US Army Corps
of Engineers
Construction Engineering
Research Laboratories
USACERL Technical Report 98/90
June 1998
By
Terry McLendon, W. Michael Childress, David Price, and Alan B. Anderson
Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.
The U.S. Army is committed to good stewardship of lands within military installations. The Army is also committed to achieving "training to standard" for its forces and therefore is interested in a method of determining optimum levels of training activities such that military preparedness is maximized and ecological impacts and their costs are minimized. A key requirement to the successful implementation of such an optimization is the development of a successional dynamics model that predicts ecological responses to military and non-military stressors.
A prototype simulation model has been developed, in part, using Land Condition Trend Analysis (LCTA) data from five Army
Installations. The model is based on responses of individual species and ecological processes to stressors. The model currently has climatic, edaphic, plant, decomposition, and animal modules. Current stressors include drought, nitrogen, fire, herbivory, and tactical maneuvers. The core model is adapted to forest, grassland, shrubland, and desert ecosystems. Site-specific data can be added to calibrate the model to a specific ecosystem within an installation. The model has been calibrated with LCTA data and applied to multiple plant communities at five installations: Fort Bliss, TX; Fort Carson, CO; Fort Hood, TX; Fort Riley, KS; and Yakima Training Center, WA.
SF 298
Foreword
This study was conducted for the Office of the directorate of Environmental Programs (DAIM), Assistant Chief of Staff (Installation Management) (ACS[IM]) under Project 4A162720A896, Environmental quality Technology; Work Unit EN-TK7, Land-Based Natural Resources Carrying Capacity. The technical monitor was Dr. Victor Diersing, DAIM-ED-N.
The work was performed by the Natural Resources Assessment and Management Division (LL-N) of the Land Management Laboratory (LL), U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratories (USACERL). This report contains a paper presented at the SCOPE/UNEP Workshop on "The contribution of integrated ecological and economic models to indicators for sustainable development and the roles of stakeholders," Boston, Massachusetts, 30 July to 4 August 1996, proceedings of the session on "Ecological and Planning Perspec-tives on Land Management Modeling for U.S. Military Installations." The USACERL Principal Investigator was Dr. David L. Price. Dr. William D. Severinghaus is Operations Chief, CECER-LL. The USACERL technical editor was Gloria J. Wienke, Technical Information Team.
Dr. Terry McLendon and Dr. W. Michael Childress are members of the Department of Biological Sciences, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas, and performed work on this report under contract with USACERL.
COL James A. Walter is the Commander and Dr. Michael J. O'Connor is Director of USACERL.
Contents
SF 298 iii
Foreward iv
List of Figures and Tables v
1 Introduction 1
Background 1
Objectives 2
Approach 2
Mode of Technology Transfer 32 LCTA Data Analysis 4
Multivariate Statistical Procedures 4
Results of Multivariate Analysis 5
Plans for Statistical Development 83 Development Of The Simulation Model 9
Prototype Ecological Dynamics Model 9
Plans for Model Development 12Distribution
List of Figures and Tables
Figures
1 Flowchart of the multivariate statistical analysis of LCTA vegetation data from five installations 5
2 Modules and variables in, or being added to, the community dynamics simulation model 10
3 Schematic illustrating the structural organization of the soil and plant modules of the community dynamics simulation model 11
4 Sample output from the prototype spatial module of the community dynamics simulation model 13
5 Conceptual overview of the prototype decision-making module for the community dynamics simulation model. 14
6 Schematic illustrating the conceptual linkages among the ecological, management, and decision-making modules of the community dynamics simulation model 15
Tables
1 Summary of the results of the multivariate analysis of 1989 LCTA vegetation data combined for all five installations. 6
2 Average F-ratio values testing significance of statistical differences in vegetation within (diagonal) and between (off-diagonal) installations. 6
3 Relative cover values (%) of the major species within each of the 14 Fort Riley plant communities, as identified by multivariate analysis of the 1989 LCTA data. 7
4 Changes in species composition (% relative cover) in the grassland communities at Fort Riley 1989 and 1994. 7
Army doctrine states that the basic mission of the U.S. Army is to fight and win in combat (FM 100-5). The training of soldiers is the vital ingredient that assures the readiness of the force to accomplish this mission. An essential ingredient in meeting this training requirement is sufficient land in realistic conditions (TC 25-1). Available training lands have been decreasing as a result of congressionally mandated base closures. In addition, increased public concern about the environment has generated new legal and regulatory restrictions on training land use. Currently, the most difficult problem faced by training land managers is the lack of adequate land to conduct realistic training.
Training can result in significant degradation of installation natural resources (Goran, Radke, and Severinghaus 1983; Johnson 1982; Severinghaus 1984; Severinghaus and Severinghaus 1982; Shaw and Diersing 1990; Trumbull et al. 1994). In particular, training impacts on vegetation integrity, threatened and endangered species habitat, soil stability, and water quality are of concern. The Army must assure that military activities are ecologically compatible with training land and natural resources in order to conduct realistic training with minimum adverse impact on human and natural systems.
The principal program by which the Army manages training lands is the Integrated Training Area Management (ITAM) program (Macia 1996). This program consists of four components. Land Condition Trend Analysis (LCTA) provides a status of the installation's resources and trends in those resources. Training Requirements Integration (TRI) uses LCTA data to optimize use of training lands. Land Rehabilitation and Maintenance (LRAM) provides for the recovery of the land from impacts of Army training. Environmental Awareness (EA) provides information for land users to minimize impacts to the land.
The Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans (ODCSOPS), which is currently responsible for ITAM, has initiated actions to improve the day-to-day management of the Army's land assets. These initiatives include a standard method that training and natural resource managers can use to measure and predict the effects of training on land condition, and a means by which to link the cost of training land maintenance to the level of training activity (U.S. Army Concepts Analysis Agency [CAA] 1996). Managers will be able to predict levels of Army training that are supportable by installation lands and the level of investment required to ensure that lands are sustained to support future Army training. These efforts are intended to result in a funding process that directly relates the level and type of training conducted at an installation with the unique environmental conditions of each installation.
The LCTA component of the ITAM program has resulted in the accumulation of large amounts of ecological data for more than 45 installations across the United States. These data provide a significant resource that can be used to evaluate vegetation dynamics over time and thereby indirectly evaluate long-term ecological impacts of training activities at each installation. However, the LCTA data alone does not provide all management tools required to evaluate the impacts and costs of specific training land use scenarios.
Currently available models that allow land managers to predict impacts of land use activities on natural resources suffer from one or more general shortcomings. These models are (1) overly general and of little practical value in evaluation of specific management scenarios, (2) overly specific and therefore limited to only one or a few sites, (3) very complex and require extensive calibration with site-specific data that is not available, and (4) the endpoints they evaluate, such as soil erosion, are important but the endpoint is only one of several important aspects of ecosystem dynamics.
The objective of the Land-Based Carrying Capacity research project is to develop simulation models that will provide training land managers with tools that can be used to evaluate potential ecological impacts from various training and non-training scenarios in a more comprehensive way. These tools are being developed in a manner consistent with the objectives and implementation of Army standard programs.
This report describes, in general terms, the development of a land management simulation model designed to meet the dual tasks of maintaining necessary levels of training and practicing good land stewardship on military installations. The approach has been to develop a model that is applicable to most terrestrial ecosystems and in which site-specific calibration can be accomplished using literature and currently available field data. Unlike most other successional or vegetation dynamics models, this model is mechanistically based. No assumptions are made as to successional patterns or changes in species composition following impact of stressors such as drought or fire. Instead, we model growth and responses of individual species and ecological processes to stressors; the model determines the patterns over time.
A two-part approach has been used in model development. First, available LCTA data sets are analyzed for a given installation, using multivariate statistical techniques. These analyses provide (1) a quantitative description of the vegetation, including a classification of the plant communities, (2) a description of the species composition of each of the communities, and (3) an analysis of changes in the vegetation over time. Second, the results of these analyses are used to calibrate an ecosystem dynamics simulation model that has been developed. The model can be used for a wide variety of terrestrial ecosystems and has been applied to forest, shrubland, grassland, and desert systems. The LCTA data, along with data from the literature, are used to calibrate the core model for application to specific communities.
The model has been calibrated and applied to multiple plant communities at five installations: Fort Bliss, TX; Fort Carson, CO; Fort Hood, TX; Fort Riley, KS; and Yakima Training Center (TC), WA.
Models described in this report are intended to be incorporated into evolving Army land-based carrying capacity models such as the Army Training and Testing Area Carrying Capacity (ATTACC) model. The models are also being implemented as a stand-alone PC-based program.