Viewsheds are an important asset in military analysis for geographers in the war in Afghanistan due to the significantly diverse and rugged terrain of the battlefield. At the simplest level, viewsheds answer the question: "What areas can be seen from this location?" But the same is also true if we flip the question to, "What areas can see this location?" It is then logical to extend this question to improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the number one killer of soldiers and civilians in Afghanistan, as it is well documented that insurgents routinely observe the attack as controllers, witnesses, or videographers. The purpose of this study is to account for uncertainty in viewshed analysis in Afghanistan. Viewsheds are a derivative of digital elevation models (DEMs), an imperfect representation of physical relief. Currently, the highest resolution open-source DEM available for Afghanistan is the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer Global Digital Elevation Model (ASTER GDEM). This research demonstrates a methodology to extrapolate known error models between ASTER and National Elevation Dataset (NED) DEMs to locations in Afghanistan where ASTER is the highest resolution DEM available and error is unknown. This extrapolation then makes it possible to develop more informative probable viewsheds for IED explosion sites via Monte-Carlo simulated elevation models through the visualization of uncertainty in the viewshed. Lastly, this research contributes to the discussion of the dynamic nature of viewsheds and their spatial dependence.
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