Helping the U.S. Army Understand Complex Social ... · U.S. Army Corps of Engineers staff and ......

Presented at Bridging Divides: Spaces of Scholarship and Practice in Environmental Communication

The Conference on Communication and Environment, Boulder, Colorado, June 11-14, 2015

https://theieca.org/coce2015

Helping the U.S. Army Understand Complex Social-

Ecological Systems

Heather Ward, PhD

Geographer, U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, Geospatial Research Lab

[email protected]

Abstract

Imagine a U.S. Army commander newly assigned an area of responsibility (AOR) in a global hotspot.

Chaos reigns, either because of inter or intra-state conflict, natural disaster and response, or

fledgling peace-building efforts. How does he or she obtain command situational awareness

quickly in order to take actions confidently and responsibly to accomplish the mission? What

framework works best to analyze the plethora of information and intelligence available in a way

that captures all of the human and environmental systems in their complexity and that can be

employed up and down levels of generality and command? Military doctrine and past experience

are the first places commanders look for guidance, but beyond weather and terrain environmental

systems thinking is relatively new to the military. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers staff and others

evaluate some overseas development projects for soundness and consider the welfare of humans

and endangered species on U.S. installations, but avoiding environmental degradation and

protecting natural resources during active operations are exceptions rather than the rule.

Consensus is growing within the U.S. Armed Services that nearly-linear military analytic processes,

such as PMESII-PT (Political, Military, Economic, Social, Infrastructure, Information, Physical

Environment, and Time) and ASCOPE (Area, Structures, Capabilities, Organizations, People, and

Events) fail to capture interactions within complex social-ecological systems (SES), such as water’s

role in regional security and stability (Canna, 2013; Ducote, 2010; Flynn et al, 2010; Shove, 2014; U.S.

Army FM 34-130, 1994) and calls are growing to incorporate social science methods into military

operations across the board from human terrain teams at brigade levels to theater country studies

and security cooperation plans. Full spectrum operations and counterinsurgency (COIN) in

particular demand processes that are iterative and multidisciplinary. SES analysis is challenging

because the boundaries of many ecological systems and services span geographic regions and


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Combatant Commands (COCOM). Course of Action (COA) development and Commander’s Critical

Information Requirements (CCIR) suffer as a result. Moreover, environmental security assets are

scattered across DOD and federal agencies and largely unknown to commanders.

Through document research and participant observation, this paper first discusses broad military

interest in environmental security and evolving requirements, followed by a general introduction of

social sciences relevant to understanding complex social-ecological systems (SES) and the role of

natural resources in conflict. Finally, we consider evolving military environmental communication

techniques and several SES of current interest. Our goal is to narrow the divide between military

and social science communities of practice, begin to integrate environmental systems thinking into

U.S. Army planning and decision-making processes, and bring methods from geography, political

ecology, and sustainability science to bear on complex military problems and dynamic situations.

Evolving Military Requirements

Imagine a U.S. Army commander newly assigned an area of responsibility (AOR) in a global hotspot.

Chaos reigns, either because of inter or intra-state conflict, natural disaster and response or

fledgling peace-building efforts. How does he or she obtain command situational awareness

quickly in order to take actions confidently and responsibly to accomplish the mission? What

framework works best to analyze the plethora of information and intelligence available in a way

that captures all of the human and environmental systems in their complexity and that can be

employed up and down levels of generality and command, and tailored for each phase of conflict

(see Table 1: Environment—Crisis—Military Nexus)? Military doctrine and past experience are the

first places commanders look for guidance.

Field Manual (FM) 7-015 The Army Universal Task List (AUTL) organizes military tasks beneath seven

warfighting functions – Movement and Maneuver (ART 1), Intelligence (ART 2), Fires (ART 3),

Sustainment (ART 4), Mission Command (ART 5), Force Protection (ART 6), and Full Spectrum

Operations (ART 7). A comprehensive review of tasks yielded only a few indirectly related to

understanding social-ecological systems or hazardous terrain, found most often in the intelligence,

movement and maneuver, and force protection warfighting functions. These findings reflect

military standard operations, which leaves oversight of pre-conflict development and post-conflict

reconstruction efforts to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and non-

governmental organizations. Considering the role of the environment during all conflict phases


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might spare soldier and civilian lives and health by limiting infrastructure damage and the release

of toxins and facilitate reconstruction, thereby saving taxpayer dollars.

FM 34-130 Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB) remains the baseline document outlining

the Army’s process for describing battle space. FM 34-130 serves as a guide for commanders and

staff at all levels; the process outlined drives intelligence collection efforts and commanders’

decision-making for combat and contingency situations, recently referred to as ‘full spectrum’

operations (FM 7-0). Chapter six in FM 34-130 suggests general considerations for conducting IPB

in various ‘operations other than war,’ recommending shifts in focus and degree of detail as

needed.

Human and environmental complexity increases with the amount of territory in the AOR, command

level, and number of participating host nations and federal agencies. Joint operations—Army, Navy,

Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard—combine command and service IPBs, systems analysis, and

geospatial information into a Joint Intelligence Preparation of the Operational Environment (JIPOE)

(Joint Publication 2-01.3, Figure I-2). Chapter IV outlines considerations for missions and situations

that require a ‘more tailored JIPOE approach’, such as “Increased Emphasis on Sociocultural Factors,”

Increased Need for Collaboration and Information Sharing,” “Actual or Threatened Use of Weapons

of Mass Destruction,” or “Theater Missiles.” It is important to note, however, that this guidance is

mostly in the form of numbered lists.

Additional Army field manuals and publications further interpret the process, hoping to address

additional special situations and information requirements. Few attempts are made to model

systems or networks or dynamic processes and human-ecological interactions are absent.

FM 3-24.2 Tactics in Counterinsurgency, for example, acknowledges the greater complexity inherent

in guerrilla warfare and overlapping “system of systems.” Chapter one introduces a mnemonic tool

to help commanders and staff analyze, map, and overlay ‘civil considerations’ – Areas, Structures,

Capabilities, Organizations, People, and Events (ASCOPE) (Table 1-1). Chapter four describes and

‘operating environment’ in terms of eight variables: Political, Military, Economic, Social, Information,

Infrastructure, Physical environment, and Time (PMESII-PT). Counterinsurgency doctrine also

expands on the military’s ‘line of effort’ concept. Seven counterinsurgency ‘lines of effort’ –

Establish Civil Security, Support Host Nation Security Forces, Support to Governance, Establish Civil

Control, Restore Essential Services, Support to Economic and Infrastructure Development, and


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Conduct Information Engagement – prompt social cause-and-effect thinking along a timeline from

‘starting conditions’ to ‘end state’ (Figure 3-1). The IPB process in Appendix A of the regulation

includes another table of social considerations, including population demographics, health, history,

leadership and prominent personalities, ethnicity and culture, religion, government, and politics.

Not surprisingly, FM 3-07 Stability Operations also builds on the human and social aspects of

military operations, details objectives within stability lines of effort, and introduces another acronym

– SWEAT-MSO (Sewage, Water, Electricity, Academics, Trash, Medical, Safety, and Other

considerations) (Figure 4-2). Chapter four introduces planning and operation design concepts that

further reach for the human dimension and hint of dynamic processes, such as ‘decisive points.’

Examples of decisive points include, “obtaining political support from key tribal leaders” or

“quantifiably reducing crime” (FM 3-07, 4-12).

The U.S. Army Commander’s Appreciation and Campaign Design (CACD) (TRADOC Pam 525-5-500)

is a recent and still-developing cognitive model for commanders who must tackle complex

operational problems. The Army Capabilities Integration Center created the pamphlet following a

series of strategic seminars and wargames. The presumption is that commanders charged with

designing and executing military campaigns will not be able to completely understand problems

before acting and must adopt iterative decision-making processes. The guidance divides problems

according to complexity, recognizes the greater frequency of irregular and civil wars, introduces the

notions of complex adaptive systems and trend analysis, and recognizes the importance of

information circulation across echelons and up and down levels of command. Problem-framing

guidance in the document suggests that commanders ask broad, open-ended questions to reveal

initial conditions, domestic and international context, systems, critical constituents, strategic trends,

and gaps in knowledge. Commanders should recognize cultural narratives and employ

anthropological, historical, and discourse analysis methods to understand the complex adaptive

systems operating alongside and within the conflict.

Joint Publication 5-0, Joint Operation Planning, outlines the corresponding operational approach

which suggests that commanders assign social objectives, such as ‘qualified and trained civil service’

or ‘literacy rate improved’ to each line of effort. The goal is to achieve safe and stable regions and

conflict-free end states (Fig III-8), but these documents provide only examples of the process, not

specific objectives or templates for every possible military contingency. Moreover, differences in

geographic focus, responsibilities, planning cycles, incentives, timelines and resources between the


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Department of Defense, Department of State, and the US Agency for International Development

make social objectives, stability operations, and desired end states even more difficult to achieve

(3D Planning Guide 2012, 42-43).

Many commanders, especially those steeped in experiences from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, now

demand better guidance, tools, and graphics to understand complex coupled human-environmental

systems and 2nd and 3rd order effects of operational decisions across time. The ‘lines of effort’

discourse in military publications reflects this failing by insisting on a stable end state. They

complain that PMESII-PT ‘rigor’ and utility decline once analysts move beyond the preeminent

Army categories of weather and terrain, making no mention, for example, of critical ecosystems and

the human services they provide, such as Iraq’s marshes or Helmand River hydrology. Analysis of

the operational environment at all levels is too linear and goal-oriented lacking commander and

staff templates that consider dynamic systems, reveal feedback loops, and render a more holistic

and genuine ‘sense of place’.

• Major General Michael Flynn argues that military intelligence analysts need to collect and

share more ‘population-centric’ or ‘white’ information about local populations, governance,

and economic development. He recommends that analysts organize along geographic

rather than functional or country-specific lines and move between field elements as

information integrators and brokers (Flynn, Pottinger, Batchelor 2010).

• The Chief of Staff of the Army’s Strategic Studies Group recently recommended five

umbrella concepts to consider alongside intelligence preparation of the battlespace to

better understand megacities. According to the authors, the Army should endeavor to view

cities as systems, holistically and as living organisms, by grouping data and intelligence by

‘scale’, ‘density’, ‘connectedness’, ‘flow’, and ‘context’ (Bailey et al. 2014).

• Ducote’s (2010) monograph for the School of Advanced Military Studies further challenges

PMESII-PT to describe and understand complex, asymmetric environments. He prefers

iterative inquiry to uncover the structures, functions, processes, politics, and ethics in

operating in combat, stability, or relief operations. Ducote points out that PMESII-PT may

be useful to describe observable variables, but neglects to capture relationships well and the

true nature of systems not at all.


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All of the above critiques by senior military officers express dissatisfaction with current doctrine and

practice, advocating for systems approaches, meta-questioning, and enhanced human geography.

“Conflict, in all its forms, remains a fundamentally human endeavor…Success depends as much on

understanding the social and political fabric of the surroundings as it does on the ability to

physically dominate them. In an environment defined by the intermingling of friends, enemies, and

neutral parties, understanding social and cultural networks becomes just as important as the

weapons we employ.” General Ray Odierno (Canna 2013)

The Department of Defense also believes that sociocultural tradecraft should be improved, arguing

in 2013 and 2009 white papers (Flynn 2013, Defense Science Board Report 2009) that

understanding human dynamics is an essential aspect of success across the full spectrum of military

and national security operations. The MINERVA Initiative, HSCB Modeling Program, and the

Strategic Multilayer Assessment Program (including the Megacities Reconnaissance Surveillance,

and Intelligence (M-RSI) project) are Sociocultural Analysis (SCA) techniques under development by

the Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, Defense Intelligence Agency, ERDC, and others (Canna

2013, Ehlschlaeger 2014). Social science research methods applied in Afghanistan by Human

Terrain Teams (HTT) improved estimates of village populations, facilitated economic development,

and clarified drivers of conflict in brigade areas of operation (Shove 2014).

Social-ecological information and intelligence requirements outlined by the Department of the

Army are very broad (Relevant Military Environmental Requirements available on request from the

author). We cannot expect commanders or staff to ask the right questions, write detailed

environmental requirements, or pull critical data and analyses from multiple intelligence and

analytic sources. We need to anticipate their specific needs and place environmental security

mental maps, resources and decision tools at their fingertips. COCOM requirements inform USACE

ERDC’s and Army Geospatial Center science and technology Command, Control, Communications,

and Intelligence (C3I) and Force Protection Level One lines of effort. Broad ‘thrust areas’ include

human geography, geospatial intelligence, and geo-enabled computing. Environmental security

products make sense across Army S&T activities (Social, Military, and Environmental Interactions,

Terrain and Environmental Modeling, and Sensor and Data Integration).


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Traditional Social Science Contributions: Geography, Ecology, Systems

How can social science methodologies be applied more efficiently and at various levels of

generality remotely to clarify military problems and reveal dynamic working systems? Fundamental

concepts from the fields of geography, political ecology, and environmental security perhaps best

begin to explain connections between the natural environment, conflict, and peace-building.

The geographic ‘sense of place’ possesses physical, social, and unconscious dimensions. Place is at

once a fixed location with material objects, interactions with the environment, and social processes,

together interpreted by human experience and imagination with accompanying feelings of

attachment or detachment. Place is a bounded, oft-contested geographic entity or invisible social

interactions or some combination of both (Johnston 2000, 731). Geographers employ

interdisciplinary methods to get at ever-changing notions of place and the people that live there

(Johnston et al. 2000, 719 and 870).

The National Council for Geographic Education adopted two educational tools that researchers also

use to collect data for country and regional studies. Questions inherent in the Five Themes of

Geography (1984) (UWEC Fig 1) and The Eighteen National Geography Standards (Boehm and

Peterson 1994) overlap and capture physical and human characteristics of place, movement and

connections among places, causes and meanings, human-environmental interactions and systems,

and global interdependence. Both educational frameworks are designed to be iterative and

additional geographic mental models—urban gravity, center place, identity formation, hybridity, and

resistance theories—fit within their bounds.

Political ecology is a wide-ranging interdisciplinary field investigating political and economic

principles controlling relations between human beings and with their environment. Characterized

by systems thinking, the field envisions environments and societies in terms of relationships,

interactions, and transactions. Political ecology adopts a more critical view compared to other

scholarly disciplines. Biersack and Greenberg, for example, are interested in “alternative

socionatural orders…that enable us to envision instances of ecological viability as well as more

lasting and just ways of being-in-place and ‘being-in-networks with a diversity of humans and

other living beings…” (2006 3). ‘Ecosystem services’ and ‘adaptive management’ are additional

concepts from ecology useful to any study of place.


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• Functioning ecosystems provide freshwater, fuel wood, fisheries, fertility, forest products and

fodder – the foundations of human well being and most economic activity. The direct and

indirect benefits that humans derive from natural processes are called ‘ecosystem ‘services’

(Molnar 2000, TEEB 2010, DEFRA 2005). Trying to value nature’s services is difficult,

sometimes controversial, and a deep well for scholars. Most service assessments have been

regional and carried out in rural environments (O’Farrell et al. 2012). The first global survey

reported that more than 60 percent of ecosystem services evaluated were in decline with

future human access to freshwater one of the greatest concerns (Millennium Ecosystem

Assessment 2005).

• ‘Adaptive management’ is the general term for a flexible, iterative process of monitoring and

decision-making that can be adjusted in the face of uncertain feedbacks and as outcomes

are better understood. The concept grew out of a more holistic approach to conservation

known as ecosystem management which integrates ecological, economic, and social

principles to manage biological systems for long-term sustainability (Meffe et al. 1997, 360;

Adaptive Management Working Group)

In geography, ‘human ecology’ explores relationships between people and their physical and social

environments minus political ecology critiques. Usually, the concept of a system is used relatively

loosely to stress the interdependence of phenomena and variables, although some physical

geographers do use more formal and mathematical systems methods, multiple criteria regression

analysis techniques and others (Johnston 2000, 353). Systems studies address four main issues

according to Johnston (818): 1) Is the system open or closed? 2) Can the system be divided into

sub-systems or clusters of interdependent elements? 3) Do the links involve flows, causal or ‘black

box’ relationships? And, 4) is feedback in the system?

Environmental security literature is very diverse both topically and analytically. The most prominent

debate in the field remains unresolved and revolves around whether natural resource scarcity or

abundance is more closely related to conflict (Floyd and Matthew 2013, 2). Greed and grievance

debates between Toronto and Swiss-based groups of scholars are challenged by scholars arguing

that resource pressures generate both innovation and conflict and that risk of conflict may be

diminished by effective state governance and the equitable distribution of abundant resources.

Qualitative studies used to track processes and causal mechanisms have led to larger-N

quantitative studies with additional predictive power, depending on scale. Generalization of


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findings remains difficult and the most comprehensive recent summaries on the subject might be

Floyd and Matthew (2013), Bernauer et al (2012) and Mildner et al (2011), as well as the United

Nations Environment Programme’s From Conflict to Peacebuilding: The Role of Natural Resources

and the Environment (2009).

Military consideration of the role of natural resources in conflict is in its infancy and problem-

solving rarely more than two-dimensional. ‘Water security,’ for example, represents to the military

access to clean, plentiful drinking water or water as terrain, i.e. an obstacle. A more complete

portrayal of water security’s many important dimensions might include water quantity, quality,

accessibility (Who controls the resource?), availability (discharge rates or seasonality of flow),

boundary issues, and institutional competence (See Water Smart Card). Insights from research

about environmental change, degradation, scarcity have made their way into the highest levels of

military thinking and security policymaking. Several overlapping approaches exist (Brown 2005):

1. Demand-Induced Scarcity (Toronto Group, Homer-Dixon)

The “Toronto Group” refers to a team of researchers and institutions across four continents that

participated in research projects led by Thomas Homer-Dixon then at the University of Toronto.

Homer-Dixon (1994 1999) used case studies to investigate the connections between resource

scarcities (water, cropland, and pasture) and violent conflict. Homer-Dixon defined environmental

security as a neo-Malthusian trifecta of sorts between supply-induced scarcity (environmental

degradation or depletion), increased resource demand (population growth or per capita

consumption) and inequitable distribution between social groups. The Toronto Group of

researchers found that scarcities never act alone to cause conflict, instead interacting with other

contextual factors at multiple levels and scales (Deligiannis 2013).

• ‘Resource capture’ occurs when resource degradation or depletion interacts with population

growth, prompting powerful groups to shift access in their favor.

• ‘Ecological marginalization’ occurs when skewed distribution of resources combines with

population growth and increased demand to cause migration to ecologically fragile areas.

High population densities combined with lack of knowledge, good governance, or capital

result in deforestation, desertification or other severe degradation, creating a downward

spiral in resource supply.


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Through case studies in Kenya, the Philippines and elsewhere, Kahl (2006) went on to link resource

scarcity to political corruption and the breakdown of a state’s functional capacity. State failure

conflicts occur when population growth, environmental degradation, and resource inequality

weaken governments’ legitimacy, capacity and cohesion, expanding rebellion and intergroup

violence. State exploitation conflicts, in contrast, occur when political leaders capitalize on the

opportunities arising from population pressures, natural resource scarcities, and accompanying

social grievances, instigating violence to serve parochial interests.

2. Supply-Induced Scarcity (Bern-Zurich Group, Baechler)

The “Bern-Zurich Group” includes Gunther Baechler and scholars from the Swiss Peace Foundation

and the Centre for Security Studies and Conflict Research. Bern-Zurich researchers focus on the

mechanisms creating scarcity in the first place, especially the structural inequities in local and global

economic relationships that prompt excess appropriation and exclusion of some groups. Baechler’s

(1998) independent variable is environmental degradation—a consequence of human

environmental distribution and transformation that precedes scarcity. Environmental conflict is

linked to social transitions from subsistence to market economies, arguing that violence is most

likely to occur in remote regions where environmental stresses meet greed, political tensions, and

inequitable distribution. Conflict occurs when communities resist the environmental damage and

expropriation of resources accompanying development projects.

3. Abundance, Corruption, and State Capacity (International Peace Research Institute in Oslo (PRIO).

Empirical evidence suggests that some countries suffer, not from scarcity, but from a “resource

curse,” possessing high concentrations of ‘lootable’ resources. World Bank studies suggest that

conflict risk increases dramatically for countries heavily dependent on the export of primary

commodities for income (Collier et al 2003). Conflict occurs when different groups compete for

control of abundant, easy to transport, or hard to trace resources, such as timber, oil, diamonds,

other minerals, or rare earth metals. Collier (2007, 3) argues that countries “at the bottom that are

falling behind, and often falling apart” are prone to conflict by mutually reinforcing conditions –

past, chronic violence, an abundance of lootable natural resources, unstable and violent

neighboring countries, and corrupt, incompetent governments.


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Governance and institutions matter, sometimes able to resolve nonviolent conflicts over resources

before they escalate or vice versa. Giordano, Giordano, and Wolf (2005) found that the risk of

international conflict increases where institutions are absent, ill-defined, of cannot keep up with the

pace of environmental degradation or change. Bennett and colleagues (2001) and Walton and

Barnett (2008) found that corruption and slow resolution processes could trigger conflict. In the

case of Sudan (Manger 2005), the government exploited local tribal disputes around the ownership

of land and water to undermine the insurgency, making natural resources seem more important in

the conflict than perhaps is merited.

4. Network Threats

Environmental degradation is only one of many ‘network threats’ in a world that also includes

climate change, international terrorism, globalization, and so on. Individual decisions based on

immediate ecological, economic, or social problems constitute a network and ultimately a global

security problem. Mitigating network threats is especially difficult because effects are dispersed

and shared incentive structures to modify behavior nonexistent.

Le Billon (2001) understands ‘resources’ as products of environment and geography, but

‘dependence’ and its potential for conflict are shaped more powerfully by commodity chains,

markets and globalization. Not all countries blessed with lootable resources descend into armed

conflict; violence results from historical patterns of social relations within and between countries,

requiring further study by more appropriate scholars of anthropology and international relations.

Climate change acts as a catalyst or multiplier, increasing conflict potential by aggravating other

factors, such as demographics, land degradation, water complexities (quantity, quality, access), or

fishery shifts. Burke et al (2009) reported strong empirical connections between civil war and

temperature in Africa, concluding that global warming impacts will outweigh benefits from

economic growth and democratic progress in the region. Climate change is a factor in violent

conflicts because it renders societies vulnerable, negatively affecting individual livelihoods and

collective well-being—human insecurity leading to more conventional security problems (Barrett

and Adger 2007).

5. Quantitative Large-n Studies


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Contradictory findings emerge from large-N quantitative research on environmental change and

violent conflict (Bernauer 2011). Hsaing et al (2011) directly associate the El Nino/Southern

Oscillation—the dominant interannual mode of modern climate—with new civil conflicts arising

throughout the tropics. Buhaug (2010) applies complementary measures of armed conflict and

several different models to conclude that African civil wars are better explained by structural and

contextual conditions—ethnopolitical exclusion, poor national economies, and the collapse of the

Cold War system—rather than climate variability. Hauge and Ellingsen (2001) and Gleick (1993)

suggest that water scarcity may lead to armed conflict, but Theissen (2008) at the International

Peace Research Institute found that poverty and dysfunctional institutions were better predictors of

conflict. Transboundary waters may be associated with low-level conflicts rather than all out ‘water

wars’ (Gleditsch and Hegre 2000, Brochmann and Hensel 2009, Dinar 2009). In some cases, states

resolve diplomatic tensions by cooperating over shared water resources (Yoffe et al 2003, Wolf

2002). See Bernauer et al 2011 for a more complete list of quantitative environmental change and

conflict studies.

Clearly, human changes to the environment, usually detrimental ones, contribute to social changes,

such as resource capture and inequity, migration, economic decline, and protests and riots. The

resulting scarcity, greed, and grievances may lead to conflict, but rarely are cause and effects linear.

Many other factors are in play; variables are difficult to differentiate, especially over time, and

pathways to conflict complicated. Additional case studies are needed to tease out preexisting

social and political indicators of conflict, weigh their importance as drivers, and refine models. The

spatial resolution of environmental data is often inappropriate for the research question or problem.

Regional perspectives are needed to lower the level of analysis in quantitative analyses.

Evolving Communication Techniques

The primary goal for the Geospatial Research Laboratory’s (GRL) environmental security research

and human geography research within the Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC)

broadly is to introduce systems thinking into the Military Decision Making Process (MDMP) (See

Diagram 1). Understanding human-environmental interactions and cause and effect relationships

will improve intelligence preparation of the operating area (IPOE), command situational awareness,

security and stability operations, humanitarian and disaster response, and of course conflict

outcomes. GRL collaborates with other ERDC labs, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency


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(NGA), and multiple federal agencies to create comprehensive and compelling visualizations of

social-ecological systems.

• NGA advocates an open-sourced, publicly-accessible, interagency ‘geonarrative’ approach

that allows users to create a needs-based narrative. Envision a Web dashboard populated

with interactive geographic information system (GIS) maps, ‘friendly’ visualizations,

photographs, and analyses plus embedded, authoritative source databases for savvier users.

Geonarratives are models for immersive, digital, geospatial storytelling, visually capturing

aspects of the water-food-energy-climate nexus. By revealing “unasked questions,”

interdependencies, and uncertainties, geonarratives represent more than the sum of their

parts, explaining complex social-ecological systems (SES) to the whole-of-government

(analysts, policymakers, aid workers, and military commanders). (Thomas and Cook 2005;

Segel and Heer 2010)

• GRL’s Rapid Integrated Strategic Assessment for Water Security (RISA-4H20) research

envisions on-hand, interoperable anticipatory framework to rapidly analyze the plethora of

information and intelligence available in a way that captures human and hydrological

systems in their complexity and that can be employed up and down levels of generality and

command. Following proof of concept with watersheds, the RISA framework will be applied

to other social-environmental systems. The primary transition target for the Rapid

Integrated Strategic Assessment (RISA) for Water Security project is the Army Geospatial

Center’s (AGC) Water Resources Program—the primary Department of Defense military

water resource analysis and detection group.

ERDC, AGC, and NGA began collaborating to develop geonarrative and table-top exercises for the

Niger River at the request of U.S. Special Operations Command Africa (SOCAFRICA). They

requested similar work on the Nile because of rising tensions between Egypt and Ethiopia over

dam construction and water rights. Charged with enhancing partner nation capacity, promoting

regional security and stability, dissuading conflict, and protecting U.S. and coalition interests,

Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA), also will find geonarrative, RISA-4H2O and

similar products useful. EUCOM requested a geonarrative revealing Russian interests. PACOM

asked that similar ‘systems thinking’ work be completed for the Brahmaputra watershed where

climate change and glacial retreat cause regional flooding and threaten drinking water supplies for

the Indian subcontinent. SOCOM Joint Intelligence Center (JIC) planners request water security


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assessments and visualizations that address conflict related to water infrastructure, transboundary

water tensions, relationships between water, cultural practices, and disease vectors, water and food

insecurity, and so on. ERDC and AGC provide geospatial products routinely to the Defense

Intelligence Agency’s Defense Resources and Infrastructure Office (DIA/DRIO), and USACE’s

Transatlantic Division (TAD).

Geonarratives and other knowledge management tools aim to inform, encourage collaboration, and

persuade through (1) interaction with geospatial information and (2) the selectively transparent,

participatory exposure of its components, including its data, algorithms, visualizations, models, and

discursive, analytic, and decision processes. Transparency serves up communally robust, timely,

query-able knowledge that informs and provokes future decisions, analysis, and research. A

geonarrative does not provide “the answer.” Rather, through data visualization it allows for

rigorous exploration of issues to discover the “unasked questions,” fostering deeper analysis and

discussions to reduce unanticipated second and third order consequences in Phase Zero (Shape)

and Phase Four (Stability) actions. Both methods resemble multimedia, interactive atlases in their

current configurations, but possess the potential to generate scenarios to assist with course of

action development and decision-making, allowing analysts and decision-makers to dynamically

interact with diverse data sets in a real-time modeling and simulation environment.

Analysts seek easily navigable and compelling entry points into complex social-ecological systems,

concepts that will help planners and commanders recognize complicated interactions without

paralyzing subsequent decision-making. A watershed approach usually results in a rich sense of

place within a geonarrative, capturing at once environmental processes, ecosystem services,

resulting social structures, and likely conflicts (over resources, borders, space, and so on).

Watersheds and other ‘transboundary’ concepts link the carrying capacity of the environment with

economies and societies, forcing the user to acknowledge multiple scales—local, regional and

global (GEF 2012). Remote sensing and other geospatial data and visualizations are at hand.

Watershed boundaries are science-based and relatively objective. In many communities,

environmental management occurs at the watershed scale; regulations and best practices are

familiar and consensus more easily achieved.

Prioritizing knowledge management and geonarrative topics based on decision-maker needs can

be problematic. Many ask general questions without levying specific requirements, leaving the

analyst to anticipate current and future needs and justify full time effort (FTE). Determining the


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appropriate audience(s) and level of generality is challenging, as are classification levels,

interoperability needs, and technology choices. Bottom line: communicating military and

intelligence analysis resembles communicating science. Data and information must be ‘translated’

into a geonarrative or knowledge management taxonomy that better ‘leads’ the user toward an

understanding of complex human-environmental relationships and unanticipated consequences.

‘Ecosystem Services’ or ‘Hazards,’ for example, represent more intuitive and enlightening choices for

geonarrative frameworks than ‘Oceanic Algae’ or ‘Bathymetry.’ Another option might be to choose

‘bins’ or ‘categories’ at a level of generality high enough to capture a wide range of date and

analyses no matter the region or topic, such as ‘Drivers,’ ‘Pressures,’ State’ or ‘Impacts’ (Sekovski

2012).

Social-Ecological Systems of Current Interest

Urban social-ecological system are of special interest to military planners and U.S. Army probably

will be called on to conduct operations in and around coastal megacities, but military

understanding of complex social-ecological systems is in its infancy. Urban operational

considerations used to be ‘avenues of approach,’ ‘mobility corridors,’ and ‘hazards’. FM 3-06 Urban

Operations and FM 2-91.4 Intelligence Support to Urban Operations now characterize urban areas

as “dynamic entities” dividing the complex environment into terrain, society, and infrastructure, but

this remains still too simplistic. Figure 2-1 in FM 3-06 labels ‘infrastructure’ at the intersection

between overlapping circles that represent ‘terrain’ and ‘society,’ forgetting that human

infrastructure depends upon even more fundamental ecosystems and their ‘services.’ Urban pattern

and model discussions in both manuals hint at systems science, using terms such as ‘core’ and

‘periphery’, ‘hub’, ‘satellite’, ‘cycle of effects’, and ‘network’. Section 2.32 titled Industrial Area

addresses human and environmental health most directly, warning of accidental and deliberate

release of toxic industrial chemicals and materials (TICs and TIMS) with a table of common TICs and

their industrial or commercial use. Common challenges for large cities include the sheer scale of

population, resource demands, and infrastructure needs, high rates of land-cover loss and

migration, and dynamic exposures to global trade, crime, and market fluctuations. In addition to

magnified effects on fragile ecosystems and geomorphology from universal urban and industrial

processes, megacities in the coastal zone face additional natural hazards aggravated by regional

climatic shifts, such as cyclones, tsunamis, flooding, drought, heat waves, sea level rise and erosion,

and shifting ocean currents and fisheries.


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The Army gets around rudimentary and rigid models of systems by allowing for 'special

considerations'. The draft "Water Security Considerations for Security and Stability

Operations“ aims to expand on a Army’s doctrinal definition of urban 'infrastructure' and include

ecosystem services (See Diagram 2). The ‘bins’ or geonarrative chapter titles represent one way to

represent the environment, change across time, and mitigation opportunities for each city... in a

way that looks familiar to commanders and planners completing intelligence preparation of the

operating environment (JIPOE) using acronyms such as PMESII-PT, METT-TC, or ASCOPE. So far,

this taxonomy seems to be capturing most data inputs and revealing information gaps. This paper

examines data-rich, well-studied coastal megacities to identify unique environmental vulnerabilities

and resiliencies as well as partner engagement opportunities to enhance security and stability

operations. This examination suggests information requirements and special considerations for

less-accessible, data-poor megacities that planning staff and commanders can use to evaluate

courses of action, protect soldiers and civilians, and sustain the environment in their area of

operation. We further suggest that the military broaden its doctrinal definition of infrastructure in

the urban environment to include foundational ecosystem services.

The rate of change in the Arctic is dramatic and that pace is not lost on environmental and security

analysts within the Washington, D.C. beltway. With some urgency, we are developing sub-arctic

and arctic environmental security geonarrative schemas that encapsulate physical and human

geography watershed complexities. The goal is to build balanced, accessible geonarrative template

incorporating the critical reflections of ‘people in place’ with ‘boots on the ground’ along the lines

of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. Participatory work of this kind using an

international team was done for Russia’s Lake Imandra watershed in the Kola Peninsula. This

approach brought a significant amount of ecological, social, economic, and health information to

bear on sustainable resource management in the region, while further developing information

requirements, science infrastructure, and technological solutions toward extracting meaningful

insights from large databases (Zinn 2003; Voinov et al 2004). To overcome beltway and scientific

biases in conceptual frameworks, we plan participatory action research (PAR) that will include

design suggestions and real-world perspectives from local and regional authorities inside and

outside of government. Non-indigenous populations, in particular, are treated as an aggregate,

although they are no less canaries-in-the-coalmine; indeed acknowledging their challenges, voices,

and interests are critical to advance public engagement, climate change planning, and mitigation.

PAR values the process as much as the product, taking into account stakeholder perspectives and


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supporting people’s capacity to develop their own analytic tools and make better-informed

decisions (Martello 2008; ACIA 2004; Kindon 2005; Caine et al 2009).

The Arctic Water Security People’s Geonarratives that we create—research, data sets, and

visualizations—will be passed on directly to policymakers in real time through NGA’s Foresight

Initiative, including a downtown Washington, D.C. ‘decision theater,’ and via Army Geospatial Center

support to federal agencies.

• NGA’s five-year Foresight Initiative with Arizona State University (ASU) and other partners

examines how climate change affects water security, contributes to political unrest and

evaluates sustainability and resilience strategies. Leveraging computing and system

modeling initiatives at ASU and with partner organizations, including the National

Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and United States Geological Survey (USGS),

the Foresight Initiative will apply cloud technologies, advances in natural user interfaces,

simulations, and machine learning to create systems and decision-making models from large

amounts of remote sensing and other data (NGA 2014).

• AGC’s Hydrologic Analysis Team (HAT) provides military water resource analyses and water

detection to the Department of Defense (DOD) and other agencies. Their Water Resource

Data Base (WRDB) is broadly-available and contains information on the location, quantity,

and quality of surface and groundwater and infrastructure. Their Water Detection Response

Team (WDRT) assists with site selection analysis and water detection for well-drilling

operations and other missions (AGC 2014).

Over time we hope to share this research with combatant command partner nations and

international organizations, such as the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Council. GEF uses

International Waters funds for demonstration projects, designed to find common ground

and create sustainable institutional mechanisms for sharing transboundary freshwater and

related resources across economic sectors and communities (GEF 2012).


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Water Smart Card


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Table 1: Environment—Crisis—Military Nexus

Full-Spectrum Conflict Phases

(JP 5-0)

Environmental Factors to Consider

(JP 5-0; Theater Campaign Handbook)

ERDC/AGC Support (JP 2-01.3; FM 3-07)

Pre-Conflict – 0 – Prepare and Prevent I – Crisis Defined Foundation Work – prepared well ahead and updated regularly.

PMESII Framework (political, military, economic, social, information, and infrastructure) Geographic Features Hazards Population Demographics Political and Socioeconomics WMD capabilities Environmental Conditions and Changes, Pre-existing toxins, pollution, TIMs (toxic industrial materials) …. Knowledge Gap: ecosystems services and natural resources inventory

Early Warning and Vulnerability Analyses

• IPOE (intel preparation of operating environment)

• Identify Ecosystem Services and Inventory Resources

• Regional and Country Studies • Features and Network

Mapping • Steady-state Engagement • Conflict Prevention Planning • Humanitarian Disaster

Response • Decision Tools and Table-top

Exercises Challenge: How to make analyses and products relevant and accessible across tactical – strategic continuum?

Conflict Operations II – Seize the Intiative III – Dominate Prioritize and Protect

Preconflict information plus… Population Essential and Mission-Critical Infrastructure and Ecosystem Services Emerging Hazards (released toxins, disease vectors,…)

Risk Assessments and Decision Support

• Sabotage and Environmental Warfare Target Early Warning

• Area of Responsibility/Battle Space Mapping

• Hazardous Terrain Maps – ‘No go’ Areas

• Dynamic Systems Analysis (envir/social/econ/political)

Post Conflict

IV – Stabilize

Critical Ecosystems and Human Environmental Services Economic and Infrastructure

Environmental Design and Development Projects for Stability Operations


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V – Enable Civil Authority 0 – Shape

Development Environmental Governance Mitigation and Reconstruction

• Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) and USAID Projects Assessments and Accountability

• Environmental Assistance

• Engagement and Host Nation

Partnership

• Capacity Building Techniques

• Climate Change Adaptation


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Diagram 1: Military Decision Making Process

FM 101-5, 5-2


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Diagram 2: Water Security Considerations for Security and Stability

Operations


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