Integrating Multi-criteria Analysis and GIS for Land Condition Assessment: Part II – Allocation of Military Training Areas

This paper describes multicriteria models for identifying areas best suited for military training exercises. Training loads are measured in terms of Maneuver Impact Miles, which in turn are estimated based on different impact variables. Three criteria are used to reflect training impacts, namely: erosion status, vegetative percent cover, and range condition. Two models are developed to address the training allocation problem. Model I is a quantitative (cardinal) model based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. Model II is a qualitative (ordinal) model based on an ordinal ranking method. Geographic Information System (GIS) is used to generate the spatial and attribute data used in the analyses. GIS spatial analysis techniques are also used to generate summary statistics for each alternative training area, and in generating the evaluation matrix. Based on this GIS-generated evaluation matrix, the comparison matrix is estimated using pairwise comparison of AHP in Model I, and ordinal comparison method for Model II. Finally, comparative weights were estimated and used to determine the overall preferential weight of each alternative. These two models can be used to determine an allocation strategy for different training loads. A case study is described to demonstrate the use of these models.