North Slope Decision Support System

Ice Road Planning Demonstration

November 9, 2009
Fairbanks, Alaska
 Ice Road Planning Tool Overview
Use available cyberinfrastructure data to determine
multiple potential ice road routes
Each route presented along with its performance under
multiple criteria
Routes should follow all constraints and include desired
features in tradeoff with other criteria
Routes tied in to water withdrawal from lakes
View results in environment supportive of decision-
making
Tool should be applicable to wide range of
circumstances, robust in use, and have reasonable
computational requirements
 END

START
 END

START
 END

START
 Ice Road Planning Tool Results

Multiple criterion matrix Tradeoff evaluation

Route Travel Time (hrs) Construction Cost ($) New Permits Needed

Orange 0.25 1,400,000 2

Green 0.4 1,000,000 1
Blue 0.45 1,200,000 0
Plan To Build Ice Road from Alpine to GrandView
 Basic Process for Ice Road Planning

Set GIS-Layers
Set Spatial Settings
Set Planning Inputs
Run Processor
View Results

Options
Manual Route Input and Assessment
Manual Exclusion Zone Input
 Zoom to Area of Interest

1
2

1. Click on Zoom tool

2. Create box around area of interst in map
Zoom to Area of Interest
 Examine Data:Topography, Streams, etc.

1. Click on Display tab in Table of Contents

2. View available data layers on left side; View map on
right side
3. Click on Indentify tool and select data in map -
View data information in Identify window
 Start An Ice Road Design
1. Click on NSDSS WorkBench
tab in Table of Contents
2 3 2. Click on Conduct Analysis tab
3. Select Design an Ice Road
from pull down menu and click
Run (arrow)

1
 Set GIS Layers

1. Expand GIS
Layers (click +)
2. Select GIS Layer
(Topography,
Lake, Stream,
etc.)
3. Avaliable layers
1 display in Property
3 Information
2 window - select
desired layer
4. Click Apply
4
Set Spatial Setting
 Set Spatial Setting

1. Expand Spatial
1 Settings (click +)
2 2. Click Grid Cell
3 Size
4 3. Type desired grid
cell size in
Property
Information
window
4. Click Apply
Set Spatial Setting (Continued)

5 5. Click Start Point

 Set Spatial Setting (Continued)

6. Click Specify Point

on Map in
7 Property
Information
window
7. Click on map at
desired start point
8. Repeat steps 5
7 for end point

6
Set Planning Inputs
 Set Planning Inputs (continued)
1. Expand Planning
Inputs (click +)
2. Expand Objectives
1 (click +) - Click on
3 Travel Time
Monetization
4 Factor
2 3. Type desired input
in Property
Information
window
4. Click Apply
5. Repeat for all
Planning Inputs
 Run Processor

1
2

1. Click on Processing
2. Click on Find Leading Ice Routes in Property
Information window
View Results & Discuss (Best Routes)
 View Results & Discuss (Best Routes)
2

1. Check desired routes in Table

2. Click Draw on Map
3. View routes on map
View Results & Discuss (Tabular Results)
 View Results & Discuss (Tabular Results)
1

1. Click on Table tab

2. View tabular results
 View Results & Discuss (Elevation Profile)

1. Click on Chart tab

2. View Elevation Profile results
 View Results & Discuss (Lakes)

1
2

1. Select (check) route in Table

2. Lakes associated with route are highlighted in Red on
the map
Next Steps in Ice Road Planning Development

Multiple Destination Planning

Uncertainty Analysis
Explicit Linkage to Water Balance Model
What about Climate Change?