Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
types or nature of the obstacles but it describes the selecting criteria for locations
suitable for tactical or non-permanent landing sites. From a variety of conditions
only the following two conditions were selected for further analysis: slope of
ground, and obstruction angle on approach and exit paths. These criteria can be
formulated as follows:
Slope should not exceed 7
or 3
in any direction by day or night, respectively.
Within the selected approach and exit paths, the maximum obstruction angle to
obstacle should not exceed 6
to a distance of 500 m by day and 4
to a distance
of 3,000 m by night
The analysis was carried out in the ESRI ArcGIS software suite using the NATO
standard VMap 1 (Vector Map Level 1) and DTED 1 (Digital Terrain Elevation
Data Level 1) databases in the study area which was located in the vicinity of the
city of Kosovska Mitrovica in the northern part of Kosovo (Kovarik
2014
). The
VMap 1 database contains digital geospatial data in a vector format with resolution,
accuracy and level of generalization relating to the map scale of 1:250,000. Data is
separated into the thematic levels including boundaries, elevation, hydrography,
industry, physiography, population, transportation, utilities and vegetation. The
DTED 1 database provides a uniform latitude/longitude based matrix of terrain
elevation values. These values are recorded approximately every 100 m (for
longitude from 0
up to 50
north or south the spacing is 3 by 3 arc seconds, for
other areas the spacing is different).
Crisp Set Analysis of Potential HLS
The following features were selected as obstacles for the analysis without uncer-
tainty consideration: roads, railroads, rivers, lakes, power lines, forests, built-up
areas, and terrain slope.
Roads and railroads
. For the purposes of the analysis, it was assumed that the
trees or electricity poles occurred along the features and that their average height
was 10 m. According to the STANAG requirements for the obstruction angle for
the day operations the buffer zones of 95 m from the feature center lines were
generated.
Rivers and lakes
. The trees of the height of 20 m were assumed on the banks of
these water features therefore the buffer zones of 190 m from the feature
boundaries were generated.
Power lines
. As the VMap 1 data states neither the pole heights nor the
transmitted voltage, the obstacle height of 30 m was assumed and the
corresponding buffer zones of 285 m from the feature center lines were
generated.
