The project “Fixation of damage caused to natural complexes of the Kharkiv region as a result of the war” has been completed. We would like to remind you that the project was launched in December 2022 within the framework of the Initiative for the Development of Environmental Policy and Advocacy in Ukraine, which is implemented by the International Renaissance Foundation with the financial support of Sweden.

We would like to inform you that we managed to fulfill the main task of the project in a short period of time – to compile a geodatabase on violations of natural complexes of Kharkiv Oblast, which arose as a result of hostilities. The main method of work was the visual decoding of Sentinel-2 and Planet images of the territory of the areas where the fighting took place during February-October 2022.

The basis of the base was the fixation of craters formed as a result of the impact of shells, mines, and rockets. Their number exceeds 61,000 pieces. Full information about the initial results of the project can be found on the “EkoProstir” portal.

The results of geoanalysis for individual territories are also presented there. In particular, for the Rohansk OTG, we performed an analysis of the community’s territory regarding possible chemical contamination of soils and water bodies. A zoning map based on the degree of damage was constructed for the territory of Zolochiv OTG.

The formed geodatabase will allow further studies on the degree of damage to natural lands, in particular chemical pollution of land resources, and can be actively used in the development of comprehensive plans for the spatial development of the territories of communities that were in the war zone.