Weapons, Waste, and Pollution

There are 403 resources related to Weapons, Waste, and Pollution.

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…

Threat Multiplier: Climate, Military Leadership, and the Fight for Global Security

2024 | Island Press
Sherri Goodman

Threat Multiplier takes us onto the battlefield and inside the Pentagon to show how the US military is confronting the biggest security risk in global history:…

Off the Shelf | Climate Change, Military Leadership, and the Fight for Global Security with Author, Sherri Goodman [Video]

2024 | Wilson Center
Sherri Goodman

In her new book, Threat Multiplier: Climate, Military Leadership, and the Fight for Global Security, Sherri Goodman, the nation’s inaugural Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Environmental Security…

The Dawn of Climate Security (review of "Threat Multiplier")

2024 | Science
Saleem H. Ali

Militaries are major consumers of fossil fuels, and any curtailment of this demand for the purposes of reducing carbon emissions was initially perceived by US…

Ukraine: An Intersection of Environment and Nuclear Security Issues

2023 | Peace Policy
Drew Marcantonio and Kristina Hook

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is one of the most monitored conflicts in the history of warfare. From remote sensing satellite imagery to signals intelligence to social media monitoring,…

Environmental Violence: A Tool for Planetary Health Research

2023 | The Lancet
Richard Marcantonio and Agustín Fuentes

From climate change to toxic pollution and the interactive effects of multiple pollution streams, human health is under siege. Human-produced environmental risks to health and…

A Rapid Environmental Risk Assessment of the Kakhovka Dam Breach during the Ukraine Conflict

2024 | Nature Ecology & Evolution
Bryan M. Spears, Quillon Harpham, Emma Brown, Catherine L. Barnett, Louise Barwell, Marta Roca Collell, Mark Davison, Harry Dixon, J. Alex Elliott, Angus Garbutt, Caroline Hazlewood, Barabara Hofmann, James Lanyon, Stephen Lofts, Colin MacKechnie, Sergiy

Assessing habitat and biodiversity loss in active conflict zones is a major challenge1. Independent scientific evidence on wartime impacts is essential to inform the environmental…

Managing the Environmental Impacts of War: What Can Be Learned from Conflict-Vulnerable Communities?

2024 | Elsevier
Hailemariam Meaza, Tesfaalem Ghebreyohannes, Jan Nyssen, Zbelo Tesfamariam, Biadiglign Demissie, Jean Poesen, Misgina Gebrehiwot, Teklehaymanot G. Weldemichel, Seppe Deckers, Desta Gebremichael Gidey, and Matthias Vanmaercke

Wars have serious negative effects on the total environment. This study reviews 193 case studies worldwide in order to better understand these impacts and their potential management…

Protection of the Environment in Relation to Armed Conflict—50 Years of Effort, and No End in Sight

2023 | Environment and Security
Michael Bothe

The debate about environmental protection in relation to armed conflict began around 1970 due to the meeting of two political movements: on the one hand,…

Natural Resource Exploitation in Nigeria: Consequences of Human Actions and Best Practice for Environmental Sustainability—A Review

2019 | Sparkling International Journal of Multidisciplanary Studies
Angela O. Akanwa and F. Ikegbunam

The mining environment has been characterized by a number of risks and vulnerabilities with the implications for the attainment of the SDGs. One of these…

Natural Resource Exploitation in Nigeria: Consequences of Human Actions and Best Practice for Environmental Sustainability--A Review

2019 | Sparkling International Journal of Multidisciplanary Studies
Angela O. Akanwa and F. Ikegbunam

The mining environment has been characterized by a number of risks and vulnerabilities with the implications for the attainment of the SDGs. One of these…

The Siege of Gaza’s Water

2024 | Center for Strategic and International Studies
Natasha Hall, Anita Kirschenbaum, and David Michel

On October 9, in response to the October 7 assault by Hamas militants, Israel’s defense minister ordered a “complete siege” on the Gaza Strip, including…