Nobility RIMS is an ArcView GIS-enabled training area scheduling and range safety system that combines ArcView GIS functionality with the power of Nobility's range control database. This system is flexible, easy-to-use, and integrates with Nobility EM, an environmental management system.
Nobility EM is an ArcView GIS-enabled decision support system that helps range managers identify and assess the impacts of exercises on training terrain and resources. The combination of Nobility RIMS and Nobility EM provides range management personnel with an integrated software solution that helps to manage the spectrum of range control and environmental management issues that are encountered on military training and testing lands.
Until now, there have been no tools available to help training area managers address both these concerns. While defence organisations have made use of both military exercise and environmental management software packages, their integration has been week. Nobility Environmental Software Systems has filled this void by developing two commercially available, integrated, software products targeted at the Total Land Management of military training areas.
Figure 1 The Training Area CommunityThis paper describes how these two Nobility software products integrate together to provide real benefits to the training area community. The information is presented as a simulated example which is intended to demonstrate the flow of information between the respective groups of users.
Nobility's products are extremely flexible and support a variety of operating practices. Figure 2 illustrates one such procedure for scheduling training area activity. The process starts with a request by a user who wishes to use part or all of a training area. The desired activity may not necessarily be a military exercise. Resource maintenance, reconnaissance or recreational activities are all examples of common requests for military land use.
The user's request is made to the Range Manager whose first task is to check the availability of requested training area facilities. If there are no immediately apparent conflicts, the Range Manager might accept the request, referred to as a Booking, or might suggest that the user revise their request. In the unlikely event that the training area is already totally booked or that the requested activity is unsuitable for the training area the Range Manager might deny the request altogether.
Pending the acceptance of the user's request, the Range Manager reviews the booking for contraventions in safety practices. If the booking does not result in any safety conflicts then it is examined for environmental conflicts. This typically occurs in two ways: For large scale military exercises a proactive environmental screening analysis may be conducted prior to the exercise commencing, or for simpler bookings the requested activities are compared against a set of environmental rules. These rules specify which activities are prohibited from taking place in which areas (e.g. driving tracked vehicles on areas with sensitive soils) and are updated at regular intervals by environmental personnel.
Figure 2 Training Area Management ProcessA booking is considered confirmed once it has completed both the safety and environmental review processes. Immediately prior to the booking taking place the Range Manager may brief the range user regarding the current status and operating practices governing the training area. This may include the use of maps and printed range schedules produced by either the Range Manager or user. Finally, a post booking debriefing will typically take place to review the status of the training area or any incidents that may have taken place.
The main interface to Nobility RIMS can be seen in the background of Figure 3. Each training area is represented as an ArcView GIS map comprised of shapefiles representing the training or target sectors that make up the training area.
Figure 3 Training Area Use Request
In this example, the Alpha One Zero can be better accommodated if it were rescheduled for October 2, 2000 and the foreground screen shot in Figure 4 shows the Nobility RIMS Booking Change screen. When a booking is rescheduled all aspects of the booking are shifted, so that activities originally scheduled to start two days into a booking are simply shifted to the appropriate new date, still two days into the new schedule.
Figure 4 Training Area Availability and Rescheduling
Nobility RIMS automatically detects safety conflicts as soon as a booking is entered and does not allow the user to proceed until they have addressed all the identified safety concerns. As well as an audible alarm which sounds when safety conflicts are identified, three types of conflict information are provided:
Figure 5 Safety Review Conflict Information
In addition to different priorities, these two groups typically belong to different departments and are not even necessarily based in the same location. The communication of the desired training area schedule and the associated environmental restrictions in these situations becomes non-trivial. Nobility has developed an integrated solution which addresses this specific problem. By combing the scheduling capabilities of Nobility RIMS with the environmental analysis power of Nobility EM it is possible to facilitate the flow of information between these two training area manager groups.
Nobility RIMS is used to schedule training area activities as users make formal requests (Figure 6). This information is then exported from Nobility RIMS into a stand-alone database which is then imported into Nobility EM. Environmental Managers then exploit Nobility EM's decision support capabilities to identify potential environmental impacts (such as soil erosion or fire hazards). Nobility EM can be used to attach mitigation strategies to these impacts which can then be exported into another stand-alone database. This environmental restrictions database is then imported back into Nobility RIMS where it is used to constrain the original training area schedule (e.g. driving tracked vehicles may be diverted from areas possessing sensitive soil or firing trace rounds switched to areas with low fire risk potential).
Figure 6 Environmental ReviewThe export and import of the training area schedule from Nobility RIMS into Nobility EM is a trivial single mouse click operation. Once this is completed, environmental personnel can conduct extensive impact analyses based on user defined impact process rules. Figure 7 shows a Nobility EM screen shot illustrating the types of outputs that can be generated.
The simulated Alpha One Zero booking has been imported into Nobility EM and analysed using a simple environmental rule set related to military activities. The impact display is organised by "issue" with those associated with the conservation of sensitive habitats displayed on the right hand side of the foreground image. Three impacts have been identified which are directly caused by the scheduled activity (shown with green arrows). In addition, three indirect environmental impacts have been identified. These indirect impacts, such as the altering of tree habitats are caused by the knock-on effect of direct impacts and are a key benefit of the expert system approach adopted by Nobility EM.
Figure 7 Environmental Impacts in Nobility EMThe digital map and impact information shown in Figure 7 can be easily formatted into rules restricting range activities. Importing the restrictions into Nobility RIMS involves a simple one click operation and is effective immediately (Figure 8). As soon as bookings are scheduled which contravene the restrictions, the Range Manager is notified in the same was as the safety review process.
Figure 7 Nobility RIMS Environmental Conflict Rules