DDMG wins prestigious European Space Agency Earth observation excellence award

With great honour the Decentralized Damage Mapping Group (DDMG) is receiving the 2025 European Space Agency (ESA) Earth Observation Excellence Award (Team Award). Since its founding, this international collective of academics and civil society organisations has advanced the use of satellite analysis to document the humanitarian and environmental consequences of damage from wars and natural hazard-induced disasters. Their findings have been used by journalists and policymakers to assess the damage to agricultural land, built-up areas, forests, water infrastructure and solid waste management in conflict zones including Palestine (with a focus on Gaza), Ukraine, Lebanon, Sudan, and Syria, as well as fire damage in Los Angeles.

Using publicly available satellite imagery from ESA’s Sentinel constellation, NASA’s Landsat and MODIS programs, and commercial satellite data providers, alongside ancillary open-source data, DDMG is building the science, practice, and partnerships to make EO-driven conflict damage assessments faster, more accessible, and more useful for response, recovery, and long-term environmental monitoring in conflict settings.

DDMG’s findings have had wide uptake by the global news media, spurred conversations with the humanitarian community, and catalyzed new research for armed conflict impact assessments. With this award, DDMG aims to bolster its methods, develop new research directions and collaborations, and expand outreach to industry, academic, humanitarian, and the Earth observation community, while also contributing to wider dissemination and education on the use of remote sensing data with civil society groups and activists in conflict-affected areas. With these advancements, DDMG is poised to improve our understanding of and strengthen accountability for the wider environmental and climate dimensions of war.