The Geological Society of America Reviews in Engineering Geology XXII 2014
Characterizing the desert environment for Army operations Daniel A. Gilewitch Department of Joint, Interagency, and Multinational Operations, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66027, USA W. Chris King Brigadier General, U.S. Army Retired, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66027, USA Eugene J. Palka Director, Student-Athlete Academic Success Center, Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, Kentucky 40475, USA Russell S. Harmon U.S. Army Corps of Engineers–Engineer Research and Development Center (USACE-ERDC) International Research Office, 86-88 Blenheim Crescent, Ruislip HA4 7HB UK, and Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695, USA Eric V. McDonald Division of Earth and Ecosystem Sciences, Desert Research Institute, Reno, Nevada 89512, USA William W. Doe III Chief Executive Officer, Veterans Green Jobs, Denver, Colorado 80204, USA
ABSTRACT The U.S. Army will continue to be involved in desert warfare for the foreseeable future. It is imperative that military equipment is designed and tested for use in this environment; that soldiers are trained to operate in the desert; and that they can accomplish their missions under the extreme conditions presented by this distinct operating environment. Understanding desert processes and terrain is fundamental to accomplishing these goals. Scientists have long debated demarcation and classification of deserts, considering many measurable factors. However, few have classified deserts in a way that specifically supports the military missions of operating, training, and testing. This research was undertaken to classify deserts using both physical and military variables and to develop a system that examines deserts from a military perspective. A panel of scientists and military officers developed and tested a model of warm and hot desert classification. The robustness of the model was tested at the Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, and the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California. This work is a preliminary step toward a thorough examination of desert training and testing sites and potential conflict areas in desert locations throughout the world.
Gilewitch, D.A., King, W.C., Palka, E.J., Harmon, R.S., McDonald, E.V., and Doe, W.W., III, 2014, Characterizing the desert environment for Army operations, in Harmon, R.S., Baker, S.E., and McDonald, E.V., eds., Military Geosciences in the Twenty-First Century: Geological Society of America Reviews in Engineering Geology, v. XXII, p. 57–68, doi:10.1130/2014.4122(07). For permission to copy, contact
[email protected]. © 2014 The Geological Society of America. All rights reserved.
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INTRODUCTION Delineation and classification of deserts has long been the subject of research and scientific debate. Scholars have defined deserts using erosion processes (Penk, 1894), climate parameters based on vegetation (Köppen, 1931), and vegetation type alone (Shantz, 1956); de Martonne and Aufrere (1927) delineated arid regions using drainage patterns. Thornthwaite (1948) used a moisture index, and Meigs (1953) supplemented Thornthwaite by adding an extreme-arid classification. There have been many other scientifically derived classification systems (Bailey, 2002; Budyko, 1974; Howe et al., 1968; Thompson, 1975; Wallén, 1967), each based on measurable, yet different, parameters. While it is important and useful to understand scientific classifications of deserts, the Army views deserts from a somewhat different and unique perspective. The Army is primarily concerned with the effects deserts may have on military operations, the effects military operations may have on desert training areas that must be utilized for the foreseeable future, and how to best test equipment for use in the harsh desert environment. Scientific characterization must provide the foundation for any military classification system, but rarely have deserts been classified using parameters of military interest. The purpose of this research is to classify warm and hot deserts using both physical and military variables, with the goal of developing a more useful system for analyzing deserts from a military perspective. The robustness of this approach has been tested at the Yuma Proving Ground (YPG), Arizona, and the National Training Center (NTC) at Fort Irwin, California. This work is the first part of a thorough examination of U.S. desert training and testing sites and potential areas for U.S. military deployment throughout the world. The ultimate goal of this project is to produce a catalog of analogs for desert regions around the world. A catalog would enable areas available for Army testing and training to be rapidly compared to potential operational areas worldwide. DESERTS FROM AN ARMY PERSPECTIVE The Army uses three key perspectives to evaluate and classify desert regions. The largest of these views is strategic. In this context, a strategic perspective refers to the effect that the broad environment may have on the level of war in which major campaigns are planned, conducted, and sustained. Major differences between unlike environments or ecoregions (Bailey, 2002), therefore, fundamentally influence the force structure, logistical support, and equipment that will be deployed and utilized for military purposes in a theater of operations. The closed, moist confines of a jungle or rainforest for example, support the use of light infantry, while mechanized forces have limited utility in these regions. Conversely, the open and vast reaches of many desert areas support rapid movement, shock effect, and long-range fires that armor and self-propelled artillery efficiently employ.
The Army must take into account environmental differences between regions when it tailors its forces and logistical support for an operation. Inherent and significant differences important to Armed Forces exist not only amongst different military operating environments but also within any specific environment (Caldwell et al., 2004). Deserts are complex, varying in terrain, climate, weather events, vegetation, and soils, and these factors greatly shape the military activities that can take place in them. Despite common belief, for example, the North African Campaign of World War II (1940–1941) was fought along a limited region bounded by the Quatarra Depression and Saharan dunes to the south, and the Mediterranean coast to the north. There was little room for maneuvering, and pivotal battles were fought at relative choke points such as El Alamein, or for coastal supply points like Tobruk. By contrast, recent campaigns in the Middle East have been quite different. The landscape in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and southern Iraq is flat and open, supporting lengthy and rapid maneuver and long-range fires. Coalition forces conducted a swift envelopment across this terrain in Operation Desert Storm in 1991 and again during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 that surprised and outflanked the opposition, leading to the quick and lopsided defeat of their regular forces. A second perspective that the Army must consider in desert classification is training, or preparation for operations. The Army philosophy is to train as realistically as possible, i.e., to “train as you fight.” Bad habits learned in training will show up in actual operations where mistakes can be deadly. The need to understand and anticipate conditions in potential operational areas is, therefore, critical to success. Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) must be developed for environmental conditions expected in an area of military operations. In hot desert environments, for example, large caliber gun tubes heat unevenly as ambient temperature changes on a daily cycle. Despite thermal shrouds designed to minimize bending, gun tubes distort in response to differential heating, which alters the ballistic solution significantly. Corrections must be made before firing since small errors are compounded at the extreme ranges that modern tanks engage targets, particularly in deserts. Repetitive and more frequent tank bore sighting and muzzle reference changes are required throughout the day and night to ensure accuracy. This constitutes a significant change in TTPs for a unit stationed or trained in a temperate environment. Some of the many important questions that have to be addressed are: where can a unit be stationed or be trained prior to deployment that would provide as similar an environment as possible to the operational area; how closely does our premier desert training center, the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, replicate potential operational areas; and how similar is the southern California desert to that of the Middle East? Finally, the Army must view deserts as extreme environments that push equipment to its performance limits. Members of the testing community take seriously the moral obligation of the U.S. Government by providing the best possible equipment to
Characterizing the desert environment for Army operations the soldiers it sends in harm’s way. It is essential that this equipment be environmentally tested in probable deployment conditions as well as in the most extreme natural conditions imaginable. Conducting a small arms functions test for example, using laboratory-controlled textures of silica sand in a dust chamber does not replicate the long-term (months) exposure to expansive clays, corrosive salts, and chemicals present in many desert soils. Where do conditions exist that are similar to the operational area where we can test equipment? Is Yuma Proving Ground, the Army’s premier desert test facility, sufficiently similar to the Tigris–Euphrates River Valley in Iraq or the Helmand Province in Afghanistan to adequately test weapons? What environmental conditions that affect military equipment should be considered extreme for a desert? The activities encompassed by Army operations, training, and testing constitute fundamental perspectives that can and should be used to evaluate regions for potential military employment. These unique perspectives differentiate the study of a region for military purposes from purely scientific pursuits. They provide the basis for applied science in this realm. This study uses both physical and military perspectives to examine and classify desert regions.
THE DESERT STUDY This study was conducted in three phases. The initial hypothesis was that all deserts are not alike as they relate to military operations, training, and testing, and that understanding these differences is of critical importance to the U.S. Army’s worldwide mission of fighting and winning the nation’s wars. The goal of the initial research was to determine what regions of the world constitute deserts in both the scientific and military context. This is the broadest level of classification and was purposefully restricted to warm and hot deserts to limit the scope of the analysis to areas of most strategic importance. Initially, existing scientifically-derived desert classification schemes were reviewed, and a large number of variables were considered as potential parameters to describe warm and hot deserts (Table 1). The process was then refined to determine a limited number of parameters that best describe the hottest, driest deserts of the world in a military context. This approach differs from many previous studies in that the key to deriving the differentiating parameters is that they have an effect on military testing, training, and operations. Consider, for example, the impacts of blowing sand and dust, criteria not
TABLE 1. CLASSIFICATION VARIABLES EXAMINED AND CONSIDERED FOR INCLUSION IN THIS MODEL Physical setting
Desert soils
Geology
•
Soil type
Landforms
•
Chemical composition and mineralogy
•
Bedrock highlands
•
Surface crusts
•
Pediments
•
Albedo
•
Desert flats and plains
•
Environmental controls on soil formation
•
Alluvial fans and pavements
•
Dry water courses and dissected terrain
•
Natural and anthropogenic dust
•
Badlands
•
Dust generation
•
Playas and sabkhas
•
Dust storm frequency and observed concentrations
•
Sand accumulations
•
Physical characteristics of dust
•
Recent volcanic
•
Grain size
•
Mineralogy
•
Dust-transporting wind systems
•
Anthropogenic dust
Dust
Biology
Climate
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•
Temperature
•
Flora
•
Humidity
•
Fauna
•
Precipitation
•
Microbiota
•
Evapotranspiration
•
Insolation
•
Albedo
•
Wind
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universally used to differentiate deserts in most research. These phenomena are common problems in the operation of military vehicles, aircraft, and weapons in the desert, but each desert is different in the quantity and type of sand and dust that may be entrained by blowing winds. Geology determines the chemical character of the fine-grained particulate materials available, whereas weathering and erosional processes affect the amount and size distribution of particulates. Vegetation and microbiotic crusts may protect surface particles from deflation. Each desert has a different potential to generate sand and dust based on the magnitude of the ambient aeolian processes, and each can impact military operations in a different way. The effects can range from minor annoyance to expensive damage, malfunction of equipment, and wholesale changes to operational and tactical plans (Henderson, this volume). It is the importance of these effects on military applications that compelled the inclusion of this parameter into the analysis. Global-Scale Hot and Warm Deserts This research initially produced a world-scale map of the hottest, driest desert locations that could serve as a foundation for further study. Following the work of Meigs (1953), UNESCO (1979), Köppen (1931), and others, temperature and precipitation serve as the foundation of this desert classification scheme. Dry areas are bimodally distributed between hot and cold regions of the world, with the hottest areas being the primary subject of interest for this effort. It then follows that a fundamental requirement to be considered is an identification of the world’s hottest regions. There are numerous options for the temperature parameter, including warmest month, average daily temperatures, and others. An average of daily high annual temperatures generally summarizes all aspects of temperature by averaging diurnal and seasonal variations to illustrate the general effect of temperature on the environment. The warmest areas of the world are located in the regions receiving maximum incoming solar radiation (insolation). However, maritime influence can reduce the effect of insolation, while the effects of continental heating can add to the overall temperature, as is the case with the Saharan and Australian deserts. The parameters used in this study to delineate hot deserts are an average annual temperature of >25 °C, or an average temperature for the warmest month of >30 °C. Warm deserts were defined as having an average annual temperature of 20 °C to 25 °C, or an average temperature for the warmest month of 25 °C to 30 °C. Precipitation is a second important parameter for delineating deserts. One of the most distinctive and notable features of deserts is their low precipitation. Annual rainfall can range from almost 0 cm, such as in Arica, Chile, in the Atacama Desert, to as high as 20–30 cm in areas classified as deserts. Despite the extreme scarcity of precipitation, water is the most powerful geomorphic agent in desert landscapes. The frequency distribution of desert rainfall includes many small events, fewer larger events, and occasional large downpours. Desert showers are brief
and intense, yet the highest instantaneous rates are not necessarily recorded in the primary precipitation seasons. The drier the climate, the more likely this is to be the case. Because of the importance of the events in the tails of the probability distributions, standard statistical descriptors of climate (e.g., means and standard deviations) have less usefulness in characterizing precipitation of deserts than in wetter climates. Therefore, this research used the total amount of annual precipitation as a limiting variable in the distribution of deserts on a global scale. The two categories of precipitation used in this analysis are: an average of 25 °C average annual temperature OR Daily average temperature in the warmest month between >25 °C and 30 °C Extremely dry 3 ft and distributed singly and apart
W>1
Atacama (Ha23/Aa12/Ac22)
b: Perennial vegetation largely or entirely absent
b: barren
Kalahari (Ab23/Ac13)/Namib (Ha22)
Dsp: Broadleaf deciduous shrub form >3 ft and distributed singly or in patches
W>1
Saharan (Ha24 /Ab34/Ac24 )
Ds p; b
W >1 ; b
Somali (Ab34)
Dsp
W>1
Takla Makan (Ha 03)
B
B
Arabian (Aa24/ H a24/Ha34/Ac24 )
D sp
W>1
Iranian (Ac13/Ac14)
Gp: Grass and other herbaceous plants growing singly or in patches
G: grassland
Thar (Ab24)
Dzp: Broadleaf deciduous dwarf shrub form 1
Australian (Ab24/ Aa24/Ac23)
Gp; b
G; b
Note: Küchler’s other desert classifications (Gp and b) carry over in the simplified approach as predominantly perennial grasses (Gp) and barren (b). W—woody; G—grass; B—barren.
effectiveness of long-range indirect and direct fires. M1A1 tanks in Operation Desert Storm (1991) consistently engaged enemy vehicles at well over their nominal doctrinal range of 2500 m (Department of Defense, 1992), at times firing and killing targets at ranges approaching 4000 m (GlobalSecurity.org, 2002). The increased capability to destroy enemy targets at longer ranges increases a unit’s area of control and influence, thus increasing the entire area of operations in deserts well beyond those expe-
rienced in temperate regions. In addition, many deserts occupy large areas with sparse human settlements and relatively isolated urban centers. Recent military actions in the Southwest Asia Theater of Operations (e.g., Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq) are indicative of these characteristics. The size of a potential area of operation varies and is influenced by a multitude of factors that cannot be accounted for in this study, but the size of training and testing lands can be measured and quantified by hectares. Surrounding Land Use In addition to adequate land and air space for training and testing, adequate land and air buffer zones surrounding these areas must be considered for both existing and future scenarios. This is largely a human safety and nuisance mitigation issue, since the potential for overshooting munitions exists. Additionally, encroachment by the surrounding populace may occur in various forms and limit the spatial or temporal extents available to conduct military activities. In addition to munitions safety concerns in the training and testing areas, there are trans-boundary
Figure 3. These tank fighting positions northwest of Tikrit, Iraq, were emplaced by Iraqi forces before Operation Iraqi Freedom began in 2003. Today, they are still clearly visible on the desert landscape (photo by Colonel Eugene Palka, 2009).
Characterizing the desert environment for Army operations noise, radio-frequency, or light interferences from military activities that may occur and impact humans and wildlife in adjacent areas. Conversely, similar interferences initiated from adjoining lands may adversely limit or impact ongoing training and tests. Therefore, an assessment of existing and future adjacent land uses is critical. This assessment by its nature must be qualitative. Threatened and Endangered Species and Cultural Resources From an ecological perspective, it is important to consider the direct effects of military training and testing activities on both the landscape and adjacent lands and populations. This is particularly important when considering the impact of military training and testing activities on humans, as well as threatened and endangered species, and cultural resources. Many U.S. military installations located in desert environments contain significant resources and species, which must be protected in accordance with the U.S. National Endangered Species Act and a host of federal environmental statutes and guidelines (Doe et al., 2005). All military installations in the United States must develop integrated plans for natural and cultural resources management, including the management of threatened and endangered species and their associated habitats. Because military installations are well protected and relatively undeveloped, they often become “islands of biodiversity” with significantly higher populations of threatened and endangered species than surrounding lands (Cablk, this volume; Hayden, this volume). Additionally, many cultural artifacts, both historical and prehistorical, exist on military lands and must be protected from the effects of military training and testing. The overall result of these factors is a reduction in the actual useable training and testing lands from the total acreage that may be available. Sustainability The environmental impacts of military operations in desert environments have been well documented (Webb and Wilshire, 1983; El-Baz and Makharita, 1994; Gilewitch, 2004). Failure to ensure sustainable landscapes used for training and testing missions can cause unnecessary degradation of land and resources and adversely impact training. The sustainability of military lands can be assessed using the concept of carrying capacity. Carrying capacity is a complex, integrated concept that is a function of two factors: (1) inherent site characteristics (e.g., soil, slope, aspect, and climate) and biological regime (e.g., flora, fauna, vegetative community, structure, and function) of the natural environment, and (2) its land use. Although carrying capacity is a theoretical concept, it can be quantified with some degree of certainty by scientific observation, experimentation, and measurement. Similarly, land use or load—in this case, military training and testing, can be quantified by type, intensity, and frequency, based upon military doctrine and historical records. For military activities, carrying capacity can be defined as the amount (frequency and intensity) of military training and testing (to include tactical unit maneuvers, live weapons firing, etc.)
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that a given landscape can accommodate over time in a sustainable manner. Land use (e.g., military maneuver) at or below the carrying capacity enables the landscape to recover naturally and restabilize from disturbance over time. When the amount of use (load or military training) placed on the natural system exceeds the carrying capacity, a critical threshold is reached. Subsequently, without adequate time and effort to permit natural and human-induced recovery, accelerated degradation and permanent ecosystem change may occur. Ecologically healthy and resilient training lands are a desirable sustainability goal for the Army, from both readiness and resource conservation perspective. Natural landscapes are required for conducting realistic training and to familiarize soldiers and units with the conditions they will encounter in other deserts of the world. Because of the lack of moisture in the desert, these environments have low resilience and recovery rates for vegetation and soil damaged by military maneuvers and other direct impacts on the surface. This can greatly increase surface erosion by wind and water (intense, but infrequent rainfall events). Sustainability is measured qualitatively. In summary, the refined desert model provides a much more detailed method to characterize desert regions, and it incorporates militarily important components more completely than does the global-scale model. Dust potential, character of the terrain, vegetation type, and land-use characteristics sharpen the resolution of this model over the global-scale model and enable installation-size areas to be evaluated. The critical importance of the evaluation is that it allows a comparison of potential desert operational areas to be analogued to regions where the U.S. Army can conduct training of soldiers and testing of equipment. It is the first step toward creating a “catalog of analogs” that characterizes and compares military operating environments around the world to potential training and testing sites. VALIDATION AND DISCUSSION The global-scale model of desert regions developed in this study provides a strategic and militarily important view of hot and warm deserts around the world. The model identified extreme arid environments—areas that make up some of the worst-case environments that soldiers may have to operate in and which present the harshest challenge to their equipment. Recent experience in the contemporary operating environment indicates that much of the future work required of the U.S. Army will occur in what was previously considered “extreme” environments. Strategic planners now accept the fact that lighter, more agile U.S. forces will continue to be engaged throughout the non-industrialized zone of instability encompassing the Middle East, Central Asia, North and Tropical Central Africa, Indonesia, and possibly even Central and/or Northern South America for many years to come. (Stullenbarger, 2005)
The refined model brings into consideration variables that are of critical importance to the military and provides a vehicle
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to examine hot and warm deserts more closely. This analysis enables an observer to consider the hottest, harshest desert regions around the world and to make a comparison to areas that may be available to train troops or test equipment. The refined model was validated at Yuma Proving Ground (YPG), the Army’s primary desert testing facility, and the National Training Center (NTC), the Army’s premier desert training center. Application of the model at these locations provided a method by which the areas could be evaluated and compared with potential operational areas around the world. The value in such an analysis is clear—it indicates where we can test equipment and acclimatize and train soldiers in conditions as close to operational reality as possible. Results from this validation process indicate that both of these locations are excellent analogs to some regions, but they do not totally replicate military operating environments found in some of the most militarily important desert regions of the world. Yuma Proving Ground is located in a hyper-arid, extremely hot desert region, which makes it an excellent analog to the world’s hottest deserts including the Thar, Australian, Arabian, and Saharan, as well as the region of Iraq between Baghdad and Basra. The installation’s landforms and surface features are also found in many of the world’s deserts. The combination of climate and physical landscape properties makes YPG an ideal setting for a large variety of military testing requirements, yet the installation lacks large sand accumulations and sandy river plains. Regardless, small-scale testing can be conducted on the limited sand dunes at YPG, and large-scale dunes are available for limited testing programs in Bureau of Land Management lands just west of Yuma, Arizona; these lands previously were part of YPGmanaged property. There are three types of vegetation at YPG including taller scrub type that, along with some trees, is located within the many wadis (ephemeral stream beds) throughout the installation. This vegetation provides surface characteristics quite different from the NTC and therefore offers different training opportunities. Yuma Proving Ground possesses an abundance of stone mantles and bedrock highlands. The installation consists of over 339,126 ha (838,000 acres) with an additional 161,874 ha (400,000 acres) of over-flight space. Only public lands surround YPG, nearly eliminating land-use encroachment issues, and no endangered or threatened species exist on the post. Desert lands on YPG are relatively robust for desert regions, particularly given the nature of the testing mission. This mission does not require repetitive cross country movement across large expanses of terrain that could alter surfaces and vegetation, as does the training mission. Mechanized troop training on the installation would cause significant change to the ecosystem, especially because of the large amount of fragile desert pavements. The NTC is located in an arid, warm desert. This area fails to offer temperatures seen in the world’s hottest deserts. Most of the surface area of this installation is either bedrock highlands or pediments and alluvial fans with few stone mantles, which is considerably different than YPG and offers a much more resilient environment for mechanized training. The
expansion areas recently acquired by the NTC will increase considerably the diversity of landforms and soil types available. Like YPG, NTC lacks large sand accumulations or sandy river plains. Most of the vegetation at NTC is small scrub type, and there are no trees in the maneuver areas. The NTC also lacks large areas that would produce dust storms, but the denudation of vegetation and destruction of surface crusts through years of continuous military training have created substantial areas where operationally-generated dust can mimic levels of dust seen most recently during operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Neither YPG nor NTC has a high frequency of natural dust storms. Surfaces denuded from prior disturbance, together with human-generated dust from training and testing activities, provide some ability to test and train in these conditions, but prolonged periods of dust are not seen in any of the southwestern deserts of the United States. CONCLUSIONS The initial hypothesis of this study was that all deserts are not alike relative to military operations, training, or testing, and that understanding these differences is of critical importance to the worldwide mission of the United States Army. All of the evidence collected in this research strongly supports this initial hypothesis. Further, this study developed a geographically analytical method to meet the needs of the military to better characterize the primary differences in deserts. The first phase of the project demarcated hot and warm deserts worldwide to provide a foundation for additional, more detailed analysis. Resultant demarcation lines encompass many regions that have become the norm for U.S. Army operations in the current operating environment and will remain strategically important for the foreseeable future. The next phase of analysis provided a finer resolution model that incorporated militarily significant variables and provided a scale that enabled an installation size area to be effectively compared with potential operational areas around the world. It is critical that soldiers preparing for operations can train in an analogous military operating environment so that tactics, techniques, and procedures can be developed to deal with the adverse conditions. It is imperative that equipment be tested in harsh, realistic field conditions that resemble the expected theater of operations. The validation phase of this research applied the refined model to an analysis of the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, and Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona. This analysis provided additional information regarding these installations that is important to the military but not often considered by scientists engaged in desert classification analysis. For example, in terms of climate, the NTC comprises warm, rather mild desert, and therefore does not analog well with operational areas in Iraq and Afghanistan in this respect. However, more than 50 years of continuous use have disturbed the landscape throughout the NTC’s maneuver area, destroying vegetation and microbiotic crusts that, when intact, tend to hold surface material in
Characterizing the desert environment for Army operations place. This disturbance promotes wind-generated sand storms that would otherwise be uncommon in the region and exacerbates anthropogenic dust generation. The large number of trails and other human modifications to the landscape tend to make the region more like the operational areas of Iraq and Afghanistan than pristine “natural” regions. While desolate and untouched desert areas are important to this mission and will undoubtedly be traversed, it is apparent that the Army must operate in populated areas and, therefore, desert operational areas will likely be as degraded as the NTC, if not worse. In this context, the NTC is an excellent analog to Iraq and Afghanistan. The YPG provides a hyper-arid, hot desert military operating environment that is similar to many of the world’s hot deserts such as the Middle Eastern desert areas, including the region in Iraq between Baghdad and Basra. While there are few problems at YPG with endangered species, threatened wildlife, or civilian encroachment, the character of the landscape does not adequately support maneuver training. Testing of equipment, which has occurred at the installation for years, has left a small footprint on the landscape and does little to modify the terrain. Large-scale maneuvers, however, would destroy the fragile desert pavements that cover the majority of the pediments and alluvial fans in the southern portion of the reservation. Yuma Proving Ground, therefore, is an excellent site for the testing mission but lacks sustainability if subjected to mounted maneuver training on its current acreage. The model created in this research provides a desert classification system that includes key military variables. The model can be used to investigate current U.S. Army desert installations and analog them against potential military operating environments throughout the world. The research can also be used as a foundation on which to build a more robust model that characterizes deserts around the globe. Further work is ongoing to produce a “catalog of analogs” of deserts worldwide. The final product will provide a scientifically based military analysis of potential operational environments around the world that would allow a rapid comparison to training and testing sites available to U.S. Forces. In other words, given a potential location for deployment, a quick analysis can be made of potential training sites where a unit may go to become acclimatized and develop tactics, techniques, and procedures that fit the environment. Meanwhile, the testing community, with knowledge of the worst possible conditions that can be found in any potential operating environment, can field test equipment to its limits. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This study covers work conducted under the sponsorship of the U.S. Army Research Office and Yuma Proving Ground (YPG) of the U.S. Army Developmental Test Command. The analysis was accomplished by a panel of scientists from the Desert Research Institute, the Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands, YPG, and military officers from the Center for Environmental and Geographic Sciences, Department of
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Geography and Environmental Engineering at the U.S. Military Academy (USMA), West Point. Results were also published in King et al. (2004). The map of global hot and warm desert locations was created with the assistance of Lieutenant Colonel Mike Hendricks, Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering, USMA. REFERENCES CITED Bailey, R., 2002, Ecoregion-Based Design for Sustainability: New York, Springer-Verlag, 222 p. Budyko, M.I., 1974, Climate and Life: New York, Academic Press, 508 p. Cablk, M., 2014, this volume, Experiencing nature in militarized landscapes: If a bomb drops in the desert, do we still call it wilderness? in Harmon, R.S., Baker, S.E., and McDonald, E.V., eds., Military Geosciences in the Twenty-First Century: Geological Society of America Reviews in Engineering Geology, v. XXII, doi:10.1130/2014.4122(18). Caldwell, D.R., Ehlen, J., and Harmon, R.S., eds., 2004, Studies in Military Geography and Geology: Dordrecht, Netherlands, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 348 p. Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL), 1990, Winning in the Desert II: Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Maneuver Commanders: Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, Newsletter no. 90-8, 57 p. Cooke, R., Warren, A., and Goudie, A.S., 1993, Desert Geomorphology: London, Routledge, 526 p. de Martonne, E., and Aufrere, L., 1927, Regions of interior-basin drainage: Geographical Review, v. 17, p. 397–414, doi:10.2307/208323. Department of Defense, 1992, Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress: Washington, D.C., Department of Defense, 824 p. Doe, W.W., III, Shaw, R.B., Bailey, R.G., Jones, D.S., and Macia, T.E., 2005, U.S. Army training and testing lands: An ecoregional framework for assessment, in Palka, E.J., and Galgano, F.A., eds., The Scope of Military Geography: Across the Spectrum from Peacetime to War: New York, McGraw-Hill Primus Custom Publishing, p. 373–392. El-Baz, F., and Makharita, R.M., 1994, The Gulf War and the Environment: New York, Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, 206 p. Espo, D., 2003, Storm, battles stall U.S. push: East Valley Tribune, Phoenix, v. A1, p. A10. ESRI, 1990, ArcAtlas: Our Earth (CD-ROM): New York, Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. Gilewitch, D.A., 2004, The effect of military operations on desert pavement: Case study from Butler Pass, Arizona, in Caldwell, D.R., Ehlen, J., and Harmon, R.S., eds., Studies in Military Geography and Geology: Dordrecht, The Netherlands, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 348 p. GlobalSecurity.org, 2002, M1A1 Abrams: GlobalSecurity.org; www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/m1a1.htm (accessed 1 November 2002). Hayden, T.J., 2014, this volume, U.S. military installations as bioreserves: A case study from Fort Hood, Texas, in Harmon, R.S., Baker, S.E., and McDonald, E.V., eds., Military Geosciences in the Twenty-First Century: Geological Society of America Reviews in Engineering Geology, v. XXII, doi:10.1130/2014.4122(10). Henderson, J.P., 2014, this volume, Dust storms and the 1980 Iran hostage rescue attempt, in Harmon, R.S., Baker, S.E., and McDonald, E.V., eds., Military Geosciences in the Twenty-First Century: Geological Society of America Reviews in Engineering Geology, v. XXII, doi:10.1130/2014.4122(06). Howe, G.M., Reed, L.J., Bell, J.T., Fisher, G.E., and Lassow, G.B., 1968, Classification of World Desert Areas: United States Army, Natick Laboratories, Technical Report 69-38-ES, 106 p. King, W.C., Gilewitch, D.A., Harmon, R.S., McDonald, E., Redmond, K., Gillies, J., Doe, W., Morrill, V., Stullenbarger, G., and Haverilo, L., 2004, Scientific Characterization of Desert Environments for Military Testing, Training and Operations: West Point, New York, Center for Environmental and Geographic Sciences, Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering, 111 p. Klimenko, L.V., and Moskaleva, L.A., 1979, Frequency of occurrence of dust storms in the USSR: Meteorlogiia i Gidrologiia, v. 9, p. 93–97. Köppen, W., 1931, Die Klimate der Erde: Berlin, Walther de Gruyther and Son.
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