Online Identification of Conflict Related Environmental Damage
Publisher: Bellingcat
Author(s): Wim Zwijnenburg
Date: 2015
Topics: Data and Technologies, Land, Monitoring and Evaluation, Weapons, Waste, and Pollution
Countries: Syrian Arab Republic
With the conflict in Syria soon to enter its fifth year, large parts of the country have been laid to waste by intense fighting, bombardment and shelling. Understandably, most of the focus has been on the fighting and the direct victims of armed violence, with rather less on other impacts and their consequences, particularly the environmental damage and pollution caused by the conflict.
Environmental damage can take many shapes and forms, from attacks on industrial facilities, critical infrastructure and the resulting releases of hazardous substances, to the looting of factories and laboratories, to the collapse of environmental governance, and the toxic footprint of weapon and munitions residues. In November 2015, PAX released the report Admist the debris..., which provides a snapshot of the environmental hazards associated with the Syrian conflict. The research was guided by the assessments by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and others of previous conflicts (Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, Kosovo, Servia, Gaza, Ukraine) their environmental impacts, and associated public health risks.
The lack of field access to Syria for obvious security reasons severely limits the ability to undertake the thorough assessment of environmental hazards necessary to verify potential health risks. But with the current mass use of a range of communication technologies, including social media, Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) can be a useful tool for environmental impact mapping. For the PAX Syria report, we made use of various OSINT tools. This article will go into more depth on how these tools can be a useful means for monitoring live conflicts for non-governmental organisations, international organisations and humanitarian workers providing aid in affected areas.