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This chapter describes some analytical, methodological and theoretical principles for the use of the photographic image as a method for researching environmental crimes and harms. The authors begin by discussing and exploring photo-elicitation methods—one technique for a green criminology with images, whereby the interviewer uses images to facilitate responses to questions and to delve deeper into the interviewee/participant’s verbal narratives. From here, the authors turn their attention to possible techniques for a green criminology about images (e.g., visual archival materials, images from popular visual culture, images taken by satellite or aerial photography), suggesting ways in which a green-visual criminology can contribute to the development of new forms of participatory research and praxis, as well as increased criminological insight into the visual dimensions of environmental change and harm, environmental conflict and resistance to environmental harm. The chapter concludes with some thoughts on the broad potential and applicability of a green visual mode of analysis and research.

Water pollution, whether from point sources (e.g., the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010) or non-point sources (e.g., quotidian stormwater runoff), exhibits local, national, regional and global dimensions, and constitutes one of the most pervasive threats to global ecological health (see Carrabine et al., 2009: 402-404; White and Heckenberg, 2014:158; see generally Brisman, 2002). For example, freshwater animal species face an extinction rate five times that of terrestrial animals because of the extent of water pollution and overfishing (Harwood, 2010). Inadequate access to safe and sanitary supplies of freshwater causes over 3 percent of all human deaths worldwide and is the leading cause of death for children under 5 years old (Pruss-Ustun et al., 2008). Although developing nations bear the brunt of insufficient access to clean water (see, e.g., LaFraniere, 2006), problems of accessibility are less likely to impact the developed and post-industrial world unless they affect agricultural production or recreation. Thus, water pollution and access to clean water are often conceptualized as problems with different socioeconomics and geopolitics.