Valerie Sticher, Corinne Bara, Jenniina Kotajoki, Lars Bromley, Thierry Crevoisier, Emanuele Dalsasso, Olivier Dietrich, Karsten Donnay, Filip Dorm, Manuel Fiol, Xi Li, Mikael Hiberg Naghizadeh, Corey Scher, Jamon Van Den Hoek, Konrad Schindler, Devis Tuia, Jan Dirk Wegner (2026) Advancing Conflict Research and Response Through Satellite-Derived data, Nature.
Conflict research still relies heavily on text- and especially news-based data, even though these miss important parts of what happens in war. In this article, we show how satellite-derived data can add a crucial complementary perspective. We argue and show, using case studies of Myanmar and Ukraine, that the real potential lies in combining satellite and text-based data. We lay out three ways to do this—improvement, enrichment, and fusion—the latter really sitting at the scientific frontier of what is currently possible.
Open Access!
Also read this commentary by Hannes Müller.