Abstract
Historically, cities have figured prominently in wars, including as targets. However, the impacts of warfare on the environmental signatures of urban systems remain less understood. Here we propose a comprehensive satellite-constellation-based framework to systematically assess methane emissions attributable to the Russia–Ukraine war. We find that this conflict overturns the conventional urban–rural methane emissions relationship, typically dominated by rural methane emissions. Urban methane emissions, initially just 21% of rural levels, rapidly rise to match rural levels after very few attacks and escalate to ~146%–588% of rural levels under extensive and intensive warfare, revealing urban systems’ greater vulnerability to warfare disruption. Civilian infrastructure, primarily residential buildings, emerges as a major emission source, matching military facilities in both emission intensity and frequency. These findings uncover an underappreciated, direct relationship between warfare, methane emissions and urban degradation. In the context of ongoing global conflicts, this relationship underscores the urgent need to monitor the greenhouse-gas signatures of besieged cities and highlights peace as a fundamental prerequisite for achieving climate-related Sustainable Development Goals.
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Data availability
The Gaofen-5 and Ziyuan-1 data are downloaded from the China Centre for Resources Satellite Data and Application available at https://data.cresda.cn/#/home. The Sentinel-2 data are publicly available through the Copernicus Open Access Hub (https://dataspace.copernicus.eu/). The WRF-LES model code is available at https://www2.mmm.ucar.edu/wrf/users/download/get_sources.html. The MODTRAN radiative transfer model is publicly available at http://modtran.spectral.com/. The ERA5 data are available at https://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts/datasets/reanalysis-datasets/era5. The WRF-CMAQ code is available via GitHub at https://github.com/USEPA/CMAQ. The total methane emission data from fossil fuels are available from https://www.globalmethane.org/partners/index.aspx. The land-cover data are obtained from www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=cfcb7609de5f478eb7666240902d4d3d. Other data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon request.
Code availability
The main methane quantification code is publicly available via Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15307451 (ref. 60), facilitating reproducibility and enabling other researchers to apply our methods to their own studies.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the National High Resolution Earth Observation System for providing data from Gaofen-5. We thank the European Space Agency (ESA) for providing data from Sentinel-2. We are particularly grateful to E. D. Sherwin for his exceptionally thorough and constructive feedback that significantly improved this manuscript. P.L. was supported by the One-Hundred-Talents scheme of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (E580327000); the Major Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42192582); National Natural Science Foundation of China (72361137007); and the Science and Technology Program of Hebei Province (22343702D). S.Y. was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 72361137007, 42175084, 21577126 and 41561144004), Key Discipline for High Level University Construction in Zhejiang Province (Peak Discipline).
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Contributions
Conceptualization: P.L. Methodology: P.L., Z.F., R.H., Y.P. and Q.X. Investigation: P.L., Z.F., R.H., Y.P., Q.X., J.Z., Q.W., K.C. and S.L. Visualization: P.L., Z.F., R.H., Y.P., Q.X., J.Z., Q.W., K.C. and S.L. Funding acquisition: P.L. and S.Y. Project administration: P.L. Supervision: P.L. Writing—original draft: P.L. Writing—review and editing: P.L., S.Y., J.H.S., D.R., J.H.C. and A.B.
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Nature Cities thanks Evan Sherwin and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
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Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Supplementary Texts 1–8, Figs. 1–16 and Tables 1–5.
Supplementary Table 1
Comprehensive information for war-induced methane emitters.
Supplementary Table 2
Methane emissions of multiple countries based on multiple bottom-up emission inventories.
Source data
Source Data Fig. 1
Widespread but urban-centric methane released by the Russia–Ukraine war.
Source Data Fig. 2
Civilian facilities as surprise sources of war-induced methane emissions.
Source Data Fig. 3
Civilian facilities in urban areas as the persistent, key sources of war-induced methane emissions.
Source Data Fig. 4
Vast methane released by the Russia–Ukraine war.
Source Data Fig. 5
The Russia–Ukraine war reshapes the spatial patterns of the urban–rural methane emission magnitude.
Source Data Fig. 6
Dominant role of warfare strategies.
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Feng, Z., Hu, R., Pan, Y. et al. Vast and hidden urban methane emissions from the Russia–Ukraine war. Nat Cities 2, 884–896 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44284-025-00309-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44284-025-00309-8
