CEMML Land Rehabilitation and Maintenance

Land Rehabilitation and Maintenance

Given the nature of the training and testing activities on military installations, the potential for disturbance to the landscape is high. As the soil surface becomes increasingly disturbed and protective vegetation is lost, soil erosion accelerates. If allowed to continue unchecked, extensive damage from soil loss, gullying, sedimentation and flooding can occur. The primary goal of Land Rehabilitation and Maintenance (LRAM) is to maintain a sustainable, realistic training environment through damage prevention and repair. Damage prevention can be accomplished through training area redesign or reconfiguration to provide training realism while minimizing risk to natural and cultural resources. Damage repair is accomplished by applying best management practices consistent with continued military use.

Training Area Design and Reconfiguration

CEMML staff work closely with military trainers and installation staff to reconfigure training areas and ranges to minimize hazards to soldiers, equipment, and natural and
cultural resources while maximizing the ability to achieve training requirements. Solutions may include such strategies as the placement of barriers to redirect traffic away from critical areas, establishment of woody vegetation to enhance concealment resources, or selective deforestation to open maneuver corridors through heavily wooded areas. In all cases, every effort is made to ensure that the end results appear as natural as possible, thus maintaining training realism.

Land Repair

CEMML staff have extensive experience in land repair over a wide range of ecosystems and circumstances. They assist installation personnel in the selection and design of best management practices that are applicable to the local environment and consistent with the installation training and/or testing mission. While "off-the-shelf" solutions may be satisfactory for many situations, the unique landuse conditions on military installations often require innovative approaches to satisfy the dual requirements of sustained military use and land rehabilitation.

Periodic land maintenance is often much more cost-effective than extensive repair of severely degraded lands. CEMML staff encourage active land rehabilitation and maintenance, and assist installation land managers in developing short- and long-range LRAM plans to take maximum advantage of limited funding resources and opportunities for leveraging.

Point of Contact: Cal Bagley, (970) 491-3324, Calvin.Bagley@ColoState.EDU

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