Assessing Landscape Disturbance and Ecological Recovery of Khe Sanh, Vietnam

Abstract

Landscape disturbance, ranging from forest fires to landslides, is a topic that receives a considerable amount of attention within the scientific community. However, humans often ignore, or fail to recognize, one of the largest contributing factors in landscape disturbance, ourselves. War is a unique form of landscape disturbance that is often larger in both magnitude and size than other form of natural disturbance because of its ability to create such widespread destruction over large areas in short periods of time. Due to the magnitude of these impacts, the ability for the landscape to fully recover into its pre-war state is often non-existent. This research aims to address to which degree explosive munitions and land use patterns play a role in the biotic properties concerning the Khe Sanh battlefield in South Vietnam.