment Observatory
Iryna Babanina, Anna McKean, Anastasiia Splodytel, and Doug Weir

The use of explosive weapons in populated areas, or against civilian infrastructure, can generate a range of direct and reverberating environmental consequences that can harm…

Scoping Conflict-Linked Environmental Harm in Southern Lebanon

2025 | Conflict and Environment Observatory
Rob Watson and Jay Lindle

Alongside its civilian impact, the intensification of the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict after October 2023 had grave consequences for the environment. This post by Rob Watson and…

Dead Water from Russia: Fish and Other Life Perish in the Polluted Waters of the Seim River

2024 | Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Work Group

The Seim River flows through Russia’s Belgorod and Kursk regions and from there through Ukraine’s Sumy and Chernihiv regions. In August, a fish die-off was…

Environmental Impact of the Conflict in Gaza: Preliminary Assessment of Environmental Impacts

2024 | UNEP

This Preliminary Assessment was prepared by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). It is an initial response to an official request from the State of…

War's Hidden Victim: The Environmental Toll of Russia's Invasion of Ukraine

2024 | Peace Magazine
Alexander Belyakov

While the world is focused on the enormous human toll of Russia’s war on Ukraine, the conflict has also destroyed and contaminated its natural environment,…

Environmental Security in War and Armed Conflict [Video]

2024 | UN Web TV

War against Ukraine caused large-scale environmental damage resulted in unprecedented pollution, disruption of ecosystems and physical destruction of biological species both on the territory of…

Ecological Threat Report 2024

2024 | Institute for Economics & Peace

This is the fifth edition of the Ecological Threat Report (ETR), which analyses ecological threats in 207 countries and territories. Produced by the Institute for…

Rapid Assessment--UNDP/PAPP's Emergency Response to Solid Waste Management

2024 | UNDP Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian People

This assessment indicates that the solid waste management system in Gaza has collapsed. There is no access to the major landfills, and waste accumulates at…

Russia’s Ecocide in Ukraine: Environmental Destruction and the Need for Accountability [Video]

2024 | Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
Kristina Hook, Eugene Z. Stakhiv, and Maryna Boydyuk

In the ten years since Russia launched its war of aggression against Ukraine, Ukraine estimates that Russia has inflicted some $60 billion in damages to…

Conservation Policies Must Address an Overlooked Issue: How War Affects the Environment

2024 | Nature
Doug Weir, Sarah M. Durant, Henrike Schulte to Bühne, Michael Hoffmann, Olesya Petrovych, Beth Sua Carvajal, and Sara Fernandes Elizalde

Since Russia’s invasion in 2022, 3 million hectares of Ukraine’s protected areas have been affected by military activities. For example, the authors' independent analysis of…

Mapping the Vulnerability of Ukraine's Groundwater

2024 | Conflict and Environment Observatory

Groundwater accounts for around 99% of the liquid freshwater on Earth. However, it is often undervalued and environmental damage goes unrecorded, partly because it is…

Ukraine: Reframing the Narrative of Climate, Environmental Degradation and Conflict

2024 | International Rescue Committee
Clément Iraola and Beatrice Mosello

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the war in Ukraine has been in the spotlight, largely due to its dire human toll and geopolitical…

Tracking Unaccounted Greenhouse Gas Emissions Due to the War in Ukraine Since 2022

2024 | Science of the Total Environment
Rostyslav Bun, Gregg Marland, Tomohiro Oda, Linda See, Enrique Puliafito, Zbigniew Nahorski, Mathias Jonas, Vasyl Kovalyshyn, Iolanda Ialongo, Orysia Yashchun, and Zoriana Romanchuk

Accounting and reporting of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are mandatory for Parties under the Paris Agreement. Emissions reporting is important for understanding the global carbon cycle and for…

The Impact of Environmental Pollution on Ethnic Unrest in Xinjiang: A Uyghur Perspective

2018 | Modern China
Nimrod Baranovitch

Since the early 1990s, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has been one of the most restive areas in China, and in recent years, following the…

Attacks on Ukraine’s Energy Infrastructure: Harm to the Civilian Population

2024 | Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

Between 22 March and 31 August 2024, the Russian Federation armed forces launched nine waves of long-range and large-scale coordinated attacks on Ukraine’s electric power…