Without a doubt, cataclysmic events such as the 1991 Gulf War oil fires contributed to raising awareness on the conflict-environment nexus, and the images of burning wells are engraved into our collective mind. Our understanding of how severely armed conflicts have impacted natural resources, eco-systems, biodiversity and long-term implications on climate has massively improved over the last decade. Data-driven environmental decision-making and action in armed conflict.How can this transformative development influence military conduct to strengthen the protection of civilians and the environment in armed conflict? In this post and as part of the ICRC series on war, law and the environment with the Conflict and Environment Observatory, Wim Zwijnenburg, project leader on Humanitarian Disarmament at PAX and contributor to Bellingcat, outlines how remote environmental data collection and field research is used and incorporated in international advocacy to boost the momentum for mainstreaming a robust environmental, peace and security agenda and ultimately reduce environmental damage in conflict. In other words, the scope and severity of environmental damage in conflict is now better understood and more foreseeable. From spatio-temporal analysis to near-real time monitoring of conflicts and resulting harm from scorched earth tactics, environmental data can quickly be incorporated in humanitarian action and reconstruction efforts. A digital revolution through a myriad of earth observation data and open-source investigations is reshaping our understanding of the environmental causes and consequences of armed conflicts.

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