New Tool Freely Documents Wartime Destruction

Researchers develop a method to detect the destruction of buildings using freely available satellite radar imagery. Daniel Racek and colleagues' algorithm analyzes publicly available Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar images from the European Space Agency to identify destroyed buildings in conflict zones. The method statistically assesses the visual similarity of locations over time, enabling detection of destruction from a single satellite image every 12 days, without requiring labeled training data or expensive proprietary imagery. Unlike optical satellites, radar operates through clouds and darkness. The authors validate the approach across three case studies: the 2020 Beirut harbor explosion, the 2022 siege of Mariupol, Ukraine, and the 2023–2024 Gaza conflict. In Beirut, the algorithm achieved precision of 86%, correctly identifying most buildings destroyed by the explosion. In Mariupol's Zhovtnevyi district, the method estimated 2,437 buildings were destroyed, some 22% of all buildings in the district. In Gaza, destruction estimates tracked closely with UN satellite analysis. According to the authors, the method democratizes access to conflict monitoring tools and enables near real-time assessment of building destruction for humanitarian response, human rights monitoring, and academic research on armed conflict.