Edition 2.1 - March 2020 DOWNLOAD
Introduction
Except in emergency cases, Non Technical Survey (NTS) should precede all Technical Survey (TS) activities. NMAS 08.10 explains the requirements for NTS in Lebanon. Like NTS, TS is designed to be part of a well managed land release process that is planned, implemented, and adjusted in light of information obtained as the work is conducted. While NTS can sometimes conclude that there is an absence of hazards in an area and so recommend that the surveyed land is ‘cancelled’, NTS is conducted without the surveyors being equipped to safely enter a SHA so can rarely provide a reliably detailed description of the hazards that are present or determine the extent of the contaminated area with a level of accuracy compatible with the efficient deployment of demining resources. When NTS confirms that there is evidence of a hazard contamination in a reported SHA, the surveyors may assign all or part(s) of the area as SHA or CHA. To prevent deploying search and clearance assets over a wider area than necessary, it is common for the NTS surveyors to recommend that the SHA or CHA area(s) be subject to Technical Survey (TS). TS may be conducted as an independent activity or as a preliminary to Clearance operations conducted by the same IA. Tasking both activities to run consecutively can increase safety by having the same organization conduct both activities and can increase efficiency by avoiding the need to deploy demining assets twice. TS uses search procedures inside the SHA/CHA and focuses on determining where contamination is present, discovering its type, condition, distribution, and surrounding context. Efficiently conducted, TS increases efficiency by helping to ensure that area search and clearance is only conducted in areas where there is some EO contamination. At all times, the performance of TS assets shall be monitored to ensure that ‘all reasonable effort’ to plan and conduct the work appropriately has been applied. As part of the LMAC Quality Management system, ‘all reasonable effort’ in TS requires the keeping of accurate records and risk assessments that can be used to justify the extent of the work conducted and the findings of the TS, so giving confidence that areas reduced by TS are not in fact contaminated with explosive hazards.