Vehicle Impacts On Vegetation at Camp Atterbury.

Vehicle and troop tracking systems are increasingly being used during military training events to improve the quality of the training experience by providing detailed information for real-time and post training analysis. The DFIRST™ (Deployable Force-on-Force Instrumented Range System) system is an example of one of these systems currently being used by U.S. Army National Guard units at several installations. Use of these systems by the training community provides the opportunity for RTLA personnel to assess training impacts associated with the training.  Our effort utilized data from DFIRST units that were mounted on approximately 80 training vehicles during a 12 day military training exercise at Camp Atterbury.  Vehicle position, movement patterns, distance traveled, on and off-road percentages were determined for each vehicle. The DFIRST data was then used to estimate training event specific and site-specific impacts resulting from the training. Off-road vegetation loss was estimated using existing vehicle-terrain impact models. Dust emissions were estimated for road and trail traffic using EPA models. This assessment of training impacts at Camp Atterbury demonstrates the utility of opportunistically using military training systems like DFIRST to effectively assess environmental impacts as part of an RTLA program.