Dynamic Landscape Modeling Links Land Stewardship to the Military Mission

Problem/Opportunity

New challenges face resource planners in the Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of Energy (DOE) as they seek to fulfill their land stewardship requirements with limited funding. On-site and off-site environmental impacts, wildlife conservation issues, cultural resources concerns, and the need for training realism all dictate that natural resources be maintained and enhanced on these installations. The tasks of balancing multiple military and nonmilitary land uses, complying with resource regulations, and assessing the impacts on the sustainability of both the resource base and the military mission are complex and challenging. Management actions to alleviate one resource problem can often exacerbate others. In order to make the most efficient use of available resources, it is necessary to make trade-offs so that the most valuable and effective efforts are funded first, and less valuable efforts are only pursued if funds are available. At a time when conservation funding is growing increasingly scarce and the demands for adequate justification of decision making are growing stronger, a new dynamic approach is needed to help resource managers in their decision-making.

Approach

To fulfill this need a new approach is underway with funding from the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) and work conducted by the Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) and the U.S. Army's Construction Engineering Research Laboratories (USACERL). Called the Integrated Dynamic Landscape Analysis and Modeling System (IDLAMS), it is an integration of ecological models, decision support techniques, and a geographic information system (GIS) that incorporates remote sensing and field inventory data. Based on DoD user requirements, the project objective is to create a methodology and develop a decision-support system that will link the site military mission with the planning needs for biological conservation and resource management on DoD installations.

The development of IDLAMS will assist the decision-makers in identifying and resolving land-use issues and help determine cost-effective solutions to long-term land stewardship problems. The approach offers a computer technology that enables resource managers to integrate their planning process by identifying multiple land use objectives and incorporating trade-off analysis, determining the cost and economics of viable land management alternatives, and incorporating "what if" scenarios into their decision-making. The user-friendly interface allows the resource manager to operate this predictive, decision-making and planning tool without the need for substantial GIS training or extensive environmental modeling expertise.

The central component of IDLAMS is a vegetation (land cover) change model, which incorporates naturally occurring changes, changes due to training use, and those resulting from resource management activities. Other management concerns such as soil erosion, water quality, wildlife, and cultural resources can also be modeled and linked to the vegetation dynamics submodel. Also, SERDP has funded other research efforts that can provide additional submodels to the IDLAMS framework and has facilitated the coordination among complimentary projects. For example, the system currently being tested at Fort Riley, Kansas, can model and predict changes in vegetation type that might result from fire, forest/shrub expansion, or secondary succession of grassland following training activity disturbances. It also has submodels for soil erosion prediction and wildlife habitat suitability analyses. In addition to the GIS spatial analysis component, ANL is investigating the use of advanced, remote-sensing technologies to provide large-scale, high-resolution images for use in the overall dynamic landscape model.

Although principally an ecological modeling environment, IDLAMS also uses a value-based decision-analysis process to link the ecological models with the management needs and user requirements of the resource manager. To help accomplish this task, ANL held a two-day workshop bringing together land managers from several representative installations (Fort Riley, Kansas and Fort McCoy, Wisconsin) and natural resource experts from ANL and USACERL. The workshop was facilitated by Dr. Ralph Keeney, an internationally-known expert in the field of decision-analysis. Participants met to develop operational definitions for land management objectives, determine and prioritize a list of relevant objectives to be used, and define measures to estimate the extent to which those objectives are reached and can be incorporated into a decision-support system. The information gathered at this initial workshop, and through a follow-up workshop, is currently being quantified and will be used to develop and test the decision-support system. This system will result in a more systematic evaluation of resource management actions undertaken at military installations. This approach will be further enhanced to incorporate the cost and economics of viable land management alternatives.

A small sample of the IDLAMS user interface is shown in the following Java(TM) slideshow.

Results

The initial Dynamic Landscape Modeling System (DLMS) developed for Fort Riley, Kansas is currently being field tested at the installation. The expanded, more robust modeling/GIS approach (IDLAMS) is now under development at an additional DoD site (Fort McCoy, Wisconsin). This will involve the development of an oak savanna vegetation dynamics submodel (which will include a fire modeling component), as well as continued development and refinement of submodels which may include erosion/water quality, wildlife, cultural resources, and past land uses. The choice of submodels will be evaluated and determined through coordination with the Fort McCoy natural and cultural resource staff as well as other installation personnel. The development of new submodels for IDLAMS will be complimentary to various ongoing DoD efforts.

The project's scientific approach and the resulting IDLAMS system will enable resource managers to quantify the effects of land management actions, both spatially and over time. The project offers a planning framework and a technology that will be transferred to installation site managers by providing pertinent resource information and a set of computer tools linked to their existing geographic information system (GIS).

IDLAMS was developed in the Energy Systems' Spatial Analysis Laboratory, one of several specialized GIS/remote sensing labs supporting ANL programs.

Several texts and Microsoft PowerPOINT presentations are available describing the IDLAMS project(s). These include a Users Manual, Programmers Manual, and Installations Guide as well as technical reports and journal articles describing various aspects of the scientific advancements made during the course of the program. Additionally, there is a separate textbook that was produced by the IDLAMS staff during the program.

IDLAMS Overview presentation in .pdf format (in review 18Mar1998)

IDLAMS Overview poster in .pdf format (in review 18Mar1998)

"National Parks and Protected Areas: Selection, Delimitation, and Management"*

Future Plans

Although the initial emphasis of the project has focused on military installations, the technology currently under development can also be used at DOE sites. Future enhancements of this dual-use technology could have widespread application to help other federal and state agency resource managers and planners meet the challenges of fulfilling land stewardship requirements, balancing multiple management objectives, and supporting their primary mission with increasingly limited conservation funding.

A recent IDLAMS/LMS workshop involved all major contributors and parties interested in the future development of IDLAMSand LMS (Land Management System). This workshop involved planning and strategy meetings as well as software demonstration and training.

	IDLAMS workshop and software demonstration with participants from ANL, USACERL, USAWES, ORNL, Fort Riley, KS, and SERDP.
	IDLAMS/LMS development strategy and planning.

Principal Investigators:

Pamela Sydelko	Dr. Ron Sundell Bio & Resume	Kimberly Majerus

Other investigators and developers include James Burke, Jeff Keisler, Christopher Klaus, Zhian Li, Craig Phillips, Tom Taxon, and Michael Vogt.

18Mar1998 mv&lb