Investigation of Correlation Between Soil Strength and Soil Moisture and the Influence On Optimization of Military Land Use.

A constant challenge for military land managers is balancing military training needs with associated environmental concerns.  Military training by its nature is destructive and can result in significant impacts to the landscape. At the same time, large scale land management for conservation of the ecosystem is practiced in a way developed for natural areas untouched by military training and associated impacts.  Understanding training impacts in conjunction with land management practices is crucial to optimize Army training throughput and land utilization while minimizing associated environmental concerns.  While this is an extremely complex issue, understanding the interaction between vegetation and soil strength is fundamental in developing a framework and models to assist in optimal military land management. To investigate these interactions, soil strength parameters, moisture content, and surface and subsurface biomass were measured on five vegetation treatments over two growing seasons. This paper discusses correlations between soil strength and moisture measurements.  It also investigates the change in these parameters as vegetation matures and its implications in predicting military vehicle impacts.