Remote sensing for area reduction of minefield suspect areas

It is more than 10 years ago that the Ottawa or Mine Ban Treaty has been signed and although considerable progress has been made still a formidable task is laying ahead to clean former war affected areas of landmines and unexploded ordnance around the world. There is a growing recognition that remote sensing could become a particular useful tool to provide valuable information for humanitarian mine action and to assist in the process of conventional minefield detection. Air and spaceborne systems, equipped with different sensors, can quickly and safely scan large (inaccessible) areas and the information obtained can contribute to the mapping and identification of suspect areas, identification and determination of the minefield boundaries and under favourable conditions even the identification and localization of individual mines. A methodology is presented to derive suitable direct and indirect image indicators which in combination with collected ancillary information, prior knowledge/intelligence, etc., can provide major keys towards successful identification and detection of suspect areas and minefields using standoff detection techniques.