Impacts of Unexploded Ordnance Clearance on Wet Rice Farming in Xieng Khouang Province, Northern Laos

Abstract

Laos became the most bombed country on earth per capita due to its involvement in the Second Indochina War. Over 2 million tons of ordnance, mainly composed of cluster munitions, were dropped on Laos as a result of 580,000 bombing missions between 1964 and 1973 (Khamvongsa & Russell, 2009; Russell, 2013). Approximately 30% of the bombs, equivalent to 80 million pieces, failed to detonate and contaminated two thirds of the total Lao land mass. According to the National Regulatory Authority (NRA), an agency working on the Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) sector in Laos, 14 of 17 provinces in Laos were contaminated with UXO; of these, nine provinces were described as highly contaminated (NRA, 2015).