Call for Submissions — Environmental Research Letters Focus Issue: Focus on Initial and Enduring Environmental Consequences of Armed Conflict

Jan 20, 2026 (Deadline: 2026-02-28) | Environmental Research Letters
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Recent years have seen a sharp rise in armed conflicts worldwide with some estimates pointing to a roughly 25% increase in conflict events each year since 2020, alongside a growing population directly affected by violence. Here, we use ’armed conflict’ to refer to situations in which organized groups, including governments, use weapons against one another. Though widespread, the environmental toll of armed conflict remains poorly understood in part because the impacts of armed conflict on ecological, human-environment, and climatic processes may manifest in different ways at different times.A new Focus Issue in Environmental Research Letters seeks research contributions that examine the broader spectrum of environmental consequences, including indirect effects that unfold over seasons or years and extend across diffuse geographies. We are particularly interested in research that integrates conflict dynamics into analyses of environmental outcomes, and that employs innovative combinations of Earth observation, geospatial data, and qualitative insights to capture the plurality of conflict consequences at different temporal and spatial scales. Such approaches can illuminate how armed conflict processes, shaped by both deliberate and involuntary decisions, translate into specific environmental impacts.Expressions of interest, including a 200-word abstract, are welcome by 28 February 2026, with full article submissions for peer review due by 30 September 2026.Further information is available at: https://iopscience.iop.org/collections/erl-251125-1010