| Popis: |
The use of military vehicles during training results in soil disturbance and vegetation loss, with subsequent increases in soil erosion rates, sedimentation in streams, habitat degradation, and numerous other secondary effects. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires federal agencies to evaluate the implications of their plans, policies, programs, and projects. However, accurate assessment of military training impacts is limited by the technical data available to support the assessments. This project demonstrated the use of the Vehicle Dynamics Monitoring and Tracking System (VDMTS) to assess and predict military vehicle maneuver training impacts for use in land management decision making and NEPA documentation. The objective of this project was to demonstrate and validate the VDMTS system and its components through a series of controlled field studies and live tracking events. A controlled field study was used to demonstrate and validate that the hardware can sufficiently characterize vehicle dynamic properties (turning radius and velocity) to accurately predict site impacts (area impacted, vegetation loss, and rut depth [RD]). A controlled field study was used to demonstrate and validate the accuracy of VDMTS impact models in predicting area impacted, vegetation loss, and RD for a range of vehicles. Field studies tracking live training exercises and subsequent field measurements were used to demonstrate and validate the VDMTS hardware and model performance in predicting site impacts. |
