War, Soil, and Freshwater Systems
**Prague, 15–17 October 2026**
A working international meeting on the environmental consequences of war
War-related environmental problems do not belong to one discipline, one profession or one type of institution.
A single territory may involve contaminated soil, groundwater, rivers, sediments, damaged industrial sites, unexploded ordnance, disrupted agriculture, destroyed infrastructure, ecosystem change and long-term human exposure.
Understanding such a system requires different capabilities to work together.
For this reason, **P&D is not organised as a conventional academic conference.**
It is a working international meeting bringing together people who can contribute different parts of the investigation and recovery process.
Who participates?
The conference is open to participants from different professional and institutional backgrounds, including:
* researchers and independent experts;* organisations from conflict-affected regions;* environmental and engineering companies;* GIS and Earth Observation specialists;* laboratories;* humanitarian mine-action organisations;* water and infrastructure operators;* remediation specialists;* environmental and community organisations;* project developers;* foundations;* development institutions;* investors and financial organisations.
There is no division between an academic centre and a practical periphery.
A university affiliation does not automatically make a contribution more important.
A company is not present simply to sponsor or exhibit.
A local organisation is not treated merely as a source of regional information.
Each participant is asked the same question:
What can you contribute to understanding or solving the problem?
Real territories and real problems
P&D work is connected with actual conflict and post-conflict environments.
Current directions include cases related to:
Ukraine
Vietnam
Sudan
and other affected regions represented by conference participants.
These territories are not used simply as illustrations.
The aim is to work with people who understand the local conditions and to connect them with the technologies, methods, data, engineering capacity and project-development resources required for real investigation and recovery.
A basic principle is:
**projects concerning a territory should include credible organisations from that territory in the design and implementation of the work.**
From evidence to action
The conference follows a practical progression:
**What do we know?**
↓
**What do we not know?**
↓
**How can we investigate it?**
↓
**What methods, technologies and organisations are required?**
↓
**What can realistically be done next?**
This structure is reflected in:
* Critical Reviews;* Regional Cases;* Applied Systems & Technologies;* Case Labs;* Investigation Design Workshops;* information-system development;* and Project Studios.
The purpose is not to maximise the number of presentations.
The purpose is to improve the quality of the questions, investigations and projects that emerge from the meeting.
Working materials, not conference theatre
Important materials can be published or circulated before the meeting.
Participants should not need to travel to Prague simply to hear information that could have been read at home.
Conference time is reserved primarily for:
**critical discussion**
**comparison of evidence**
**testing of methods**
**investigation design**
**project development**
and
**cooperation**.
A full paper may therefore become evidence for a Case Lab rather than a twenty-minute lecture.
A technology may be examined against a real problem rather than demonstrated as a commercial product.
A regional participant may challenge an assumption that appears reasonable from outside but does not work locally.
A project may begin with the recognition that an important piece of evidence is still missing.
The Specification
A central working element of P&D is the **Specification for the Investigation of War-Related Environmental Contamination**.
The Specification is designed as a practical structure for organising real investigations.
It is not intended as a final doctrine.
It is intended to be:
**published → used → tested → criticised → revised.**
The conference provides an opportunity to examine how that structure performs when confronted with different territories, histories, technologies, data limitations and implementation conditions.
The objective is not to demonstrate that the Specification is correct.
The objective is to make it more useful.
Companies and applied organisations
Companies and practical organisations are part of the working process because many capabilities required for environmental investigation and recovery exist outside universities.
These include:
* satellite observation;* GIS;* autonomous systems;* field instrumentation;* laboratories;* humanitarian demining;* geophysics;* water monitoring;* remediation;* engineering;* infrastructure;* agriculture;* logistics;* project implementation;* and finance.
Their role is not to provide a commercial interruption between scientific sessions.
They work on the same problems as everyone else.
A useful technology contribution should explain:
**what the method can do;**
**what evidence it produces;**
**where its limitations are;**
and
**how it could be tested in a real case.**
What can emerge from Prague?
The result of participation may be:
* a better research question;* a revised investigation method;* a Critical Review;* a new dataset;* a technology-validation case;* a field pilot;* an information-system component;* a local implementation partnership;* a remediation or monitoring concept;* a project consortium;* or a possible financing pathway.
Not every discussion needs to become a project.
Sometimes the most important result is identifying **why a project cannot yet responsibly begin and what evidence is missing**.
Participation is not measured by stage time
A participant may contribute through:
* evidence;* a regional case;* criticism;* a dataset;* field experience;* technology;* local access;* engineering;* implementation capacity;* project development;* finance;* or an important unresolved question.
The conference gives people **roles in a working process**, not simply speaking slots.
Explore the Conference
Conference Overview
The overall concept, participants and intended outcomes.
Why This Conference Matters
Why war-related environmental problems require a different form of cooperation.
Research Framework
Open questions, knowledge gaps, conflict geography and analytical materials.
Program
The structure of the three-day working process.
Day 1
**What do we actually know?**
Day 2
**How would we actually investigate it?**
Day 3
**What are we going to build?**
Partnership & Applied Cooperation
Participation by companies, implementation organisations, technology providers, funders and project partners.
Submit & Register
Ways to contribute and participate in Prague.
The central principle
**P&D is not a meeting of people who already know the answers.**
**It is a working meeting of people who possess different parts of the capability required to find them.**
Prague, 15–17 October 2026
**Real territories. Real evidence. Real uncertainty. Real cooperation.**