{"id":690312,"date":"2024-10-01T05:51:33","date_gmt":"2024-10-01T12:51:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=blog&#038;p=690312"},"modified":"2025-05-08T19:53:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T02:53:08","slug":"drones-gis-transform-humanitarian-demining","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/drones-gis-transform-humanitarian-demining","title":{"rendered":"Demining with Drones: Lessons Learned in the Desert Prove Useful Elsewhere"},"author":671,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","castos_file_data":"","podmotor_file_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"industry":[],"esri-blog-category":[478762],"esri_blog_department":[478192],"class_list":["post-690312","blog","type-blog","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-esri-insider","esri-blog-category-humanitarian-response","esri_blog_department-gis-for-good"],"acf":{"video_source":"","video_start":"","video_stop":"","short_description":"Humanity & Inclusion and Mobility Robotics leverage drones and GIS technology to advance humanitarian demining in conflict zones.","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":"","file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<i>John Fardoulis of Mobility Robotics conducts a drone flight for demining work in Iraq.<\/i> (Photo courtesy of <span class=\"capitalize\">John Fardoulis)<\/span>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;"},{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","layout":"standard","image_reference":null,"image_reference_figure":"","spotlight_image":null,"section_title":"","spotlight_name":"","position":"Right","content":"Humanity &amp; Inclusion (formerly Handicap International), a French NGO, and Mobility Robotics, an Australian consultancy specializing in the use of drones in hazardous environments, collaborate with local and international partners to utilize drones and GIS for humanitarian demining, enhancing safety and efficiency in conflict countries including Chad and Ukraine.\r\n\r\n<strong>Key Takeaways<\/strong>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Humanity &amp; Inclusion and Mobility Robotics are bringing drone imagery and mapping capabilities to demining teams across the world.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Drone imagery analyzed in GIS significantly improves the efficiency and safety of demining operations.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>GIS maps and apps speed collaboration around demining efforts, from planning to funding.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n&nbsp;","snippet":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"International attention and courageous efforts have cleared many countries of terrifying landmine hardships. In the last ten years, Rwanda, Nicaragua, and Mozambique were declared mine-free. Great progress has also been made in long-burdened countries including Angola, Chad, and Laos.\r\n\r\nThis momentum made the ambitious goal of a mine-free world by 2025 seem like a possibility. That is, until recent conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East and elsewhere that have resulted in an increased use of improvised mines and other explosive devices. Now, 2025 is no longer feasible. But promising technology support from drones, sensors, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/what-is-gis\/overview\">geographic information system (GIS)<\/a> software is making mine clearance work safer, faster, and more accurate.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere are many different scenarios where drones can help mine action because everything is geospatial,\u201d said Xavier Depreytere, innovation project manager at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hi-us.org\/en\/index\">Humanity &amp; Inclusion<\/a>, a nonprofit organization <u>working in situations of poverty, exclusion, conflict, and disaster<\/u>. \u201cGIS is used to study the environment, capturing what you can see on the ground and from above.\u201d\r\n<h3><strong>Partnering on Mine Detection and Mapping<\/strong><\/h3>\r\nHumanity &amp; Inclusion\u2019s Odyssey 2025 demining project aims to make efficiency gains in the work of detecting mines and mapping minefields. The organization has partnered with Mobility Robotics to apply the latest tools and devise new workflows.\r\n\r\nIn support of the Odyssey 2025 project, John Fardoulis, director of Mobility Robotics, takes a science-based approach using drones and GIS. He has been to almost 300 minefields since 2018, testing high-tech and low-cost solutions that can be customized based on local minefield conditions.\r\n\r\nHumanity &amp; Inclusion\u2019s small team of demining experts amplify the benefits by sharing these capabilities and training local people and other organizations. The modern methods are now helping demining teams run by partners, such as The HALO Trust, Norwegian People\u2019s Aid, and the Mines Advisory Group.\r\n<h3><strong>Learning Lessons in a Crucible of Extreme Heat<\/strong><\/h3>\r\nIn Chad, the Odyssey 2025 demining team learned many lessons, including how to deal with Saharan heat. The team combed the desert from 2018 to 2021 to help undo the ongoing harms of landmines placed during Chad's civil war 30 years ago. The aim was to return the land to the people, eliminating the horror of children and livestock wandering into minefields to be maimed or killed."},{"acf_fc_layout":"gallery","gallery_images":[690382,690432,690422,690392]},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Desert landscapes pose a particular challenge to deminers. Shifting sands erase telltale tracks. The featureless surroundings and lack of landmarks are dangerously disorienting. Mines could be anywhere. One morning, as the team neared a known minefield, the road disappeared into a sand dune. Short forays ahead failed to find the path.\r\n\r\nThen, Fardoulis sent up a drone. From above, stones at the road\u2019s edge popped out and he mapped them. \u201cWe joined the dots,\u201d he said. \u201cIt saved months of work on the ground trying to find the starting point.\u201d\r\n\r\nIn Chad, Fardoulis prototyped thermal\/long wave infrared imaging, also known as thermography, to find the location of landmines. First, the team established a test site to monitor the thermal properties of buried mines at different times of day. They found the best time to fly was from 4 a.m. to sunrise in the summer, which also meant they could escape the daytime heat that exceeded 120 degrees Fahrenheit.\r\n\r\nThis thermal imaging method exploits the different heat retention properties of mines, compared to the surrounding sand. Plastic mines create a cool patch during the day and a hot patch at night, while metal mines do the opposite.\r\n\r\nWith this technology, the team detected more than 2,500 buried landmines in Chad\u2014 discerning the location and type\u2014and marked a significant advancement in the field of humanitarian demining.\r\n<h3><strong>Breaking Through Barriers with a Scientific Approach<\/strong><\/h3>\r\nAs the Odyssey 2025 effort has matured, its leaders have established a consultative role, going to far-flung minefields to analyze conditions and operations. The work on each minefield starts with a needs assessment and gap analysis to see how technology can help.\r\n\r\n\u201cI go in with no preconceptions and ask a lot of questions,\u201d Fardoulis said. \u201cI go to the field every day to see the real-world conditions, then come up with ideas we prototype.\u201d\r\n\r\nMinefield maps, made with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/arcgis\/geospatial-platform\/overview\">ArcGIS<\/a>, inform the planning and evaluation phases.\r\n\r\n\u201cSay we take 3,000 photos, like I did today of a 400,000-square-meter area,\u201d Fardoulis said. \u201cGIS allows us to plot and analyze each photo and to draw evidence points as pins on the map.\u201d"},{"acf_fc_layout":"gallery","gallery_images":[690342,690362]},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Deminers take the map into the field using a GIS app on phones or tablets. They cross-check mine locations identified by drone imagery with manual, mechanical, or animal detection systems before carefully taking out each mine. They capture their work on the map to share where they have been and record which areas still need to be cleared.\r\n\r\nThe data collection and visualization made possible by GIS helps garner support from operational teams and regional management, as well as donors and national and international humanitarian organizations.\r\n\r\nIn 2020, the Odyssey 2025 project received the\u00a0European Innovation Council\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/AZKEQTBuxng?si=OO4KO4-ec1KBhj04\">Union Horizon Prize<\/a> and has used the \u20ac1 million award to expand its reach and further its innovation.\r\n<h3><strong>Building Capacity in Ukraine<\/strong><\/h3>\r\nThe lessons learned by teams from Humanity &amp; Inclusion and Mobility Robotics over the past five years are now being applied in Ukraine\u2014where there is the world\u2019s largest concentration of minefields.\r\n\r\nThe new thermal method effective in the sands of Chad doesn't work in Ukraine's denser soils. Instead, Fardoulis and team have been perfecting high-resolution mapping with outputs called orthomosaics to visually inspect fields. Because the conflict is so fresh, this high-resolution imagery can show unexploded bombs sitting on the surface or reveal disturbances in the dirt that signal potential buried mines.\r\n\r\nHumanity &amp; Inclusion and Mobility Robotics are working with The HALO Trust, which employs more than 1,200 Ukrainian staff, to conduct demining work across the country. One struggle the collective teams currently face is the shortage of drone mapping specialists.\r\n\r\nTheir ambition is to democratize the technology so fleets of drones can document damage nationwide while evidence of the conflict remains recent.\r\n\r\n\u201cUkraine might be the place where we can finally scale up what we've been trying to do everywhere,\u201d Depreytere said. \u201cBut we have to act quickly to capture the damage because vegetation covers up all the craters, all the trenches, and the explosive ordnance on the surface.\u201d\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nLearn more about how <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/humanitarian\/overview\">GIS is used to prepare, manage, and deliver effective humanitarian assistance<\/a>."}],"references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Drones and GIS Transform Humanitarian Demining 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