In recent years, there has been significant progress in reducing the impact caused by anti-personnel landmines. There are many different models of anti-personnel mines which can be classified in two main technical categories:
BLAST MINES AND FRAGMENTATION MINES.

BLASTMINES are usually buried at least 4 cm underground or place on the ground and comouflaged. Triggered simply by the pressure of a footstep, they mainly cause severe injuries to the legs and genital areas.

FRAGMENTATION MINES are installed above ground, on stakes or attched to trees or bushes and then camoufladged. They are usually triggered by trip-wires: on kilo of pressure is enough to detonate them.

DIRECTIONAL FRAGMENTATION mines are also detonated by trip-wires, and spray 200-600 metal pellets or fragments that can kill or mutilate in a roughly 60-degrees arc to a radius of 50 meters.

BOUNDING FRAGMENTATION MINES are propelled into air by an initial explosive charge; a second blast at a height of 45-100 cm scatters metal balls or fragments in a radius of at least 25 meters and 360 degrees, causing, according to their height, potentially fatal injuries to the head or upper parts of the body, or mutilating wounds in the abdomen, the groin, the genitals and the legs.

REMOTELY DELIVERED (SCATTERABLE) MINES may be either blast mines or fragmentation mines. They are designed to be placed randomly from a distance. from airplanes, helicopters, or artillery. This is the type of mine that has been the focus of most anti-personnel mine research and develpment over the last 20 years world wide.

ANTI-TANK AND ANTI-VEHICLE MINES are meant to explode when subjected to pressure of around 600 kg; when they detetiorate, they will sometimes detonate also under the weight of a person.
However, landmines are only part of a broader problem: the pollution of land by explosive remnants of war. Explosive remnants of war are defined as explosive ordnance or ammunition that hace been used or fired but have failed to explode (unexploded ordnance) and stocks of explosive ordnance left behind on the battlefield (abandoned ordnance). This may include artillery shells, mortar shells, hand granades and other similar weapons. Recent wars, including conflicts lasting just a few weeks, have left behind tens of thousands of lethal explosives which put civilians at risk of death or injury. They can be considered as anti-personnel weapons: they remain active, unstable and highly explosive, and sometimes contain incendiary materials such as white phosphorus etc.

Explosive remnants of war also include cluster bombs and other sub-munitions. These weapons have been the subject of specific concern and media attention in recent years, due to the high number of sub-munitions which fail to explode and the devastating impact on the civilian popolation and post-war reconstruction efforts. While the use of sub-munitions is still lawful, when they fail to explode and become unexploded ordnance they are then as indiscriminate in their timing and choice of victim as the outlawed anti-personnel landmines.

As it impossible to give an accurate estimate of the number of uncleared landmines, so it is the case with explosive remnants of war. What can be said with some confidence is that the total number of ERW around the world, whatever that maybe, far excreeds the total number of landmines. ERW continue to be uncovered in significant quantities from the battlefields of Europe more than 50 years, and in some cases more than 80 years, after the munitions were originally fired. Munitions from the 1914-1918 War sometimes include mustard gas or other chemical agents, resulting in an additional hazard for explosive ordnance disposal teams. In Belarus, disposal teams are sometimes encountering munitions left over from Napoleonic Wars.

Landmines and explosive remnants of war create long-term damage to the affected land and communities. Explosive remnants of war also have a considerable impact on the work of aid operations as they make relief and development activities dangerous. Commercial companies often also delay and divert their investments out of fear from accidents.
Therefore, in many cases, post-conflict recovery and economic development can only start once explosive remnants of war and landmines have been located and removed.