The land mine is one of the nastiest weapons of war. It was first used in 1862, in the American Civil War. Since then, it has been an unseen enemy that has claimed the lives of millions of innocent people all over the world.
Today, between 60 million and 100 million land mines probably remain buried in more than 60 countries. Each year, they kill or maim thousands of people.
It is estimated that more than two million mines were placed during the Balkan crisis alone. Each year in Slovenia, mine-clearance specialists find and neutralise between 18,000 and 20,000 kilograms of unexploded ordnance, much of it from the First World War. In Vietnam, children continue to be killed or maimed by mines laid by American GIs 30 years ago. Large areas of Mozambique remain inaccessible because of mines used in the guerilla wars with South Africa and Rhodesia between 1960 and 1980.
Military strategists say that they need to lay mines to defend set positions. This claim is debatable. What is not debatable is that once land mines are in place, it is extremely difficult to get rid of them.
De-mining is dangerous and expensive work. The cost of producing and planting a landmine is between $3 and $30, but the cost of removing one can be as high as but $1000. They are explicitly designed to be undetectable. Their optical, magnetic, electrical or infra-red profile is essentially non-existent.
Children are still being killed by mines laid 30 years ago . . .
There are a number of ways to detect and destroy mines. The first, which could be called the brute method, is simply to drive a specially equipped vehicle over the minefield in the hope that it will explode all the mines.
During the Second World War, Britain developed this type of device and named it the Flail. An operator drove a tank which pushed a heavy drum over a minefield. The mine was set off by the drum's weight and vibration, and the operator remained protected by the body of the tank. Alternatively, a set of spikes was mounted on the drum. They hit the mine, causing it to explode.
Mine-clearance specialists continue to use this type of machine today, but naturally, it will not find all the mines that litter the minefield.
A second method is to use specially trained mine-sniffing dogs, which can detect both the odour of explosive materials, and any disturbed dirt. Although it is a surprisingly effective method, it's an expensive option because of the high cost of training the dogs.
Another procedure is to carefully probe and dig out the mine by hand. This is an extremely painstaking and dangerous procedure. It is a real test of the resolve of the people working to clear the mines.
An alternative to all of these is remote sensing. It has been used in projects aimed at detecting the mines directly, or in detecting dirt that has been recently disturbed.
The greatest problem is detecting where the mines are . . .
For example, in 2002, CSIRO Minerals researchers proposed a land mine detector based on a camera capable of emitting gamma rays. The process is based on a new technique for imaging gamma rays. The camera is known as PACSI (positron annihilation Compton scattering imaging). It uses the gamma rays that are released when - according to Einstein's equation E = mc2 - an electron and a positron annihilate each other.
The positrons are produced from a small radio-isotope source, and energy is produced when the positrons interact with electrons in ordinary matter. Both particles disappear and are replaced by gamma rays, which are directed into the ground. A 3D map of buried objects is created by detecting the rays that are reflected back into a detector.
According to the researchers, specialists will be able to use the camera method to detect an object buried underground and, more importantly, to determine its shape.
The team at CSIRO Minerals, led by James Tickner, plans to apply this technique to build a camera. If they can turn the theory into reality, such a camera will have significant advantages over existing metal detectors.
For the people involved in de-mining, the greatest problem is to detect where the mines are. This is a spatial problem, so it is no surprise that technicians have used spatial technology to solve it.
In the majority of applications, GIS has mostly been restricted to high-level management. As part of a recent project at Canada's York University, Ahmed Mohamed studied the role that GIS can play in a project to clear land mines in Mozambique. He says that one of the most essential requirements for this type of work is maps that show the relationships of mines to land use, and thereby pinpoint the human population at risk.
Other projects also involve the use of spatial technology to supply information to specialists working on the ground. One of the most ambitious of these projects is the Geographical Information System for Mine Action in South-East Europe (GISMASE), which the European Commission (EC) is undertaking in the Balkans.
GISMASE - which uses ESRI technology - is jointly funded by the EC and the US State Department. It was implemented by the International Trust Fund for De-mining and Mine Victims' Assistance, under the scientific guidance and monitoring of the EC's joint research centre.
The project team's goal is to create high-definition maps that identify the location of mined areas, with the capacity to add the location of individual mines as they are detected.
A project being undertaken by the Canadian army involves an even more potent application of de-mining technology. Having spent decades defusing mines around the world, the Canadian military is probably the world's leading de-mining authority.
The Canadian army hosts the National Defence Mine/countermine Information Centre (NDMIC). The centre has established a database of mine types. An engineer in the field can consult the database and identify mines from their external appearance, and then determine the best method to dispose of them.
The NDMIC database was originally developed as a small in-house project. Recently, it has expanded to the point that it was becoming cumbersome on a computer network, and too large for a CD.
This led to the decision to use the internet. The technicians re-engineered it in SQL and implemented a web interface.
More recently, the army teamed with a consulting firm, GeoPatrol, to make the database available in the field.v
This move is a completely new approach to combating mines. Using the application, combat engineers are able to record the positions of landmines to be disposed of or removed. The database also contains information about the best method for neutralising individual landmines.
The engineers can use the NDMIC database to determine whether the landmine is anti-personnel or anti-tank. They can define the mine even more specifically by searching the database using any combination of shape, colour and material. When a result meets the criteria, a photo is displayed to ensure correct identification.
In the application, a wizard prompts the user for the mine's position with reference to X-Y co-ordinates. Database information related to, for example, the type of mine is then attached to that co-ordinate point in the system.
De-mining specialists can use the application to place their operation in a wider context, as part of managing the overall operation. They can download maps, relevant imagery, landmine- and obstacle-related symbology, and theatre-specific data from the NDMIC database.
Using a cradle or wireless connection, the specialists download the information captured in the field to a desktop computer. They use open data standards to ensure they can use the information to drive other applications and share it with other users.
The spatial aspects of the project were developed in Intergraph's GeoMedia. Communications with the PDA is mediated by software from Intergraph's location services business, IntelliWhere.
In the long run, there is only one solution to the problem of landmines, and that is to outlaw their use. Campaigners have made many efforts with this goal in mind. One of the most notable among them was the late Diana, Princess of Wales. However, even the most optimistic observer would consider these initiatives to be long term.
For now, researchers continue in their efforts to come up with the technology that can map the position of mines. It is also essential that workers in the field have immediate access to the most comprehensive information available, so that they can manage mines once they have been located.
William Gibbs is a freelance journalist living in Sydney
