Range sustainability: Assessment and reclamation of arid plant communities and training area design for mission sustainability
Seventy percent of US Department of Defense training and testing areas is on arid and semiarid land. Testing and training activities are often more devastating to arid lands than more mesic areas and, consequently, can threaten the continuation of military testing and training operations in these areas. Current gaps exist in diagnostic capabilities to distinguish among various degrees of sustainable and nonsustainable impacts from earth-disturbing activities in desert ecosystems. Work is ongoing to develop innovative remote sensing techniques to rapidly characterize impacts of military training and testing on arid environments. The diagnostic techniques include new rapid detection methods of image collection and laser induced fluorescence imagery techniques to provide early detection of the condition of stressed plants. Innovative image processing techniques will be assessed which will provide rapid assessment of vegetation parameters used in various US Department of Defense environmental management models such as the Army Training and Testing Area Carrying Capacity. New and cost-effective techniques for revegetation of disturbed training lands will be examined at Fort Irwin--the National Training Center in the Mojave Desert of California.
- Research Organization:
- Bechtel Nevada Corp. (US)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- US Department of Energy (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC08-96NV11718
- OSTI ID:
- 751541
- Report Number(s):
- DOE/NV/11718-384-ABS; TRN: AH200005%%27
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Fourth Annual SERDP and ESCTP Symposium, Washington, DC (US), 12/02/1999; Other Information: PBD: 1 Dec 1999
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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