The Hill Air Force Range Complex (HAFR) is a nearly 1 million acre bombing range located in the Great Salt Lake Desert of western Utah. The prehistoric inhabitants of this area were nomadic hunter-gatherers who took advantage of seasonally available resources, although limited agriculture was practiced briefly during the Fremont Period. The HAFR has only recently been surveyed, with 40 Fremont and Late Prehistoric archaeological sites identified thus far. This paper uses ArcInfo GIS software along with a fairly extensive environmental database in order to examine the association of environmental factors with the location of prehistoric archaeological sites. In carrying out the study, ArcInfo was used to store, synthesize, and analyze environmental and archaeological data from various sources. Among the environmental variables examined were distance to water, slope, elevation, vegetation, aspect, and relief. Random control points were placed throughout the study area and each variable was assessed as to its relationship to archaeological sites vs. control points (i.e. random occurrence). The statistical significance of each variable's association to site location was then assessed.
ArcInfo and ArcView 2 were used to provide an Environmental Data Management and Decision Support (EDMDS) GIS to the US Air Force. This application collected together layers of information that included infrastructure, environmental property condition, aerial photographs, maps, scanned photos and documents, and databases to provide a tool for briefing and preparing reports for regulators, the public, and the various Air Force commands. This paper will describe the overall scope of the project, which included 19 Air Combat Command bases, and also focus on one base to demonstrate an individual application and some of the benefits that were realized.
The Range Control System (RCS) provides an integrated ground-air picture of military tactical training range facilities. NISE East sponsored Booz, Allen and Hamilton to develop the RCS for Marine Corps Base (MCB) Camp Pendleton. The system provides range safety officers with real-time aircraft tracks and surface range facility activity status information as overlays on a digital map of the MCB Camp Pendleton training range complex. The RCS interfaces to an FAA Air Route Surveillance Radar (ASR-9) via a Navy Radar Air Traffic Control Facility (RATCF) Direct Altitude and Identity Readout (DAIR) Gateway computer for the air track information and to the US Army-developed Range Facility Management Support System (RFMSS) to obtain range facility status/usage information. The RCS is hosted on commercial, off the shelf (COTS) Pentium computers with the Windows NT operating system. Software development is required for 1) customizing the operating environment to create an intuitive Graphical User Interface (GUI), 2) developing radar data collection algorithms, and 3) providing connectivity to the RFMSS database for range usage data. ArcView is easily customizeable with Avenue allowing the development of the GUI. Radar data collection algorithms were written in C for speed, and the resulting aircraft tracks were output to an ArcView graphics list. Range status information is obtained via Open Data Base Connectivity (ODBC) with the RFMSS data base data. Structured Query Language (SQL) calls to the data base extracted needed data into an ArcView table. ArcView provides spatial references and integrates available map data, including geopolitical boundaries, transportation, environmentally sensitive areas, and hydrography. The GIS solution allows the using activity to capitalize on existing public works and environmental data. The RCS is an open system and is highly configurable to meet individual user requirements.