Role of Geophysics for Security Challenges in the World

Geophysics education primarily emphasizes its applications in resource exploration, understanding Earth’s structure, addressing environmental challenges (such as landslides analysis, assessing soil pollution impacts, and evaluating climate change effects), as well as in engineering contexts (e.g., site characterization, rock property analysis, non-invasive infrastructure monitoring, and the study of induced seismicity and land instability). In addition, public awareness of geophysics tends to be limited to a few prominent areas, such as its role in studying earthquake-prone regions and resource discovery. However, Geophysics can serve the community in other forms as well. The role of geophysics in addressing both global and local security challenges is often underrepresented in academic curricula, typically limited to applications such as detecting unexploded ordnance (UXO) or locating munition stockpiles from past conflicts, including World War I, World War II, regional military conflicts and guerrilla warfare. In this context, this paper emphasizes the need to expand geophysics educational curricula to include topics such as the analysis of seismic and acoustic data to depict signals from military actions or (illicit) weapon testing, along with practical training in data interpretation for these purposes. The curriculum should also address the application of magnetometry and electromagnetic methods for detecting landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERW) and integrating geophysics with remote-sensing and UAV technology to enable safer surveying in high-risk areas. Specialized training for geophysical teams in mine and explosive ordnance detection is also essential for enhancing survey safety.