Department of Defense environmental managers and decision makers seek a strategic, adaptive approach to integrated natural resources planning and ecosystem management. One tool that is helping to address this need is the Integrated Dynamic Landscape Analysis and Modeling System (IDLAMS). Developed through a partnership between Argonne National Laboratory and the U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory, IDLAMS serves as a solid step toward developing a computer framework to link environmental models together. The system utilizes a Geographic Information System (GIS) integration framework. IDLAMS is now evolving to incorporate a more flexible and dynamic object-oriented (OO) architecture for its integration framework. This new prototype framework, called OO-IDLAMS, is built on Argonne's Dynamic Information Architecture System (DIAS), a generic object-oriented architecture that supports distributed and dynamic representation of interlinked processes.

The purpose of this project is to enhance the existing IDLAMS by researching object-oriented techniques for model integration using the DIAS technology, including links to commercial GIS applications. Fort Riley, Kansas, serves as a case study location to test the OO-IDLAMS prototype.

The OO-IDLAMS Architecture Provides an Integration Environment Where Applications Dynamically Interact via Real World Objects. 

OO-IDLAMS more easily accommodates adding and removing software applications to the integration framework. External applications are executed in their native language (such as FORTRAN and C) and can be accessed over the Internet if they reside on external networked computers. Computer processes dynamically interact with each other indirectly via real-world ecosystem objects that package attribute information together with behavior (how the object acts and reacts). OO-IDLAMS also provides a unique way of introducing land use/land management plans into a simulation model through the use of course-of-action objects that model procedural or organizational processes.

Real world entity objects that represent important components of the ecosystem have been developed. The OO architecture incorporates these reusable real world objects and dynamically integrates two external models. These models are the original IDLAMS Vegetation Dynamics Model and a Henslow's Sparrow Habitat Model implemented with ESRI® software. In addition, flexible and easily modified courses-of-action are used to model the land use and land management planning components of the simulation. This prototype will demonstrate a nextgeneration model integration technology that supports adaptive natural resource planning and ecosystem management for the long-term military mission.

The OO-IDLAMS framework provides the ability to reflect the true dynamics of living ecosystems, land uses, and land management activities. It brings together disparate data and software in a flexible, adaptive way. In addition, the cost of future simulation modeling is reduced because many of the data, applications, and system components can be reused with minimal system reworking.