On October 23, 2025, at the Georgetown Law campus, the Center on National Security held the second innovation workshop on mapping and mitigating harm to the civilian environment in armed conflict as part of the Cumulative Civilian Harm Project, which focused on mapping and mitigating harm to the civilian environment in armed conflict. The workshop brought together participants with extensive experience in assessing and reducing harm to the civilian environment.
The first session examined the increasing complexity of assessing and mitigating harm to the civilian environment. Rising urbanization and the embedding of non-state armed groups in the urban environment has brought conflict closer to civilians, often resulting in extensive death, injuries and damage to and destruction of critical infrastructure essential for civilian survival.
Traditionally, operational military planning has conceptualized anticipated civilian harm narrowly, focusing on deaths, injuries, and direct damage to property. This approach overlooks various types of harm that impact the civilian environment. This session emphasized the need to broaden the conception of civilian harm and to develop the ability to map the civilian systems and their interdependencies, making this information available to operational planners in real time.
The second session was dedicated to the military commander’s perspective, focusing on the information currently available to operational commanders when assessing and mitigating harm to the civilian environment. Participants reviewed existing sources and methodologies, identified information gaps and discussed the types of insights they wished they had during operations. They also shared from their experience practical examples of environmental factors and reverberating effects that influenced their decision-making as commanders.
The third session explored emerging technologies that can support mitigation efforts. Building on the prior discussion, participants assessed the extent to which existing tools and data can meet the commanders’ needs. They noted significant gaps and deficiencies in existing data sets and examined the potential of data fusion and information deconfliction to improve operational planning. The session also addressed the role of humanitarian notification systems in protecting the civilian environment.
The fourth session addressed the reverberating effects of military operations on interconnected civilian and military infrastructure (e.g., water, electricity, health, sanitation). Building on case studies including Gaza, Aleppo and Mosul, participants examined how damage to key infrastructure can result in long-term humanitarian consequences. The participants reflected on opportunities to strengthen coordination between military planners and humanitarian actors to better anticipate and mitigate these effects.
The workshop concluded with a discussion of the institutional incentives and disincentives that shape whether and how militaries incorporate harm to the civilian environment into operational planning. Participants considered factors such as organizational culture, command priorities, legal and policy frameworks, resource constraints, and operational pressures that may encourage or discourage the integration of civilian-environment considerations into planning processes.