INTRODUCTION: This technical note (TN) explores the spatial patterns associated with the probability of receiving a community complaint in response to blast noise from military training. In this instance, blast noise is defined as high-intensity impulsive noise emitted by large weapons, heavy artillery, and explosions. This TN specifically seeks to understand who in the communities surrounding military installations are more likely to use complaining as a coping strategy. Community noise complaints, which often escalate into lawsuits and legal actions, are an ongoing impediment to military training. They frequently result in training curfews, restrictions, and rangeclosures. The current Department of Defense (DoD) approach to handling noise complaints is ad hoc and reactive, and thus, is generally ineffective. This is a major problem given that noise from testing and training activities impact unit readiness and soldier effectiveness activities. The problem is projected to become worse as installations increase their training capacities and unit throughput as part of the base realignment and closure process (BRAC) (Report to Congress on Sustainable Ranges 2013). Training restrictions due to noise have been cited as one of the factors that will negatively impact installations out to 2025 (Lachman et al. 2011). Most community noise research has been concentrated on community annoyance in response to noise, both military and otherwise, with not as much effort focused on the use of complaining as a coping strategy for annoyance (Maziul et al. 2005; Guski 1999). That is, not everyone who is annoyed by noise will complain. Complaint behavior is one of several coping strategies available to people annoyed by noise, including habituation, retrofitting of homes, litigation, and relocation away from the noise source (Nykaza et al. 2013; Collette 2011). Research, predominantly focused on community response to airport noise, has identified several demographic and socioeconomic variables that are associated with the types of individuals who are most likely to use complaining as a coping strategy in response to being highly annoyed by environmental noise. These variables are age, gender, education level, income level, and housing value. The profile that has emerged is of an older, better educated person with higher income and housing values (
This study explores the probability of receiving a blast noise complaint in response to military training noise. Community noise complaints are an ongoing impediment to military training and often result in training curfews and restrictions. As such, we want to understand where, by whom, and under what conditions complaints are used as a coping strategy in response to annoyance caused by military training noise. We build upon previous research conducted (Nykaza et al., 2012), incorporating physical and human geography into the analysis to identify the situational context of the population subset that complains about military noise. Using both spatial and statistical analysis, we look at land use (LULC), census and socio-economic housing data paired with complaint and noise monitor data collected around one US Military Installation, to examine who (i.e., what subset of the population) is more likely to use complaint behavior as a coping strategy. Our results support the development of a noise complaint-forecasting model that military range managers can use to improve the coordination, communication, and relationships with surrounding communities.
This work demonstrated the implementation of makerspaces, collaborative workspaces that provide hands-on learning to help prepare the future workforce with critical 21st century applied-technology skills. Researchers from the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (ERDC-CERL) enhanced and evaluated the pre-existing makerspace at Fort Bliss, Texas to demonstrate the value of a makerspace within the military Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) environment. The 8-month pilot demonstration, conducted from May to December 2018, focused on investigating program characteristics such as usage trends, optimal locations, equipment, and personnel access. Results from the demonstration indicated that enhanced makerspaces with high quality equipment had a positive Soldier impact. The business case analysis determined that the Fort Bliss Makerspace fits the criteria of, met the 15% cost-to-revenue ratio threshold for, and can operate successfully as, a Category Type A (Mission Sustaining) program asset.
Abstract:Although women have served in defense of our country since the American Revolutionary War, women were not given full military status until World War II. Providing full military status to women had repercussions for the built environment of the country's military installations, especially as the government mandated a gender-segregated military. It required a reconsideration of both the spatial organization and the design protocols used in constructing and/or rehabilitating military infrastructure, specifically as related to the housing, training, and workspaces of military women. This reconsideration led to ever-evolving regulations and standard operating procedures throughout the course of the Cold War concerning this matter, reflecting the military's immediate needs, as well as changing societal norms regarding gender.This project provides a service-wide historical context for how the accommodation of service women during the Cold War impacted the military's built environment. This historical context is based on archival research, oral histories, and an examination of historic photographs, plan maps, architectural drawings, and other associated primary documents.
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