Thread by @bellingcat

Iraq has huge oil reserves, but it has also been blighted by rapidly declining air quality & oil pollution in recent years

How can open source tools help us monitor these issues & pinpoint who is responsible for pollution? New from @wammezz & @oballinger bellingcat.com/resources/2021…

@wammezz @oballinger A host of sources allow us to openly monitor pollution.

Here, nighttime imagery from the @NASAEarth VIIRS sensor highlights bright-burning gas flares from oil wells south of Erbil.

This time lapse (captured between 2013 and 2017) also shows the period when ISIS captured Mosul.

@wammezz @oballinger @NASAEarth Gas flares are a major sources of air pollution. Combining VIIRS imagery with @ESA_EO Sentinel-5p data in @googleearth Engine, we can also see high levels of Nitrogen Dioxide around flaring sites, many of which are located near big cities

@wammezz @oballinger @NASAEarth @ESA_EO @googleearth Oil production isn’t the only source of pollution in Iraq. In 2016, ISIS set fire to the Al-Mishraq sulphur plant creating a massive plume of Sulphur Dioxide. Using data from @ECMWF, we show the cloud stretching from Kenya to the Arctic circle, and from Algeria to Japan.

@wammezz @oballinger @NASAEarth @ESA_EO @googleearth @ECMWF We also used @sentinel_hub Near-infrared Sentinel-2 images to scout heat sources from both small scale refineries associated with oil waste dumping a in northern #Iraq around Dohuk and Erbil.

@wammezz @oballinger @NASAEarth @ESA_EO @googleearth @ECMWF @sentinel_hub Reports on leakages in these areas were more than a year old, and publicly available high-res satellite imagery was from 2018. But with help from local sources who traveled to the Kashe industrial district near Dohuk, we were able to photograph and verify ongoing oil spills

@wammezz @oballinger @NASAEarth @ESA_EO @googleearth @ECMWF @sentinel_hub In Southern Iraq, multinational oil companies operate some of the world's largest oil fields. @SkyTruth data suggests that more gas is flared within 70km of Basra than in Saudi Arabia, China, India, and Canada combined. Flaring is even visible from the @Space_Station

@wammezz @oballinger @NASAEarth @ESA_EO @googleearth @ECMWF @sentinel_hub @SkyTruth @Space_Station VIIRS and @Sentinel5p show plumes of pollution consistently originating around flares in the North Rumaila complex blowing over Basra.

@wammezz @oballinger @NASAEarth @ESA_EO @googleearth @ECMWF @sentinel_hub @SkyTruth @Space_Station @Sentinel5p Here's a closer view of just one degassing station in the North Rumaila complex through June 2020

@wammezz @oballinger @NASAEarth @ESA_EO @googleearth @ECMWF @sentinel_hub @SkyTruth @Space_Station @Sentinel5p The oil industry around Basra doesn’t just pollute the air. Oil spills, improper waste management, and pipeline leaks are also prevalent. Here @oballinger applies a machine learning algorithm in @GoogleEarth Engine to ID potential oil contamination (e.g. spills, wastwater, soot)

@wammezz @oballinger @NASAEarth @ESA_EO @googleearth @ECMWF @sentinel_hub @SkyTruth @Space_Station @Sentinel5p The algorithm also identified potential leaks along the Basra Oil Terminal Pipeline near the export terminal at Al-Faw that covered an area the size of three soccer fields (29,000 m2).

You can explore suspected oil pollution around Basra here: ollielballinger.users.earthengine.app/view/basra-oil

@wammezz @oballinger @NASAEarth @ESA_EO @googleearth @ECMWF @sentinel_hub @SkyTruth @Space_Station @Sentinel5p All figures were generated using open source inputs and code. Source code for visualisations can be found here: github.com/oballinger/Bel…

@wammezz @oballinger @NASAEarth @ESA_EO @googleearth @ECMWF @sentinel_hub @SkyTruth @Space_Station @Sentinel5p Lastly, we aim to demonstrate how the wealth of publicly available data and tools can be helpful in identification and tracking of environmental pollution to empower researchers and concerned citizens.

All feedback is, of course, welcome: bellingcat.com/resources/2021…