Jl. Tucker et al., USING LINEAR-PROGRAMMING TO OPTIMIZE REHABILITATION AND RESTORATION OF INJURED LAND - AN APPLICATION TO US ARMY TRAINING SITES, Journal of environmental management, 52(2), 1998, pp. 173-182
Rehabilitating damaged lands is often necessary to repair environmenta
l damage from natural and man-induced activities. Damage and its rehab
ilitation present a trade-off in cost where increasing rehabilitation
costs reduce the cost of damage. To manage this trade-off a Linear Pro
gram (LP) was formulated to minimize the cost of rehabilitation plus d
amage. The cost minimization techniques were applied to the Fort Carso
n Military Reservation in Colorado. This fort sustains heavy military
training activity and is characterized by diverse terrain and complex
vegetation. Data were obtained from site assessments and interviews wi
th land managers, rehabilitation cost information was used to arrive a
t five treatment alternatives available for each acre identified as ne
eding rehabilitation. The program identified the optimal treatment sch
edule given limited resources including budget and three kinds of land
; grassland, shrubland and woodland. The results suggest that such LP
formulations can provide an important tool for military land managers
seeking cost-effective rehabilitation of their sites. The LP applicati
on provided an insightful and convenient way to optimize the schedule
of treatments that would minimize total cost across the different cove
r types while producing ancillary output on the value of additional bu
dget and land. The process has potentially broader appeal as a tool to
guide land managers in the optimal allocation of rehabilitation resou
rces. (C) 1998 Academic Press Limited.