Incorporating Land Use Change Into Army Basing Analysis

Base Realignmentand Closure (BRAC) 2005 determined stationing options for Army units given an Army installation's limited resources (facilities, lands, and ranges) and a unit's resource requirements. One factor considered within BRAC analysis was a measure of the extent that Surrounding Communities have "encroached" on a military installation. Urban and suburban development along an installation's immediate perimeter is a type of encroachment that potentially constrains military operations and training. The Army established the Total Army Basing Study (TABS) to develop a comprehensive and comparable analysis of Army installations as input into the BRAC decisionmaking process. This TABS analysis included a comparison Of land use changes (from non-urban to suburban or urban) in the perimeter lands surrounding military installations. In addition, an encroachment trend was projected to 2020 for the sites in the analysis. We describe the TABS land use change analysis approach, examine analysis results for three military installations, and then compare the results at one of these three sites to results from an alternate land use change analysis method that was used at that same site. The authors' analysis and results were incorporated into the Army's candidate recommendations for the 2005 BRAC process.