Land cover analysis using Sentinel-2 for humanitarian mine action and ERW survey

Unexploded landmines and other explosive devices (both anti-vehicle and anti-personnel) that are buried during conflict or war present effects that are felt long-term after the conflict or war – and the immediate inhabitants are hit harder by the devastation. This impact – by extension – to the government - presents many challenges as it hinders the social and economic development of the affected areas
resulting in abandoning of lands. These weapons can be found on roads, footpaths, agricultural fields, deserts, forests, in and surrounding houses and school. They deny access to water, food and hinders the movement and other basic activities of people. Remote sensing data have been used successfully in identifying objects and studying the changes in the land cover for different applications such as
agriculture, vegetations, built up areas, rivers and wetlands. This extended abstract presents our recent
published framework [4] to help with the non-technical survey process by identifying minefield related indicators using land-cover analysis. We use remote sensing images from sentinel-2 to estimate the changes in vegetation and non-vegetation in different suspected areas. The mount and number of changes during a period are estimated to provide recommendations on suspected hazardous areas in
Cambodia qualified for clearance. Our analysis is the first which directly uses sentinel-2 to estimate the
changes in vegetation and non-vegetation for non-technical survey. Russia-Ukraine war may result in
landmine and unexploded ordnance (UXO) killing people. Many of them are children. Participating in
the UK-Ukraine Digital Theme Research Twinning Initiative can help developing our work in [4] to
other cases study such as Ukraine.