1. Using U.S. Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) to Understand the Environmental Consequences of the War in Ukraine
- Author
-
Richard J. Wenning and Theodore D. Tomasi
- Subjects
Geography, Planning and Development ,General Medicine ,General Environmental Science - Abstract
Military conflict has led to large-scale environmental changes throughout recorded human history. Pollution from war contaminates surface water and soil, releases large volumes of greenhouse gases into the air, and directly harms wildlife and biodiversity. While much is understood about the human toll of war, numerous examples of post-war reconstruction suggest that underestimating the severity of wartime damages to ecosystems and natural resources results in prolonged or incomplete recovery of the environment. A data-driven scientific approach closely aligned to the evidentiary rules standard in western legal systems is needed to quantify the injury, destruction, or loss of natural resources and to inform the estimation of the reparations necessary to restore the environment fully. The U.S. natural resource damage assessment (NRDA) process and the European Union environmental liability directive (ELD) are well-suited for a systematic and science-based analysis of the ecological injuries incurred during armed conflicts. Both approaches include a preliminary damage assessment process, which could be initiated during wartime to document and predict the likely severity of the injuries and prioritize, in advance, rehabilitation activities after the cessation of hostilities. In this paper, we refer to news reporting of Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine as an example of how a preliminary damage assessment could be conducted remotely and later modified by in-country inspections and analysis to verify and refine the scale of injuries and to develop reparation proposals. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2022;00:0-0. © 2022 SETAC.
- Published
- 2022