Terrain integration means building your defences around the land you already have: water, steep ground, dense woods and wetland are barriers that cost nothing, so survey them first and build only across the gaps they leave. It has three parts, using natural barriers, channeling approaches onto routes you can watch, and clearing sightlines where you need to see.
Part of Perimeter Defense Design
Terrain integration is the practice of fitting a perimeter to the slopes, water, vegetation and open ground of a site so that the landscape supplies part of the delay and visibility.
Land That Already Slows People Is Free Wall
The cheapest barrier is one you do not build. A stream, a steep bank, a bog or thick woods slow movement without any labour from you, and they do not rot or need patrolling. The parent article’s rule is to put the weak points of your perimeter where the terrain is strong, and the effort where it is not.
The same ground can work against you. A river that protects a flank floods; a wood that slows an intruder also hides one and burns; a steep hillside is hard to leave in a hurry. Count the terrain as helping only if you have also looked at what it does to your own escape.
What You Need
- A walk of the site at three scales, as described in Local Terrain Analysis: close in, in the middle distance and further out. Look for approaches, dead ground (ground you cannot see from the dwelling), water and natural barriers.
- A sketch map marking every natural barrier, every gap in them and every route a person would use. See Sketch Mapping.
- Time in different seasons. A dry streambed in summer is a road.
Method: Survey, Then Fill The Gaps
Step 1: Mark the natural barriers on the map. Rivers, steep slopes, dense growth, wetland.
Step 2: Mark the gaps where someone could walk through between them. These are the places to build.
Step 3: Put your observation and warning devices on the gaps. See Channeling Approach Routes.
Step 4: Decide what you must be able to see, and clear only that. See Clearing Fields of Observation.
Step 5: Check your own ways out. Mark where your household could leave without crossing the barrier the terrain provides.
Common Mistakes
- Trusting a barrier you have not tested in all seasons. A ford, a frozen marsh and a dry gully are not barriers.
- Clearing everything for visibility. You also remove the delay that dense growth gave you.
- Forgetting that terrain hazards are for you too. A bank with a drop at night is a danger to your own household.
Safety
Natural barriers cut off your exit as well
Rivers rise, slopes slide and woods burn. If the only way out of your site crosses the terrain feature you are relying on, you have a trap. Plan an exit that does not.
What’s Next
- Learn next: Using Natural Barriers — what each feature can and cannot do
- Combine with: Local Terrain Analysis — the survey method