From data to testimony, from testimony to accountability

HERA works on a link that is too often overlooked: the moment environmental degradation turns into human displacement — and the decisions behind it.

A group of people walk across dry ground near the receding shore of Lake Urmia. — Lake Urmia · Photo: Solmaz Daryani, CC BY-SA 4.0

Human

Environmental displacement is, above all, a human experience. We document the testimony of affected communities — with informed consent and their safety first — and set it alongside the data.

Ethical documentation of testimony
Rights of displaced people and host communities
Internal and cross-border migration

Lake Urmia seen from the International Space Station: red and pink brine surrounded by white salt flats. — Lake Urmia from orbit · Photo: NASA Johnson Space Center, Public domain

Environment

We track drying lakes and wetlands, land subsidence, dust storms and soil erosion using satellite, statistical and field data.

Satellite and open-data analysis
Water, soil and air
Climate change and desertification

Two women in long veils walk under tamarisk trees in a village covered by wind-blown sand. — Hamoun, Iran–Afghanistan border · Photo: Solmaz Daryani, CC BY-SA 4.0

Resilience

Knowledge that never reaches communities does not help them. We create training, workshops and open resources so that evidence becomes a tool.

Educational workshops and seminars
Open, multilingual learning resources
Dialogue with communities and researchers

An abandoned greenhouse, its plastic torn to shreds, half-buried in sand. — Hamoun region · Photo: Solmaz Daryani, CC BY-SA 4.0

Accountability

Many environmental disasters are not natural; they are the result of decisions. We analyse the policies, projects and choices behind environmental harm, and put evidence-based questions to those responsible.

Policy and project analysis
Document-based reporting
Non-partisan public policy dialogue

First research focus

Where the land is breaking

HERA’s mandate is global. Our first research programme begins in Iran and the wider region — where environmental collapse and the absence of accountability reinforce each other.

A white crust of salt stretches to a rocky island on the dried bed of Lake Urmia.

~90% of area lost since 1995

North-west Iran

Lake Urmia

Once one of the largest saltwater lakes on Earth. Reduced rainfall and water extraction for farming have turned much of it into salt flat.

Satellite view of the Hamoun basin: pale dry lakebeds with only small patches of blue water.

Home of the “120-day wind”

Sistan, Iran–Afghanistan border

Hamoun wetlands

Fed mainly by the Helmand River, the Hamoun lakes have dried out repeatedly since the severe drought at the end of the 1990s.

Aerial view of a salt-crusted, cracked wetland bed with a small remaining pool of water.

A Ramsar-listed wetland

Isfahan

Zayandeh Rud & Gavkhouni

Isfahan’s river has run dry through the city for long periods, and the Gavkhouni wetland at its end — a wetland of international importance — has largely dried.