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ALES User`s Manual - Crop and Soil Sciences

1. coconut lo Cocus nucifera low capital input coffee arab hi Coffea arabica medium to high capital input coffee arab 1lo Coffea arabica low capital input coffee rob hi Coffea canephora medium to high capital input coffee rob lo Coffea canephora low capital input maize hi Zea mays high capital input mango lo Mangifera indica low capital input oilpalm hi Elaeis guineensis medium to high capital input oilpalm lo Elaeis guineensis low capital input j i pepper lo Piper nigrum low capital input pineapple lo Ananas comosus low capital input potato hi Solanum tuberosum medium to high capital input pyrethrum lo Chrysanthemum cinerariaefolium low capital input rice upland hi Oryza sativa upland medium to high cap input rubber hi Hevea brasiliensis medium to high capital input rubber lo Hevea brasiliensis low capital input vanilla lo Vanilla spp low capital input Each Land Utilization Type was defined by a set of Land Use Requirements For example Land Use Requirements for LUT rice upland hi ic temperature l i le erosion hazard im moisture conditions ir rooting conditions it nutrient availability retention capacity Iw oxygen availability wetness x soil toxicities FeS2 CaCO3 l iz excess of salts sal
2. P Lt P Lt ser evaluations EVAL ALES5 RT EVAL GB S ALES5 RT xt xt s ALE AG SLE SLC Le Pee ee oo ee i Zp O U Lmenu orm xt 7 Ket Se onfig version onfig mode Step 6 Assign Trustee rights Each user should have read only access to the program in DTM and its sub directories and of course read write access to their own copy of the dataset EVAL GBL The most convenient way to set up read only access to the program is to make a group which includes the ALES users and then give each ALES user rights to this group Step 7 The user starts their own copy of ALES The user logs on and switches to the mapped drive which points to the DTM PC program He or she then runs the program with the commands ales evaluate or consult as explained in Chapter 4 of the User s Manual Each user will be working on their own dataset because MUMPS DBD uses the mapped drive e g Z to point to their own copy of 1 EVAL GBL Customizing ALES You can change the way ALES looks or performs as explained in the following sections ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 47 February 1997 Changing screen colors ALES runs on all PC video adapters including the Monochrome Display Adapter MDA Color Graphics Adapter CGA Professional Graphics Adapter PGA Visual Graphics Adapter VGA and the Hercules
3. Press ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 152 February 1997 to move the cursor to the branch Then Press F4 to insert a subtree ALES displays the list of available discrete LCs not including cfv A which is already on the path Select fpsc family particle size class ALES expands the tree at the branch Now we have to complete the decision procedure for this branch The cursor should already be on the first branch frag fragmental Fragmental soils have very low water holding capacity so Press F3 and then select severity level 3 severe stress The cursor should move to the second branch s sk sandy skeletal This class along with c sk and s are similar to fragmental soils with respect to their moisture stress for maize So Press and then select branch 1 Move the cursor to the fourth branch c sk clayey skeletal Press and then select branch 1 The cursor should move to the fifth branch s sandy Press and then select branch 1 Loamy skeletal soils branch 3 are roughly similar to the situation we encountered before with significant coarse fragments and loamy textures recall that an additional criterion of summer precipitation was then needed So Move the cursor to the third branch I sk loamy skeletal Press F4 to insert a subtree ALES displays the list of available discrete LCs not
4. ALES assumes that the land is uniformly distributed among the inferred classes according to the proportion of the range of each class In the current example ALES would assume that 8 5 12 5 or 43 is in the 3 8 class and that 12 8 12 5 or 57 is in the 8 15 class Similar calculations can be carried out for any two sets of ranges In the situation where a range of an inferred class is wider than the range of a base class all the values of that base class will end up in the same inferred class But in general the inference procedure will result in a multi valued Land Characteristic value In the current example it would be 3 8 p 43 8 15 p 57 Note that p in this syntax is a proportion not a probability The multi value is propagated as described in the section on multi values below Continuous to continuous by formulas ALES allows the model builder to enter mathematical formulas with which to calculate the value of a continuous Land Characteristic LC from a set of other continuous LC s Typically the derived LC is more complex and less easily measured than the base LC s For example the predicted soil loss by water erosion in units of T hal could be computed from the silt content very fine sand content proportion of the soil surface covered by stones and slope all measured in percent A formula is not appropriate for discrete classified data In this case you should use a LC to LC decision tree An
5. Confirms a selection or a typed entry Escape Cancel an interaction without saving go back one or more screens 3 Cursor motion keys These are marked with directional arrows gt T and J or with descriptive names such as Home and PgUp These are used to move around in lists data entry forms and tables The arrow keys e gt T and 4 move one line cell or cursor position in the appropriate direction The Home and End keys move to the first and last items in selection boxes The PgUp and PgDn move up and down one screenfull in selection boxes that are too long to fit on a screen and scroll help texts and Why screens in the appropriate direction 4 Typing keys i e the ones with letters and numbers on them Typing keys are used to tell ALES codes and names They are also used to move around in selection boxes by typing the unique prefix of the item to which to move At every point in the program an annunciator line at the bottom of the screen shows which keys are active The form help F1 also explains which keys are active The cursor control keys are used to move around in selection boxes among questions in a form and in the decision tree editor Leaving ALES You can only leave ALES and return to the operating system from the opening Menu You can return from any point in the program to this menu by pressing Esc to cancel or F10
6. Yes this answer should already be highlighted so Select Yes report results on a per area basis ALES clears the screen and displays a Working message appears while it formats the results for display Then it clears the message and displays the evaluation results matrix Notice in the upper right hand corner of the matrix the title and units for this display in the present case Net Present Value acre The evaluation results matrix is a two dimensional array with the rows being the map units that were evaluated here A13 CeB Lc OdA and SeB and the columns being the Land Utilization Types for which an evaluation was computed here ccc ccc d and ttpp Since map unit A13 is compound ALES automatically evaluated its homogeneous constituents in order to be able to evaluate the compound map unit hence there is one row in the matrix for each of its constituents as well as for the compound map unit itself The cells of the matrix show results Each cell is located at the intersection of a single row map unit and column Land Utilization Type and shows the result for that map unit and Land Utilization Type Evaluation results matrix Here is the format of an evaluation matrix unis un fon Lum uu vanes var va fom vans vas vate omy PM The highlight is initially on the upper left hand corner of the matri
7. structure and clay mineralogy Supposing that the area to be evaluated has a silty clay loam subsoil Move the highlight to branch 9 corresponding to sicl silty clay loam Then Press Enter to confirm this value i e to tell ALES that the land area we are evaluating has a silty clay loam subsoil Now ALES is asking for another land characteristic value May to September 1 e growing season precipitation pptMS which is measured in four classes This and characteristic isn t a soil characteristic as are texture and permeability but rather a climatic characteristic Rainfall affects moisture supply in the obvious way These classes were the ones delineated on climate maps for the survey area in central New York state Suppose that the area receives between 450 and 500mm rainfall in the growing season Move the highlight to branch 3 corresponding to 450 500mm Then ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 60 February 1997 Press Enter to confirm the selection ALES now displays the final result moderate moisture stress class 2 on a scale of 1 to 3 There is a note for this Land Quality read it if you wish Press Enter to confirm the result for moisture availability and continue on to the next Land Quality Land Quality me Conditions for mechanization The window is replaced with a similar one for the Land Quality me conditions for mechanization The
8. 1 8 2k LMU test1 LC pptMS lt 400 The low value for heat units for LMU test3 will result in a shorter season for corn which will be reflected as a limiting yield factor The low moisture in the growing season for LMU test1 when combined with a stony soil will result in severe moisture stress Press F10 to confirm the matrix and return to Menu 1 3 Select Menu 1 3 Option A Edit Data in a matrix Select data entry template ss Cayuga County soil survey Select the set of map units test1 test2 and test3 In the data entry form matrix Make the following changes to the displayed values LMU test2 LC slope C sloping LMU test1 LC dc mwd moderately well drained LMU test1 LC cfv A v very adjective is used LMU test1 LC cft A gr gravelly The steeper slope for LMU test2 when combined with the other LCs such as silt loam surface soil will result in a moderately severe erosion hazard which will be reflected as a multiplicative yield factor The stony soil for LMU testl when combined with the low moisture in the growing season will result in severe moisture stress The moderately well drained LMU test1 will result in medium late planting Press F10 to confirm the matrix and return to Menu 1 3 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 169 Febr
9. Copy test to test3 with name Testing Three Now we have three test map units at present they are all exact copies of map unit HnB Press F10 to return to Menu 1 3 Data Let s enter data for LC pptMS c for these three test map units Select Menu 1 3 Option A Edit data in a matrix Select template cl climatological LCs Use F3 to select map units test1 test2 and test3 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 161 February 1997 Press F10 to confirm the map unit set box ALES now displays the data entry matrix for the three map units selected and the four LCs in the template cl Notice that there is no data for LC pptMS c for any map unit Move the highlight to map unit test1 LC pptMS c Press Enter to enter a data value ALES asks how many mm of May September precipitation Enter and confirm 500 If you are adventurous try to enter a value outside this range and see what happens Also note that the pop up F3 method of data entry doesn t work for continuous LCs because there is no finite list of choices from which to choose Move the highlight to map unit test1 LC pptMS Press Enter to enter a data value ALES asks which class of May September precipitation the current value 400 450 is displayed We want to delete this value to force ALES to infer pptMS from the commensu
10. Example Exercise Explanation the unique prefixes would be Exa Exe and Exp respectively Of course there may be strings with no unique prefix For example if Ex were added to the set it wouldn t have one Now you can see the most efficient way to move the highlight to the map unit we just defined type the shortest unique prefix of the code SeB Begin with the first letter of the code Type S remember to use the Shift key since the case must match You will see the highlight move to SeB In this list there are no other map unit codes that begin with S so just the one letter S was a unique prefix We ve successfully moved the highlight to the correct map unit so Press Enter to select this map unit You will now see a data entry form with three items one for each land characteristic in template cl The highlight is on the first question ffs ffs frost free season gdd50 growing degree days base 50F pptMS May September precipitation ffs frost free season Each question must be answered with one of the class codes for the LC The highlight is on the first data item which is repeated at the bottom of the form ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 71 February 1997 Pop up list The easiest and most reliable way to enter data is to use F3 to pop up a list of the possible choices i e th
11. LMU LUT Yr Present Value IN area LMU LUT ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 276 February 1997 Figure F Computation of Production related costs lenis 1 2 6 5 Production related input amount units in units out Input price unit in Production related cost unit out Production related cos harvest 1 2 6 1 MU LUT Out of harvests this year LUT Out Yr Per output production related cost area yr MU LUT Out Yr Production related cos area yr LMU LUT Yr ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 277 February 1997 Figure G Computation of Cash Flow Out of the LUT 1 2 3 1 Cash flow OUT area yr Discount rate Discount Present Value OUT area yr LMU LUT Yr Gross Margin OUT area LMU LUT Yr Present Value OUT area Benefit Cost Ratio ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Net Present Value area Page 278 Gross Margin area February 1997 Figure H Computation of Physical and Economic Suitability 1 2 8 1 traverse Physical decision tree Suitability Decision Tree Physical Suitability 1 2 8 2 determined by the Peer Decision Tree LURs for the LMU LUT Maximum tree Limitation path LUR on Decision Tree Pat
12. The term severity level as used in ALES is a bit misleading because the level numbers from 1 to some maximum number do not necessarily correspond to increasing levels of physical limitation or to increasing additional costs or to decreasing yields It is certainly common that increasing severity levels do correspond with one of these but this is not required In some cases it is not appropriate For example a Land Use Requirement of nutrient requirement may have a number of severity levels corresponding to soil fertility groupings each requiring a different combination of additional inputs the ordering of the classes may be arbitrary Recall that the Land Use Requirements will be used to determine overall physical suitability proportional yields and added costs of production Therefore each severity level must differ from the others with respect to one of these This is the top down approach to determining the number of severity levels For example for the Land Quality lime requirement we could define a number of severity levels each requiring a specific one time quantity of added limestone In the top down approach the number of levels would correspond to the possible application levels Since the amount of limestone to be applied is a continuous quantity there are an infinite number of application levels however in common agricultural practice only a discrete number of levels are specified e g in 1 ton increments So
13. Tutor1 does not appear in the list of evaluation models you must first leave consultation mode press Esc and load it into your list of ALES models The saved model tutor1 als is included in the self extracting archive examples exe on the distribution diskette Copy this file to any convenient place on your hard disk and then run it to extract its files including tutorl als then start ALES with the DOS command ales and then load tutor1 als into the list of evaluations by using F8 when that list is displayed There are several ways to select one item out of the list to begin with we ll use the simplest way namely moving the highlight with the cursor motion keys Press and you will see the highlight move from the first line to the second This example is a simplification of the more realistic New York State example used in Tutorial 2 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 55 February 1997 Press T and you will see the highlight move back to the first line Press T or as necessary to position the highlight on the line for model Tutor1 Throughout ALES the model builder is able to leave annotations or notes for model users such as you to look at These explain the evaluation as a whole or any part of it Whenever a note is present you will see the degree sign to the right of the code Looking at the list of evaluations you should see a to the right of
14. and s2 and that between s2 and s3 should be set to differentiate the best land from moderately good land and moderately good land from marginal land Social factors can dictate these limits it may be considered that good land must return a certain amount to allow for a acceptable level of prosperity A rural survey of incomes levels for prosperous normal and poor farmers in an area divided by typical farm sizes for ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 186 February 1997 these categories of farmers could be a starting point for determining the per area returns which would be necessary for the several economic suitability classes The Versatility Index In the printed reports of evaluation results the final line of each page is a Versatility Index abbreviation VI The versatility index is a composite measure of goodness of the map unit or Land Utilization Type taken as a whole Versatility of Land Mapping Units The Versatility Index for a Land Mapping Unit is defined as follows VI imu Y Ra ur yl LUT LUT where R yy pyr 18 the evaluation result for the matrix cell As you can see the VI is weighted by the number of LUTs with each result For example consider the following results matrix IRR LUT A LUT B LMU 20 mug fo 0 0 We compute the VI here for the Internal Rate of Return as LMU 20 20 2 20 LMU B 0 30 2 1
15. is not suitable for citrus because of excess wetness w whereas map unit 3 010 2 is not suitable because of high erosion risk e and poor rooting conditions r The evaluator can follow a series of Why screens to see how ALES arrived at each part of the result ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 23 February 1997 Glossary of Land Evaluation Classified value one measured on a discrete scale If the value is numeric it is placed into a range which corresponds to the class Client A person or organization that requests the work and will act on the basis of its results Also called the user of the land evaluation results Commensurate Land Characteristics two or more LCs that have the same units of measurement Continuous value one measured on a continuous scale with arbitrary precision Decision tree a hierarchical multi way key leading via a series of questions at the nodes of the tree to a decision at its leaves Delineation on a map the undivided portion of a map sheet inside a continuous boundary line and outside any contained continuous boundary line if any Economic land evaluation an evaluation of suitability based on some economic measure of net benefits should a given LUT be implemented on a given land area Evaluations specific evaluation exercises Evaluator A person who carries out the land evaluation Framework how to carry out an evaluation exercise Geographical Inf
16. to cut the entire tree into the paste buffer The Working message appears for a few seconds and then the entire tree is removed the editor now shows an empty tree Don t worry the cut tree is now in the paste buffer Notice that F6 appeared on the annunciator line after the cut indicating that there is a cut subtree that can be pasted Now we want to add the new top level LC Press F4 to insert a tree ALES asks which LC to use to make the decision at this level From the list Select Land Characteristic cfv A volume of coarse fragments surface soil The empty tree is replaced with a new one level tree showing the branches for this LC none of which have a decision associated with them yet The cursor is now on branch 1 n not enough coarse fragments to be named This situation is exactly like the one assumed for the original tree i e the one we just cut no coarse fragments so we consider the other factors exactly as before Notice in the annunciator line that F6 is marked paste So Press F6 to paste the cut tree under branch 1 After a few seconds the for this branch is replaced with a gt dbr indicating a complete subtree whose first entity is depth to bedrock Now we are back where we were before the old tree was cut at least for soils with no significant coarse fragments We now must consider the case where there are enough coarse fragments
17. ALES is now considering sloping maps units with moderately permeable subsoils Under the header is the name of the next land characteristic to be considered namely text A the USDA texture class of the surface soil which as you can see is measured in the USDA standard 12 classes Texture of the surface soil affects erosion hazard because certain particle sizes are easier to detach by the impact of rain or runoff and to transport by runoff In general silts and very fine sands are the most susceptible Supposing that in this land area the soils have a silt loam texture Move the highlight to branch 5 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 58 February 1997 corresponding to class sil Press Enter to confirm this value i e to tell ALES that the land area we are evaluating has a silt loam surface soil Now the texture classes disappear and next to the text A name is the class we selected namely sil Under this is the result in this case the severity level or Land Quality value for the Land Quality erosion hazard In the situation we have just described to ALES namely a silt loam with moderately permeable upper subsoil on a C slope the erosion hazard is class 3 of 4 which in this model is a moderate erosion hazard What does it mean for the erosion hazard to be moderate To answer this question the model builder has included an explanation Notice that the result is marked w
18. Land evaluation for agricultural development International Inst for Land Reclamation and Improvement Wageningen publication 23 Subtitled Some explorations of land use systems analysis with particular reference to Latin America This is Beek s doctoral thesis and is quite wide ranging Davidson Donald A ed 1986 Land evaluation Van Nostrand Reinhold AVI A collection of original influential papers on land evaluation EUROCONSULT 1989 Agricultural Compendium for rural development in the tropics and subtropics Amsterdam Elsevier This extremely useful compendium contains a good chapter on land classification methods as well as a good introduction to economic amp financial land evaluation FAO Soil resources development and conservation service 1976 A framework for land evaluation FAO Soils Bulletin 32 FAO Rome The original statement of the FAO Framework this has been superseded by better and more comprehensive explanations in the later soils bulletins on the subject FAO Soil resources development and conservation service 1983 Guidelines land evaluation for rainfed agriculture FAO Soils Bulletin 52 FAO Rome Specific guidelines for evaluating land for rainfed agriculture based on the FAO framework FAO 1984 Land evaluation for forestry FAO Forestry Paper 48 FAO Rome Specific guidelines for evaluating land for forestry based on the FAO framework FAO Soil resources
19. List of data fields to add another field to this template ALES now displays the ordered list of data fields for this template We can put the new LC anywhere in the field list Let s put it between the existing second and third fields Move the highlight to item 3 ppt MS Press F3 to insert another field above this item Now we want to add the new LC so Select pptMS c ALES inserts this LC as field 3 in the ordered list and pushes down the previous item 3 pptMS to the fourth position in the list Press F10 to confirm the list of fields and return to Menu 1 3 7 then Press F10 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 160 February 1997 to return to the list of templates then Press F10 to return to Menu 1 3 Data Let s now define some new map units for our experiment so we don t affect the existing database Select Menu 1 3 Option 1 Definitions From keyboard Enter or edit Move the highlight to map unit HnB Press F6 to initiate a copy When ALES asks for the new map unit code Enter and confirm code test ALES will now ask for a descriptive name for the new map unit Enter the name Testing One ALES will now ask for the number of acres in the new map unit Press F4 to delete the area Confirm the form and return to the list of map units Using the same techniques Copy test to test2 with name Testing Two
20. Physical suitability subclass ALES displays the evaluation matrix for physical suitability subclasses These results should look like the following table Note that two of the units A and C are physically unsuitable i e are in physical suitability class 4 FAO class N2 but for different reasons A has poor water quality and C has both excessively low water availability and the ponds can t be constructed in the first place Map units B D and E are physically suitable according to our model Map unit B is the only one without any physical limitations Map unit D has minor water quality limitations and some extra drainage is needed to build the ponds Map unit E needs extra earthmoving to build the ponds Calibrating an evaluation from the Why screens and evaluation matrix In Tutorial 2 we took a brief tour of the Why screens including editing economic parameters and re computing evaluations In model building mode we can do more than examine why and alter economic parameters we can alter any relevant part of the model including decision trees from the Why screens In this section we ll practice editing the model and re computing the result At this point you should be looking at the evaluation results matrix which shows the physical suitability subclasses of the five test map units for the one Land Utilization Type that we ve define
21. it is the link to the attributes of the polygon which ALES will either use to evaluate if these are LCs or to which ALES will write evaluation results The other field names are assigned by the map creator using the TABLES command The leftmost field SRECNO is the record number in the table and is used internally by Arc Info The AREA and PERIMETER fields measure the polygon numbered by LMU which is the unique polygon ID as seen by the Arc Info user Notice that the first polygon in the table is always the outside polygon whose area is the negation of the sum of the areas of the other polygons in the map In this sample table there are two attribute fields to represent the two kinds of transfers Field TEXT_A is a typical land data variable here meant to represent the field texture of the topsoil and field PS_LUT3 is a typical evaluation result here meant to represent physical suitability for Land Utilization Type number 3 The relation between LMU the unique polygon ID and LMU_ID the key field is one to one i e each polygon belongs to exactly one map unit and the structure of the table ensures this because each polygon is a single record with only one value then in each field including the key field However there are in general many polygons of a single map unit so that the reverse relation between the map unit and the polygon is one to many In the table notice t
22. n2 For this tutorial we ll accept the FAO suggestion so we can leave the default 4 classes Press F10 to confirm the form ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 115 February 1997 Note The number of physical suitability can be changed with Options 4 and 5 of Menu 1 2 8 Physical Suitability options See the next Chapter for a discussion of how to decide on the number of physical suitability classes Menu 1 2 Specification options for LUT tdp with nine options will now appear We will spend a lot of time in this menu The first option is the descriptive name of the LUT which we just entered The second option is the length of the planning horizon which we also just entered The third option includes the discount rate which we just entered These are included in the menu so that they may be edited at a later time Specifying Annual and by year inputs The fourth and fifth menu options allow the model builder to enter or edit the inputs to the Land Utilization Type irrespective of the land it is implemented on Land dependent costs will be addressed under menu option 7 Land Use Requirements First let s define the annual inputs to this LUT using menu option 4 Annual inputs are those which must be supplied to the LUT each year during the plan i e they are recurrent inputs Select Option 4 Inputs annual You will see a choice box titled Annual Inputs for LUT tdp w
23. or the final evaluation results physical or economic for any LUT without the need for any further work in IDRISI Then IDRISI can be used to display the derived maps or apply any GIS operations on them distances adjacency operators cross tabulation etc This is by analogy to the names of other IDRISI interface modules such as ERDIDRIS and TIFIDRIS 2 So there is no ALIDRIS command in IDRISI itself ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 230 February 1997 ALIDRIS can also reclassify IDRISI values files commonly used to give legends to vector maps See the section Installing the ALIDRIS examples in the Chapter Installing Configuring and Running ALES for instructions on how to unpack some samples see Tutorial 5 for some practice using ALIDRIS with one of these samples How to use ALIDRIS The following discussion assumes that the reader is familiar with both ALES and IDRISI both of which come with extensive documentation Terms such as raster documentation file environment file Land Characteristic etc are used as they are defined in the respective programs ALIDRIS appears as Option 7 in ALES Menu 1 Main Options build models The first time you select this menu item in an ALES session you will be asked to specify the location of the IDRISI environment file IDRISI ENV on your computer The environment file is used to locate the source and destination maps exactly as in IDRISI So before using A
24. 1 1 46 0 61 24 0 A3 ttpp 1 1 amp 2me 2 87 83 s2 2 616 56 s1 1 3 9 0 84 0 CeB ccc 1 1 3 71 07 s2 2 427 11 s1 1 1 3 2 0 42 83 2 0 CeB ttpp 1 1 3 93 7 s1 1 663 77 s1 1 4 33 2 0 91 51 2 0 Severity levels The severity levels output is one line per land unit land use land use requirement triple The database key is the first three fields land mapping unit code land utilization type code and land use requirement code These are followed by a field which gives the integer value of the severity level The record format is Lmuld d LutId d Lurld d severity level where 1 d is the field delimiter 2 Lmuld is the map unit code 3 LutlId is the land utilization type code 4 LurId is the land use requirement code 5 severity level is the severity level of the corresponding Land Quality which is an integer from to the maximum severity level defined for the land use requirement of the land utilization type ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 241 February 1997 Here is some sample output AaA wheat e 3 AaA wheat f 4 AaA wheat soy e 1 BbB wheat e 4 BbB wheat f 2 BbB wheat soy e 4 In this example map unit AaA has severity level 3 for land use requirement e for land utilization type wheat and so forth Yields The yields output is one line per land unit land use output triple The database key is the firs
25. 100 Problem My xBase format file was trashed by ALES Although we have tested the interface thoroughly it is certainly possible that we have overlooked some unusual circumstance in which ALES may trash corrupt your xBase format file Therefore ALES always makes a backup of the xBase format file with extension bak in place of dbf prior to modifying it So you can recover your file by deleting the dbf and renaming the bak to dbf Interfaces with GIS ALES provides three ways to interface with GIS 1 Import LMU definitions and export Land Characteristic values or evaluation results via the ALES xBase interface for GIS which store their attribute information in xBase format tables including PC Arc Info and ArcView 2 Export Land Characteristic values or evaluation results to the IDRISI GIS via the ALIDRIS interface 3 Import and export LMU definitions and LC values and export evaluation results via ASCII tables in relational database format Arc Info and ArcView PC Arc Info coverages store the attributes of polygons e g soil map unit delineations in a Polygon Attribute Table PAT which is an xBase format database file named PAT DBF in the coverage directory This table must contain the polygon identifier the area and the perimeter It can also contain other attributes added with TABLES but these can also be stored in independent tables that are later joined with the PAT to produce int
26. If you enter the supplier name correctly MUMPS will next prompt you for the end user name Enter this as it appears on the paper key certificate This is usually your organization name Enter your Organization Name exactly as it appears on the Paper Key form including punctuation and spaces and upper or lower case letters as shown If you enter all three items correctly ALES will start The first time ALES starts up slowly as it is expanding some of its data structures NOTE for those with older PCs early XT s and clones For MUMPS to run the correct date and time must be known to the operating system On later model computers since about 1986 or those with an add in board containing a real time clock this is done automatically at system startup On older PC s or on machines will malfunctioning clocks you must enter the date and time when prompted by the operating system at system startup If the operating system thinks that the current date is earlier than the creation date of the MUMPS program MUMPS can not run and you will see the message license expired when you try to start ALES Installing the ALIDRIS samples The ALIDRIS program itself comes as a module already compiled into ALES It requires no installation In addition there are some sample IDRISI files which work with the ALES tutorials that you may want to install These are found in the self extracting archive ALIDRIS EXE on the ALES distribution diskette
27. In this tradition overall land suitability of a specific land area for a specific land use is evaluated from a set of more or less independent land qualities which may each limit the land use potential These evaluations almost always classify map units of natural resource inventories such as the legend categories of a soil survey into suitability subclasses based on the number and severity of limitations to land use ALES was developed within this tradition The second tradition is more modern and depends intrinsically on mathematics and computation It is usually called quantified land evaluation Beek et al 1987 Bouma and Bregt 1989 Wagenet and Bouma 1993 and attempts to quantify some indicator of land suitability over an entire spatial field which is usually divided into small grid cells as opposed to map units Examples of indicators are predicted crop yield Dumanski and Onofrei 1989 or individual land qualities such as pesticide leaching Hack ten Broeke et al 1993 Empirical statistical models system simulation models geographical information systems and geostatistical techniques are widely used in these land evaluations Over the years ALES has acquired some relation to this tradition in particular the use of formulas and the interfaces to GIS ALES has been used as a preliminary step in quantified land evaluations to provide a first cut estimate of suitability so that attention may be focused on the more promis
28. The benefit cost ratio is dimensionless and reflects the leverage of investing a unit sum of money into the project The measure of economic suitability in gross margin analysis is the predicted gross margin for each Land Utilization Type land unit pair This is measured on a continuous scale as currency per unit area year i e the cash flows over the length of the project are annualized to a per year basis ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 185 February 1997 Normalized vs non normalized economic results The usual way to express the economic measures of land suitability Gross Margin and Net Present Value as well as the actual yield of products is on a per land area or normalized basis For example the gross margin can be expressed as currency area yrl and yield as tons area This is the correct way to compare the intrinsic value of land i e per unit land area Another way to evaluate land is on a per map unit basis This is the per land area result multiplied by the area of the map unit and gives the economic value of the map unit as a whole not normalized to a per land area basis For example the gross margin of a map unit is expressed as currency yr7 note that the factor area has been removed by multiplying by the area of the map unit Yield can be expressed as tons produced in the entire map unit i e the total production This is the correct way to compare actual parcels o
29. Typically the user will accept the default file name and extension but add a drive designation in front of it like a so that the backup copy will be written to a diskette This is preferable to backing up an evaluation on the same hard disk that contains the original ALES database a hard disk failure or reformatting won t erase both the ALES and DOS versions of the same evaluation The third tutorial presents the same information as in the previous paragraph in an extended form so that users can learn how to do their own backups You can set a default drive and path for saved evaluation models with Menu 2 System options Option 8 Set default path for saved evaluations You will need to restore the saved evaluation if the on line evaluation is accidentally deleted or if some part of it is badly damaged by editing actions This kind of backup also will save you if for some reason ALES won t run at all In this case you would re install ALES from your original distribution diskettes and then restore all saved evaluations from their individual backups To restore a saved evaluation model and data the user again works from the list of evaluations but it doesn t matter where the highlight is The name of the evaluation to be restored must not be present in the list if necessary the incorrect version should be renamed using Alt F6 or deleted using F4 in the list of evaluations Then the saved evaluation may be
30. amp Select Representative ee ALES Interface AA Series RSS Mapping ia i MU DataBase ALES Units f Map Units Series PR EA oe Mapping Unit amp Land Data for ALES Land Characteeristics Build ALES Export ALES i eens EES Knowledge reView DataBase or IDRISI Base Models Compute Evaluatio n Expert ALES Knowledge of ee Evaluation ALES V4 6 Land vs Land Use ArcView Results Automated Land or IDRISI Matrix Evaluation System ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 215 February 1997 ALES as part of an Integrated Land Evaluation System 2 Land 8 Characteristics a Se Evaluation Results Digitize amp Attribute ALES Land Map Units xBase Interface ArcEdit Tables GRID then ERDIDRIS IDRISI z Map Polygon Attribute Table ArcPlot ArcView 1 Vector Base Map ArcView 2 IDRISI Suitability LC amp LQ Maps S1 LUT 1 LUT 2 LUT 3 Land Characteristics amp Land Suitability Maps Land Qualities ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 216 February
31. awcl awc2 awc3 bs cec deficit depth drainage erodibil landform minres nitrogen ph rainfall relief salinity seasonal slopel slope2 soils stoni texturel texture2 w ct w 30 27 max 19 16 min gh infrequent slight deficit 100 200 landforms other than class 1 15 moderate moderate PAOA acid pH 5 6 2500 3000 very high 300 1000 none 0 4 100 gt 200mm moderate range 20 30 30 90 soils other than class 1 6 not stony rocky 0 1 medium medium VRV GG Ur Euru N e e E G N e e In the actual model there are 953 mapping units derived from resource mapping units and subdivided into soil types ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 22 February 1997 The evaluators constructed decision trees to infer each Land Quality from its set of diagnostic Land Characteristics In the following example nutrient availability for high input upland rice is inferred from soil reaction cation exchange capacity topsoil texture and anion fixation Land Utilization Type rice upland hi Land Use Requirement t nutrient availability retention capacity Severity Level decision tree gt ph soil reaction 2 3 0 25 cm 1 3 25 100 cm 1 weakly acid to neutral pH 6 7 gt cee cation exch capacity 0 25 cm 3 low 0 10 me 100 g soil gt texturel topsoil texture 0 25 cm coarse 3 low 2 moderate fine but friable amp blocky 2 medium
32. database maintenance utility menu Option 8 Verify Dataset Integrity of the sub menu If dsverify reports an error any message other than Dataset is OK you will have to fix that dataset Your first approach to fixing a dataset should be to compress the dataset in question as explained in the previous section using database maintenance utility menu Option 6 in repair mode answer Yes to the question Repair mode in the setup form which appears when you select Option 6 Then run dsverify again on the fresh copy to see if the error has gone away Do not try to use dsrepair database maintenance utility sub menu Option 11 this is only for those familiar with the internal structure of MUMPS databases and its incorrect use can irretrievably damage a dataset If the dataset is still corrupt you will have to reinstall ALES You can then re load the evaluation models and data from user by user backup F7 F8 if any Or if you have a valid system wide backup of the EVAL GBL dataset you can restore it as explained above over writing the EVAL GBL installed with the distribution Managing large ALES models and datasets One of the advantages of the DataTree MUMPS run time system DTM PC on which ALES is built is that it is quite efficient at handling large databases Of course with a large database performance is slower but with DTM PC the slowdown is more or less linear no
33. in units of measurement per unit area in this case days per are for each severity level of the potential for construction Land Use Requirement Recall that severity level 3 is to be associated with additional costs for earth moving so this is the only one of the four levels with an additional by year cost for labor Move to question 3 in the form Enter 5 With this entry we are saying that land that has land quality rating 3 for potential for construction will require 5 additional days of labor per are for earthmoving in order to construct the diversion ponds Press F10 to confirm the form and return to the list of additional by year inputs for year 1 which now has two items labor and tile That s all the additional by year inputs associated with this Land Use Requirement for any year in the plan in this case only year 1 so Press F10 to confirm the list of additional by year inputs for year and return to the list of years with additional by year inputs There are no other years with additional by year inputs so Press F10 to confirm the list of years with additional by year inputs and return to Menu 1 2 7 Entering a Severity level decision trees Now we are really going to have some fun It s time to build a decision tree that will allow ALES to infer the severity level of the land quality corresponding to LUR potential for construction from some set of la
34. map unit This map unit has a yield of 81 bushels in column ccc the original decision procedure but only 60 75 bushels in column ccc m the modified decision procedure Let s find out why Display the first Why screen for LMU ErA and the original LUT ccc Notice in the proportional yield decision tree at the bottom of the screen predicts 60 of optimum yield based on LQ pl planting conditions 3 late and LQ m moisture availability 2 moderate stress Display the first Why screen for LMU ErA and the modified LUT ccc m Notice in the proportional yield decision tree at the bottom of the screen predicts 45 of optimum yield based on LQ pl planting conditions 3 late and LQ m moisture availability 3 severe stress So we see that the increasing severity level affected crop yield If you wish you can examine the reports for the Gross Margin and economic suitability class based on the Gross Margin to see how the difference in LQ value propagated to the overall economic suitability For example map unit ErA dropped from marginal economic suitability s3 to economically unsuitable n1 due to the lower yield of corn due to the lower predicted moisture availability When you are done with the evaluation matrices Return to Menu 1 Main options More on land characteristics So far in these tutorials we have considered
35. t run You remove the key as follows 1 Start MUMPS with the command MUMPS KEY DTM responds by requesting a new paper key 2 Enter the word DELETE DTM responds with the message license deleted You can now use the key in the new location If you try to use ALES again on the computed where you deleted the key you will be asked to re enter the key as explained in the previous section If you move ALES to another disk or directory on the same system you can leave ALES installed on the original disk or directory and also leave the key so that you can run ALES from either location This does not violate your license agreement because you can t run both copies at the same time under a single task operating system Note If you move ALES to a different disk or directory on the same or another system you will have to edit MUMPS DBD as explained in the installation instructions above so that the DATASET statements point to the data files in their new location Batch files We have provided four one line batch files located in the directory where you installed the MUMPS program and ALES that will start ALES in the various modes mentioned in the next section as well as perform system maintenance functions The commands are V ALES all ALES functions are available including model building This is intended for the model builder V EVALUATE all ALES functions except model building and the ability to delete models and restor
36. text only mode Find the lines that begin with the word DATASET Change the disk and path name prefix in these lines which as distributed is C V i e the root directory of disk C to the drive and directory where you actually installed ALES Make sure to edit the first comment line beginning with the semicolon to indicate your changes Don t alter any other lines For example if you elect to install ALES in directory MODELS LECS DTM on hard disk D the database description file would look like this ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 35 February 1997 ALES V4 DTM V4 3 Database definition for PC AT 386 3 edited by xyz 30 Jan 1997 datasets program object code DATASET D MODELS LECS DTM ALES5 AL program support files except text DATASET D MODELS LECS DIM ALES5 AL text databases 1 per language ASET D MODELS LECS DTM ALES5 LTX5E GB ASET D MODELS LECS DTM ALES5 LTX5F GB ASET D MODELS LECS DTM ALES5 LTX5S GB ASET D MODELS LECS DTM ALES5 LTX5I GB user evaluations ET D MODELS LECS D EVAL EVAL GBL the rest of the file is not changed Step 3 Adjust ALES to run under a multi tasking OS If you are going to run ALES under Windows 3 1x Windows 95 or OS 2 see the section Running ALES under Multi tasking Operating Systems below
37. the length of the planning horizon is used to annualize expected yields so that different LUT s can be compared on a common scale For annual cropping systems with only recurrent costs the planning horizon is one year For a rotational cropping system with only recurrent costs the planning horizon is the length of the rotation This is also appropriate for a crop fallow system For perennial crops the planning horizon should be set to the expected life of the perennial For example a banana plantation may have an expected life of 10 years after which it will have to be renovated or abandoned For any LUT with significant capital improvements either at the beginning of the plan or at some specific time within it the planning horizon should be set long enough to include the years with improvements and also the years over which the benefits of the improvement will be reaped i e the so called useful lifetime of the improvement As a practical matter depending on the discount rate 10 high discount rate to 30 low discount rate years is usually the maximum planning horizon because cash flows that occur after a time so far in the future have very little effect on the net present value of the plan Once the present value of a cash flow drops below about 10 of the cash amount it can usually be disregarded since the present value of earlier cash flows overwhelm it in the calculation of NPV You can do some calculations with the discounting
38. this will be explained in the fourth tutorial Select Menu 1 1 4b Option 2 class abbreviations Fill in the data entry form 1 rain 2 river 3 spring Confirm the form lWe can t say that rain is greater than a spring for example ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 112 February 1997 V The order of the classes of a nominal LC is arbitrary There really isn t anything to add in the way of descriptive names since the codes are sufficiently descriptive So Press F10 to return to the choice box notice that ws is now in the list Defining the rest of the land characteristics In the previous two sections you have learned how to define discrete land characteristics both with and without units Without further instruction Add the following eight land characteristics to the list of LCs of classes units LC lower limit LC code descriptive name class class abbreviation class name class limit rs length of rainy season 3 months 0 1 short 6 2 medium 10 3 long 12 cfc coarse fragment content _ 5 volume 0 1 1 few 3 2 2 some 14 3 3 many 35 4 4 excessive 55 5 5 extreme 100 cfs coarse fragment size 4 cm diameter 0 1 fg fine gravel 2 5 2 cg coarse gravel 7 5 3 T rocks 25 4 b boulders 1000 sd soil depth 3 cm 0 1 s shallow 75 2 m moderatel
39. to confirm enough times Then press FLO or Esc and you will leave ALES and return to DOS Pressing the Esc key enough times will always get you out of ALES ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 41 February 1997 If you get really stuck or want a fast way out of the program press Ctrl C hold the Ctrl key down while you press the c key at any point in the program You will be asked if you really want to go back to the opening screen If you answer no you will be left in the same place in the program as when you pressed Ctrl C If you answer yes you will return to the opening screen from which you can exit the program Never ever turn off the computer or reboot DOS while ALES is running This may corrupt the MUMPS database and may force you to reinstall ALES from the original distribution diskettes Running ALES under Multi tasking Operating Systems ALES was designed for a single user single tasking Operating System i e non networked MS DOS Several multi tasking Operating Systems are able to run MS DOS programs and ALES is able to run without problems in these OS s However there is an important caution for all these systems WARNING Never try to run more than one copy of the ALES program at the same time under a multi tasking Operating System It probably won t work and if it does you run a serious risk of corrupting your evaluation models and databases Runni
40. used to exchange MUMPS data files All output codes are saved in one file ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 245 February 1997 Maintaining an ALES system This Chapter explains how to maintain your ALES database and make modifications to your ALES environment It is intended for the person functioning as System Manager for your PC This is the person who works with the operating system performs backups adds new hardware and so forth It may in fact be the same person as the land evaluator Before using this Chapter you should already be familiar with the Chapter Installing Configuring and Running ALES The topics of this Chapter are 1 program errors 2 backing up your ALES system and restoring it in case of problems 3 working with Datasets 4 managing large ALES models and 5 the MUMPS programming environment It is impossible to anticipate every problem that you may encounter If you have previous experience with computer systems you know the variety of things that can and do go wrong Perhaps the best advice we can give is to never compound a problem by making hasty decisions Once you are aware of a problem make sure you understand its cause before attempting any corrective action Then map out a strategy to correct the problem If you are going to be overwriting any files it is wise to first make backup copies of them even if you don t think you ll need them You always want to be able to recover to at le
41. 0 67 0 33 or 0 times full production it is most appropriate to use multiplicative yield factors Select Menu 1 2 6 Specification options for LUT Output tdp ti Option 3 Multiplicative yield factors You will see a list of the three LURs defined for this LUT As explained above only water availability affects yield Select Land Use Requirement wa water availability Now you will see a data entry form asking for the multiplicative yield factors for each severity level Yield factors are decimal fractions on the interval 0 1 with 0 representing complete lack of production e g crop failure and 1 representing the optimum Fill in the data entry form 1 1 2 0 67 3 07 333 4 0 Confirm the form Notice the that appears beside the LUR wa this shows that there are already yield factors for the LUR 1 e the ones we just entered As explained above the other two LURs won t affect yield in this model except to make it impossible Press F10 to return to menu 1 2 6 Specification options for LUT Output tdp ti Specifying Production dependent inputs ALES allows the model builder to specify that certain costs are only incurred when a crop is harvested and are incurred in proportion to the amount harvest i e the yield These are called production dependent inputs Select Menu 1 2 6 Option 5 Production dependent inputs You will see a choi
42. 1 severity level names Form name for each level 2 additional Annual inputs List annual inputs Form number of units of the input for each severity level of the LQ 3 additional by year inputs List which year List by year inputs Form number of units of the input for each severity level of the LQ 4 Severity level decision tree Decision Tree Editor 5 Multiplicative Yield Factors Select multiplicative yield factors for which output Form multiplicative yield factors for each severity level of the LQ ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 263 February 1997 6 Limiting Yield Factors Select limiting yield factors for which output Form limiting yield factors for each severity level of the LQ 7 Maximum limitation Enter include this LUR in the list of maximally limiting factors 8 Add a severity level Select Add before which severity level of the LUR or after highest level 9 Delete a severity level Select Delete which severity level of the LUR 8 Physical Suitability Subclasses Menu 1 2 8 Physical Suitability options for LUT 1 Enter edit physical suitability subclass decision tree Decision Tree Editor 2 Choose factors for maximum limitation Set Consider which LURs in the maximum limitation 3 Enter edit names or notes for physical suitability subclasses Choose physical suitability subclass code Form descriptive name for PSSC 4 Add a physical suitability class Select Add before which physical suitability class or after highe
43. 12 Assist with project implementation ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 13 February 1997 Stakeholder client evaluator experts These are the five types of actors in the land evaluation process Stakeholder all parties who will be affected by the results of the planning decisions taken on the basis of the land evaluation Client the person s or organization s that request the work and will act on the basis of its results Evaluator the person who carries out the land evaluation An evaluator must understand concepts and methodology and be able to use the computerized tools as necessary The evaluator acts as an intermediary between users and experts This person presumably you the reader actually uses ALES Land use expert a person who has information about a land use or land quality in relation to the land for example soil scientists agronomists economists and extension agents Land resource expert a person who has information on the land resource for example soil surveyors climatologists and census takers The structure of an ALES evaluation In ALES each evaluation consists of a set of Land Utilization Types LUT i e proposed land uses and a set of Land Mapping Units LMU 1 e land areas being considered Each map unit is evaluated for its suitability for each land utilization type resulting in a suitability matrix The overall ALES program flow is shown in a diagram in the previous
44. ALES displays its own texts with Menu 1 2 System Options Option 6 Any texts that have not yet been translated will be displayed in the original English If you don t need one or both of the non English languages you can save some hard disk space by deleting them from your system To do this 1 Delete the files LTX5F GB French and or LTX5S GB Spanish and or LTX51I GB Indonesian from the sub directory DTM ALESS 2 Edit the database description file MUMPS DBD with a plain text editor deleting all lines which make reference to the file which you just deleted These lines begin with the words DATASET and MAP For example to delete the French texts you would remove the following lines The color scheme names are place names from central New York state and northern Pennsylvania USA Give yourself one Upstate New York Native point for each place you ve visited two points for each where you ve visited the local roadhouse or Hotel and three points for each where you ve played sports or done business ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 48 February 1997 DATASET C DIM ALES5 LTX5F GB MAP Ltxt f TO LTX5F GB The next time you start ALES the language that you deleted will not be available for the program texts However any models written in French Spanish or Indonesian will of course still be in their original language Adding output devices including serial printer
45. Chapter There are two kinds of suitability in the FAO system physical and economic ALES can evaluate for both as explained in the following sections Physical evaluation A physical suitability evaluation indicates the degree of suitability for a land use without respect to economic conditions It emphasizes the relatively permanent aspects of suitability such as climate and soil conditions rather than changeable ones such as prices It tends to concentrate on risks or hazards e g to the environment or absolute limitations e g due to climate of undertaking a given land utilization type on a given land area The idea is that if a use is too risky or physically impossible no economic analysis can justify it In ALES if a land unit is rated physically unsuitable in the highest numbered physical suitability class it will not be evaluated economically it is automatically in FAO suitability class N2 permanently unsuitable under the assumptions of the LUT For land that is not completely unsuitable a physical evaluation can be used to divide the land into degrees of suitability based purely on physical conditions The advantage is that physical suitability doesn t change quickly The disadvantages are 1 land use decisions are very often based on economic considerations 2 it is unclear in the absence of an economic scale how to determine degrees of suitability 3 it is unclear in the absence of an economic scale how
46. Import Comma delimited command In Microsoft Excel for Windows Version 5 use the File Open command Specify file Type text files prn txt csv The Import Wizard automatically detects the data format The file origin is DOS or OS 2 pc 8 character set File formats Evaluation models amp data The default file extension is ALS These files are created with F7 at the list of evaluation models Main Menu Option 1 These are not intended to be read by any other programs The format is a modification of the MUMPS gsave format used to exchange MUMPS data files The file contains the entire knowledge base and database for the selected evaluation model File formats Land Utilization Types The default file extension is ALU These files are created with F7 at the list of LUTs Menu 1 2 These are not intended to be read by any other programs The format is a modification of the MUMPS gsave format used to exchange MUMPS data files The file contains the Land Utilization Type definition for the selected evaluation LUT More than one LUT may be written to the same file using the Append option ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 244 February 1997 File formats Land Characteristic definitions The default file extension is ALC These files are created with F7 at the list of LC definitions Menu 1 1 Option 4 These are not intended to be read by any other pro
47. LC values from ALES to xBase Select ALES xBase Import Export template code Only type 3 templates will be presented for selection 5 Export evaluation results from ALES to xBase Select ALES xBase Import Export template code Only type 4 templates will be presented for selection 2 System Options Menu 2 System Options 1 Change colors for main screen Select color scheme 2 Change colors for banner function keys Select color scheme 3 Change colors for help screens Select color scheme 4 Change colors for consultation mode Select color scheme 5 Change colors for annotations Select color scheme 6 Change display language Select language 7 Change numeric format Select American or European 8 Change default path for saved evaluations Enter path 9 Change default path for database import amp export Enter path A Change default path for log files Enter path B Change default path for reports to a disk file Enter path C Change model group Enter model group code ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 268 February 1997 3 About ALES Menu 3 About ALES 1 Author amp Copyright 2 How to contact the ALES project 3 License 4 Quick help ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 269 February 1997 Appendix 2 ALES knowledge base schema 1 Evaluations descriptive name monetary unit areal unit 2 Land Use Requirements descriptive name default number of severity levels severity level names 2 Input
48. LQi for Irrigated agriculture Soils Bulletin 55 LQr for Rainfed agriculture Soils Bulletin 52 LQf for Forestry Forestry Paper 48 Land characteristics There are three approaches to defining a set of Land Characteristics to serve as the basis for an evaluation top down bottom up and middle out In the top down approach those Land Characteristics are selected which most easily determine the severity levels of the Land Qualities which have been previously listed as Land Use Requirements for the LUT In this approach decision trees to determine Land Qualities from Land Characteristics are usually simple because of the close correspondence between the qualities and characteristics There is little or no concern with existing sources of data it is assumed that values of the Land Characteristics can be obtained as needed typically by commissioning a new survey This approach is appropriate and indeed preferable if there are no good data sources and if a new resource inventory can be carried out Usually however there is already a source of resource data available In the bottom up approach the existing data are used to define the set of Land Characteristics Then the decision trees to determine severity levels of the Land Qualities from Land Characteristics must use this set This will usually result in a less than ideal fit but it has the advantage of using existing data Different data sets may be used in the same evaluation mod
49. MUMPS configuration file mumps dbd Here is an example configuration file with two model groups the local evaluation group in namespace EVAL i e the usual configuration and a group of models created by an FAO project in namespace FAO Notice how the FAO models have their own dataset but that the ALES program ales5 rt and support files ales5 gb Itx5 gb apply to the FAO models as well as to the local evaluation models In this example the eval gbl supplied by the FAO project were re named to fao gbl so as not to conflict with the local eval gbl ALES V4 5 DTM V4 3 MUMPS DBD Database description file with two model groups Last update xyz 10 Dec 95 i datasets program object code DATASET C DIM ALES5 ALES5 RT program support files except text DATASET C DIM ALES5 ALES5 GB text databases 1 per language DATASET C DIM ALES5 LTX5E GB DATASET C DIM ALES5 LTX5S GB ALES user evaluations DATASET C DITM EVAL EVAL GBL FAO evaluations DATASET D FAO FAO GBL namespaces program NSPACE ALES ALES5 RT AL AF SLtxt Ltxt s evaluation models EVAL ALES5 RT EVAL GBL Lform TO Lmenu TO ADEXG TO Ltxt Ss TO Lconfig version TO Lconfig mode TO Lstate rO Lvideo rO PI SE AF AF AF AF AF
50. N but may be of type C in which case ALES will attempt to interpret the character string as a number If the number is less than one ALES assumes it is a proportion on 0 1 and automatically multiples the value by 100 to obtain the percentage If the number is greater than one ALES assumes it is a percentage on 1 100 Some other facts about map unit input If the LMU is already defined and its type homogeneous or compound is the same as the transfer option you selected the interface will update its descriptive name and area If the types do not match the LMU will be ignored If a compound LMU is not already defined any constituents for it will be ignored If the sum of the percentages of the constituents of a compound LMU do not sum to 100 0 01 all the constituents will be ignored If any of the constituents of a compound LMU are not already defined as homogeneous map units in ALES all the constituents will be ignored If the constituents are ignored any existing list of constituents in ALES will not be changed Important and exporting Land Characteristics This is a shortcut to what can also be done using Menu 1 3 Data Option 5 Data from a disk file read and Option 6 Data to a disk file write It avoids the use of an intermediate comma and quotes delimited ASCII file Here you must set up a one to one correspondence between a set of fields in the xBase table and a set of ALES LCs Y
51. Option 3 Inputs to enter information on inputs These are the things that are needed to implement one or more of the Land Utilization Types In the present model we will have inputs associated with construction and with annual maintenance of the ponds as well as items that are directly related to the crop such as baby fish nutrients and other chemicals and water Press F3 to define a new code and when asked for the code Enter labor Press F10 to confirm your entry You will see a three item entry form for the new input You are being asked to specify 1 a descriptive name 2 the units in which the input is measured and 3 a purchase price per unit Fill in the data entry form 1 manual labor 2 day 35 2 Confirm the form ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 107 February 1997 In other words in this model manual labor is valued at 2 day Notice that the list now has one item labor Using the same technique as the previous paragraphs Add the following four codes to the list of inputs fine limestone baby fish farm manure for fertilizer plastic drainage tile You should now have a list of five inputs Press F10 to return to Menu 1 1 Reference Lists Defining land characteristics Land characteristics LC are the measured or estimated properties of the land which form the data items in the ALES data base In models they are used
52. Page 257 February 1997 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 1976 A framework for land evaluation Soils Bulletin 32 FAO Rome Italy Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 1983 Guidelines land evaluation for rainfed agriculture Soils Bulletin 52 FAO Rome Italy Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 1984 Land evaluation for forestry Forestry Paper 48 FAO Rome Italy Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 1985 Guidelines land evaluation for irrigated agriculture Soils Bulletin 55 FAO Rome Italy Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 1991 Guidelines land evaluation for extensive grazing Soils Bulletin 58 FAO Rome Italy Forbes T R D Rossiter and A Van Wambeke 1982 Guidelines for evaluating the adequacy of soil resource inventories 1987 printing ed SMSS Technical Monograph 4 Cornell University Department of Agronomy Ithaca NY Hack ten Broeke M J D H A J van Lanen amp Bouma J 1993 The leaching potential as a land quality of two Dutch soils under current and potential management conditions Geoderma 60 73 88 Hudson N 1981 Soil conservation 2nd ed Cornell University Press Ithaca NY Hudson N 1995 Soil conservation 3rd ed Iowa State University Press Ames IA Hutton Frank Z Jr 1971 Soil survey of Cayuga County New York US Government Printing Office Washington DC Johnson
53. Version 1 0 User s Manual Department of Agronomy Cornell University Ithaca NY Rossiter D G and A R Van Wambeke 1991 Automated Land Evaluation System ALES Version 3 User s Manual SCAS Teaching Series 2 Ithaca NY Cornell University Department of Soil Crop amp Atmospheric Sciences Sanchez P A W Couto amp S W Buol 1982 The fertility capability soil classification system interpretation applicability and modification Geoderma 27 4 283 309 Siderius W ed 1984 Proceedings of the workshop on land evaluation for extensive grazing LEEG International Inst for Land Reclamation and Improvement Publ 36 Wageningen The Netherlands Siderius W ed 1986 Land evaluation for land use planning and conservation in sloping areas International Inst for Land Reclamation and Improvement Publ 40 Wageningen The Netherlands Snyder D P amp W F Lazarus 1987 Field crop enterprise budgets 1987 projections and grower worksheets New York State Mimeo A E Res 87 8 Department of Agricultural Economics Cornell University Ithaca NY Snyder D P 1988 Field crop enterprise budget update 1988 cost and return projections and grower worksheets New York State Mimeo A E Res 88 6 Department of Agricultural Economics Cornell University Ithaca NY Sys C 1985 Land evaluation Parts I II I and Appendices Publications Agricoles 7 Administration G n rale de la Coop ration au D veloppement Bru
54. a data entry template which must be completed prior to input or output of land unit data using Option 7 Templates of Menu 1 3 Data The template has an identifying name and an ordered list of Land Characteristics each of which corresponds to one field in the record Before a Land Characteristic can be listed as a field in a template it must in turn have been defined using Option 4 Land characteristic descriptions of Menu 1 1 Reference Lists The data fields in the input or output record are the class abbreviations for discrete Land Characteristics or the actual numeric value for continuous Land Characteristics Here is an example Suppose we have defined a template named data with three fields corresponding to the three Land Characteristics slope texture and reaction Note that the order of these fields in the template definition is important ALES expects to find the data fields in the DOS file in this same order These Land Characteristics as well as the template must have been previously defined by the evaluator Suppose that these characteristics were defined as follows slope discrete 5 classes abbreviations A B C D and E texture discrete 12 classes standard abbreviations e g sicl reaction continuous units of measure is pH scale ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 238 February 1997 Here is a sample file showin
55. a great help to the model user Select Menu 1 2 7 Option 1 severity level names Fill in the data entry form 1 no limitation 2 needs drainage 3 extra earthmoving 4 impossible ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 118 February 1997 Confirm the form Specifying Additional inputs Severity levels 2 and 3 of land quality pfc are associated with additional costs i e the LUT costs more to implement on land with severity levels 2 and 3 of LUR pfc Both costs are incurred in the first year when the ponds are built there are no annual recurring costs associated with the LUR pfc because the ponds are not built every year but only in the first year Select Menu 1 2 7 Option 3 additional By year inputs 39 66 A choice box appears titled Years with by year inputs for LUT LUR tdp pfc This is a list of the years in which any by year inputs associated with LUR pfc have been defined There aren t any yet so the list consists of only the dummy item Press F3 to add a year to this list a selection list of the years which can be added i e 1 2 3 4 and 5 appears The highlight is already on year 1 which is when the extra work will be needed Select year 1 Now you will see a choice box titled Additional by year Inputs for LUT LUR tdp pfc Year 1 with only the dummy item in the list This is the list of by year additional inputs associat
56. alidris exe self extracting compressed file containing these files testim4 img test image file for ALIDRIS Options 1 2 IDRISI V4 testim4 doc documentation file for testim4 testa4 val test attribute value file for ALIDRIS Options 3 4 IDRISI V4 testa4 dvl documentation file for testa4 testim3 img test image file for ALIDRIS Options 1 2 IDRISI V3 testim3 doc documentation file for testim3 testa3 val test attribute value file for ALIDRIS Options 3 4 IDRISI V3 tutor5 img image for ALES tutorial 5 tutor5 doc documentation file for tutor5 To unpack these files 1 copy ALIDRIS EXE to a data directory maybe the directory where you installed ALES e g C DTM and then 2 extract the sample files by running the command ALIDRIS this will create all the files listed above Then you can delete ALIDRIS EXE The image TUTORS is used in the fifth Tutorial The other test files work with ALES model Tutor the second Tutorial l For more information on ALIDRIS and IDRISI see section ALIDRIS in the Chapter ALES and other computer systems ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 37 February 1997 If you want to experiment with ALIDRIS using the test files uncompress them as explained above and make sure that the IDRISI environment points to that directory use the IDRISI ENVIRON command if necessary If necessary load evaluation model Tutor Tutorial 2 into AL
57. and type over modes Type ALES Tutorial 3 Fish farming in Central America or some other explanatory text of your choosing When you are done entering your note Press F10 to confirm your entry 2 Now you should be looking at the list of evaluations again and the highlight should still be on the new evaluation code Notice that there is now a degree sign next to the code indicating that there is now a note for your This is a bona fide metric unit of measure In fact the name hectare is derived from the prefix hect 100 and the root are which is defined as 10m x 10m 2This note editor sometimes gets confused during text editing if the text becomes garbled leave the editor with F10 and enter it again ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 102 February 1997 evaluation Also notice that F9 in the function key strip is marked with the same degree sign showing that the F9 key can be used to read notes To read the note you just entered Press F9 Notice that the note window is only as large as is necessary to show the note When you are done looking at your note Press F10 to return to the list of evaluation models The highlight should be on your newly created model Backing up a model to a DOS file As you work in ALES defining models and entering data ALES automatically saves all your work Every time you confirm an action ALES changes the
58. and which parameters or data can be edited at that point Remember that help is always available and the annunciator line shows which keys are active When you are done experimenting Press F10 three times to display the list of evaluation models Make a backup of your model to a DOS file as described near the beginning of this tutorial Press F10 twice to exit from ALES Congratulations You ve finished a complete exercise as an ALES model builder Although the model you built is fairly simple it illustrated much of the expressive powers of ALES In the following tutorial you ll experiment with some advanced model building techniques You should always check to see if all the changes are as expected sometimes fixing one rating causes others to change unexpectedly ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 142 February 1997 Tutorial 4 Refining a model The objective of this tutorial is to teach you advanced techniques for building ALES land evaluation models In this tutorial you will learn to Ni Ae EE ee copy evaluation models set up related land utilization types use advanced features of the decision tree editor define continuous land characteristics infer land characteristic values from other data enter multi valued land data enter multiplicative and limiting yield factors use a proportional yield decision tree to determine yield use a physical suitability decision tree to define physical su
59. are land uses Now you can apply the usual spreadsheet manipulations to the data e g calculate averages sums differences or compute new variables In Quattro Pro for DOS or Windows use the Tools Import Comma delimited command In Microsoft Excel for Windows Version 5 use the File Open command Specify file Type text files prn txt csv The Import Wizard automatically detects the data format The file origin is DOS or OS 2 pc 8 character set ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 239 February 1997 File formats Evaluation results The information in the ALES evaluation matrix can be output in a form that can be read into relational database managers You request that evaluation results be written to a DOS file with Option 4 File evaluation results of Menu 1 4 Evaluations The map units and LUTs included in the resulting disk files are exactly those that are in the current evaluation matrix So to write just a subset of the entire evaluation you first have to re compute the evaluation selecting just the subset you want to report Once you select this option you then select the kind of file to write by choosing in menu 1 4 4 Output to a disk file There are five possibilities 1 the suitabilities of map units for each LUT 2 the Land Quality severity levels of map units for each LUR within each LUT 3 the predicted yields on map units for each output in
60. as long as ALES is running in a window not full screen and the OS 2 system is set up to allow the clipboard to be shared This is especially useful for exchanging text between a word processor and the ALES note editor As with any DOS program under OS 2 use the Mark or Paste commands on the DOS window control menu Running ALES under Microsoft Windows 3 1x ALES can run under the Microsoft Windows system Version 3 1 or Version 3 11 Windows for Workgroups in either standard or enhanced mode ALES does not take advantage of any Windows features The following explanation is intended for the experienced Windows user Warning Do not attempt to run ALES under MS Windows 3 0 or earlier Upgrade to MS Windows Version 3 1 or later You can start ALES directly from the MS DOS prompt window or even by using the File Run command on ales bat etc from the Program Manager or File Manager However if you commonly run ALES under windows it is worthwhile creating a PIF configuration file and adding an icon to the Program Manager The PIF configuration file for ALES should have the parameters y Video mode text V 384 Kb conventional memory required V 640 Kb conventional memory desired V 0Kb XMS memory ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 43 February 1997 y Directly modifies COM1 and COM2 the first two serial ports y Close on exit y Background You can choose t
61. be used with very little loss of precision in the final decision A smaller tree is a better tree for two reasons 1 it is easier to build and modify and 2 it is easier for the model user to understand The smallest tree that can correctly assign severity levels for almost all cases is the best tree to build A similar situation occurs when building proportional yield decision trees Some Land Qualities have only a small influence on yield either always or given some combination of severity levels of other Land Qualities These can safely be omitted from the yield trees since their inclusion will not significantly affect the predicted yield Given that the precision of the input data is not great e g most class ranges are at least 10 of the total range for a Land Characteristic it is not realistic to predict yield more precisely Hence if you are about to add a Land Quality to a decision tree and the different severity levels of that LQ would only affect yield by 10 it is probably a correct decision to leave the Land Quality out of the tree ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 208 February 1997 Introduce intermediate Land Characteristics The ability to create LC to LC decision trees allows the model builder to break a large severity level decision tree into several smaller components a severity level decision tree whose decision entities are abstract or high level LCs and a set of LC to LC decision trees to infer values of th
62. can affect erosion hazard we see that the tree could become excessively complicated However when the evaluation is restricted to a certain area much of the variability is implicit in the context and need not appear in the tree For example in clayey soils the type of clay kaolinitic montmorillonitic illitic etc can have a great effect on erodibility but in the area of New York State for which this model was constructed clays are predominantly illitic hence the type of clay need not be included in the tree as it is a constant not a variable Press F1 lThis is just a semantic difference a land use has Requirements whereas a land area has Qualities which match the Requirements 2The fact that there are four severity levels of erosion hazard is part of the model not of ALES 3 Again this is part of the model not of ALES ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 57 February 1997 to display a help text explaining how to select one of the branches of the tree As you can see the arrow keys can be used to move to the correct branch When you re done looking at the help Press Enter to return to the decision tree display Suppose that the land we are evaluating for corn production is sloping 5 12 slopes i e in slope class C according to the land characteristic So Press the up arrow 1 three times to move the highlight to branch 3 C slopes Press Enter to confirm this
63. class 1 is no limitation class 2 slight limitation etc However there are LURs with no concept of limitation only of management or economic differences in which case the order is arbitrary In the original FAO method the levels of the various LUR s must be commensurate e g level 3 marginal of one LUR must be in some sense equivalent to level 3 of all other LUR s This is required in ALES for those LUR s which are to be used in the maximum limitation method of computing the physical suitability subclass There is no requirement that the number of severity levels be the same for example some LUR s may never be absolutely limiting so that they would not have the highest numbered worst level not suitable Historically this goes back to the USDA Land Capability Classification where class 1 land is the best and class 8 land is the worst ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 196 February 1997 An example of this thinking of a LUT which includes sorghum might be the LUR plant nutrition In a certain study area it might be the case that there is never a complete crop failure due to soil fertility problems in which case this LUR would not need the highest numbered class In contrast for the LUR oxygen supply to the roots there might be some land areas where there is a persistent high water table or ponding which would kill the sorghum plant In this case there would be a highest numbered class
64. classified as physically unsuitable due to flood hazard i e is in physical suitability subclass 4f If there is no flood risk branch 1 there are more factors to consider The highlight should be on branch 1 early So Press gt to expand the tree at branch 1 ALES displays the second level of the tree me conditions for mechanization For all values of this LQ another factor must be accounted for Move the cursor to branch 3 can t mechanize Press gt to expand the tree at branch 3 ALES displays the third level of the tree e erosion hazard and the decisions i e physical suitability subclasses At branch 1 the subclass is 4e i e unsuitable due to erosion hazard At branch 4 the subclass is 4e me i e unsuitable due to erosion hazard and limitations to mechanization ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 171 February 1997 Notice that branches 2 and 3 are equated to branch 1 This is because the model builder did not want to differentiate these once the class is 4e there is no reason to state that there is a mechanization problem until it becomes of equal importance Let s see how the flexibility of the decision tree allows us to account for interactions between LQs Presse to collapse the tree to the second level Notice that severity level 2 limiting is equated to severity level 1 As the tree now stands land with limitations to mechanization
65. command for system maintenance UTIL starts the MUMPS system maintenance modules see the Chapter Maintaining an ALES system ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 39 February 1997 Interacting with ALES The operation of ALES should be fairly self evident There are no commands to memorize and type the entire interaction is controlled by function keys the ten keys marked F1 through F10 the special keys Esc and Enter and the cursor movement keys the arrows and associated keys such as Home located on a separate keypad The only time you need to use regular typing keys is when you must enter information such as a data value although you can also use regular keys to move to an item in a list by typing its unique prefix The screen usually displays multiple overlapping windows As you make choices and perform actions new windows appear and remain as long as they are relevant Parts of all previous windows in which you made a selection are still visible underneath the active window although they are dimmed to show that they are inactive Only the frontmost window is active That is your actions only affect the window in front of all the others The windows in ALES are not like those in OS 2 Macintosh OS Motif Microsoft Windows or other event driven environments because you can not move to any visible window Instead you have to complete the actions in the order in which the windows are presented to
66. compute the evaluation for all land uses and all land areas and asks for printed reports of the results The model user is typically either a high level clerk or a junior level natural resource scientist Model users enter ALES with the DOS batch command file EVALUATE Entering the program in this mode they are not able to change the model only the database and economic parameters such as prices and interest rates Model users will probably print reports of evaluation results and the land unit database Evaluation consumer The results of the evaluation are presented to the consumers These include land use planners farmers farm advisors in fact anyone who has can make decisions which affect land use and who has the means to carry out those decisions For an evaluation exercise to be successful it is critical that the potential consumers of the evaluation be involved from the beginning They are the ones to set the priorities and objectives of the evaluation Evaluation consumers are not expected to use ALES directly but the model builder should be prepared to demonstrate the program including the Why screens to the consumers so that they can see how the models were constructed An interesting use of ALES is consultation mode This is like a visit to the doctor the program asks for values of each relevant land characteristic in turn until it has enough information to determine the suitability of the land unit for a Land
67. confirm the LUT set box ALES now asks for the map units for which the evaluation should be computed We only need to compute a few map units to see the effects of our changed model Use F3 to select map units AvE CeB ErA and HnB Press F10 to confirm the map unit set box ALES now computes the evaluation for the two LUTs and 25 map units you selected When the computation is complete Select Menu 1 4 Evaluations Option 2 View evaluation results Instead of looking first at the overall suitability let s see if the decision procedure affected the single factor rating for the land quality of moisture availability i e the land use requirement which we just edited So when ALES asks for the type of report Select L and Quality values ALES asks which LQ to display Select m moisture availability ALES now displays an evaluation results matrix of single factor ratings for the LQ moisture availability The map units are the rows of the matrix and the two LUTs we want to compare are the columns You can see that the modification to the decision procedure did have an effect Look at the row for the ErA map unit it has a severity level of 2 in column ccc the original decision procedure and 3 in column ccc m the modified decision procedure Display the first Why screen for LMU ErA and the original LUT ccc Notice that th
68. copy of the tutorial and follow the menu structure to return to the point where you left off We all make mistakes sometimes ALES makes it fairly painless to correct them For any answer whether in data entry forms single answer entry forms or choice boxes you have to press F10 to confirm your entry If you catch your mistake before you confirm the entry you can correct it by various methods For example in a data entry form you can use the backspace key or F to erase some or all of a typed in answer and then you can just type the correct answer Another way is to start the interaction all over instead of pressing F10 you can cancel any interaction in ALES by pressing the Esc key Finally if you have already confirmed an incorrect entry you can almost always edit data in a similar manner to entering new data In almost every situation where the F3 key means add a new item the F5 key means edit the existing item ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 99 February 1997 Starting ALES in model building mode If your ALES system is not installed on drive C in directory DTM change the following two DOS commands accordingly To start ALES in model building mode from DOS 1 Change to the disk where ALES is installed Typically this will be disk drive c Supposing this to be the case at the DOS prompt Type c and Press the Enter key If you are al
69. cursor is now on the first character of the note Press Ctrl three times to move the cursor over the first three words to the first 2 Another way to type in the note editor is typeover mode in which characters typed replace existing characters Press Ins this key is usually located on the numeric keypad and notice that the bottom right of the screen now shows the letter T which stands for typeover indicating that any characters we type now will replace existing ones not push them to the right as in the default insert mode So Type 4 You could also use Alt F6 to rename the model without copying it ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 144 February 1997 Notice how the 2 has been replaced by the 4 Press Home to move the cursor back to the beginning of the line Press to move down one line Press three times to move three characters right the cursor should now be on the 2 in the number 7 2 Type 4 to change this to a 4 Press Ins to return to insert mode Notice how the T disappears from the lower right of the screen Now you can edit the note some more if you want You might want to add your name as a co author Remember that Fl will give you a complete description of the editing commands When you re done editing the note Press F10 to confirm your changes to the note ALES displays the
70. default answer and allows you to edit it if you wish The value is in fact correct so Press Esc to cancel the data entry form and return to the Why screen Now we will go back through the chain of Why boxes removing them one at a time until we reach a point at which we want to follow another chain ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 87 February 1997 Press F10 to return to the explanation of the severity level for m At this point we could go backwards again to another land characteristic Press F10 to return to the explanation of the proportional yield At this point we could go backwards again to another Land Quality Press F10 to return to the explanation of the year s output returns Press F10 to return to the explanation of the cash flows and net present value We have followed the explanation of the cash in to the Land Utilization Type now it is time to follow the Why chain for the other side of the NPV equation namely the costs or cash out of the LUT Notice that F3 in the annunciator line is marked Why cash out Press F3 to begin exploring the costs ALES displays a selection list asking for which year we want to see the costs Select Year 1 ALES displays the second Why screen in the backward chain on the cash out branch showing the first highest level step in the calculation of costs for this map unit for year 1 in th
71. delineations or management units that have a specific location It is also possible to define spatial Land Characteristics e g distance to market adjacency to a protected area etc and spatial Land Use Requirements e g adjacency and use these in decision trees Since ALES has no map input or output the data values for these LC s would have to be obtained from maps or a GIS and entered in the ALES database by hand 2 ALES usually uses classified data In ALES the entities that are used as the basis from which evaluation models are built i e Land Characteristics are most conveniently treated as classified data That is data values are from a small finite set of possibilities See the Chapter ALES and other computer systems for how to produce IDRISI and Arc Info maps directly from ALES 2If these values can be computed in a GIS and written as an xBase format database or an ASCII table ALES can import them Menu 1 8 Option 3 Menu 1 3 Option 5 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 17 February 1997 These can either be ordinal with an underlying continuous scale e g for slope classes or nominal with no underlying ordering e g for classes of soil texture ALES also allows the model builder to define continuous Land Characteristics that is those whose data values are from an infinite set of possibilities in some range of the real numbers An example is slope expressed in percent or degrees as opposed to slope cla
72. development and conservation service 1985 Guidelines land evaluation for irrigated agriculture FAO Soils Bulletin 55 FAO Rome Specific guidelines for evaluating land for irrigated agriculture based on the FAO framework FAO Soil resources development and conservation service 1991 Guidelines land evaluation for extensive grazing FAO Soils Bulletin 58 FAO Rome Specific guidelines for evaluating land for extensive grazing based on the FAO framework FAO 1993 Guidelines for land use planning FAO Development Series 1 FAO Rome Italy A short well illustrated booklet on rural land use planning methodology incorporating the FAO Framework for Land Evaluation as part of the planning process ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 27 February 1997 Klingebiel A A amp P H Montgomery P H 1961 Land capability classification USDA Agriculture Handbook 210 Washington DC The source document for the land capability approach Short and well stated Landon J R Ed 1984 Booker tropical soil manual a handbook for soil survey and agricultural land evaluation in the tropics and subtropics New York Longman A practical approach to land evaluation from the practicing soil surveyor s point of view Siderius W ed 1986 Land evaluation for land use planning and conservation in sloping areas International Inst for Land Reclamation and Improvement Wageningen publication 40 Spec
73. due to unexpected power failures In these situations the next time you start ALES you will see the following message Warning MUMPS not shut down correctly Verify dataset integrity before proceeding After a few seconds the opening ALES screen will appear You can try to use ALES and if no further errors occur the dataset is most likely intact If you experience further problems you should immediately exit from ALES and ask the system manager to verify and if necessary repair the datasets as explained in Dataset Verification below Backup The system manager is ultimately responsible for the integrity of the ALES knowledge bases and databases The only way to ensure that power failures media problems or user error does not destroy all or part of an ALES evaluation is to institute a data integrity policy also known as a backup policy The most important responsibility of a system manager is to design a backup policy and enforce it There are two approaches to backup user by user or system wide These are described in the following two sections There are two sorts of problems that may affect ALES 1 those affecting the entire database and 2 those affecting only one evaluation The first is caused by hardware problems such as a bad hard disk or disk controller by software problems such as an error in the MUMPS software very unlikely or by a DOS user who deletes or alters one of the dataset files from DOS The se
74. each group In the present case there are two sources of data 1 climate maps Cornell University 1987 and 2 the soil survey report Hutton 1971 The model builder created two templates cl and ss one for each data source The model builder can leave notes explaining how data items in the template can be obtained or other information about the template Notice that both templates in this list have associated notes as indicated by the degree signs to the right of each code If you wish you can Press F9 to read the note for cl this is the highlighted code and then Press F10 when you re done reading the note Let s tart by entering the climate data The highlight should already be on the correct template cl if not move the highlight until it is on template cl and Press Enter to select template cl ALES now displays a selection list of homogeneous map units This is a good opportunity to learn the unique prefix method of moving the highlight in selection boxes This method is especially useful in long lists such as the one that is now displayed In this method you use the typing keys to make a choice by typing a unique prefix of your answer A prefix of a string of characters is a group of characters that begin the string and a unique prefix of one string in a set of strings is a prefix that distinguishes the string from all the others For example in the set of strings
75. each LUT 4 the by year cash flow summary for each map unit in each LUT 5 a spreadsheet of any result type The following sections explain each format in detail Suitabilities Suitabilites are written out as one line per land unit land use pair The database key is the first two fields land mapping unit code and land utilization type code These are followed by 10 fields which give different aspects of the evaluation results Thus each line gives information on the suitability of one land unit for one land use The record format is Lmuld d LutId d PSC d PSSC d PSSC d GM d ELSCg d ELSCg d NPV d ELSCn d ELSCn d BCR d ELSCb d ELSCb d IRR d ELSCi d ELSCia where 1 d is the field delimiter Lmuld is the map unit code LutId is the land utilization type code PSC is the integer physical suitability class PSSC is the physical suitability subclass this may be a multi value with amp separating the different subclasses 6 GM is the predicted gross margin in currency per hectare year 7 ELSCg is the economic suitability class based on the gross margin one of the standard FAO classes s1 s2 s3 nl or n2 8 NPV is the predicted net present value in currency per hectare 9 ELSCn is the economic suitability class based on the NPV one of the standard FAO classes s1 s2 s3 nl
76. field tests ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 108 February 1997 Defining a discrete land characteristic with units The first land characteristic we ll enter will be water temperature So when asked for the code Enter wt Press F10 to confirm your entry You will see a three item data entry form titled wt NEW land characteristic The first question is straightforward a descriptive name for the characteristic So Type water temperature Move to the next question in the form Discrete classified Land Characteristics with units Now comes a crucial question namely the number of classes for the land characteristic Land characteristics can have zero classes i e be measured on a continuous scale These are not directly usable however in decision trees which require discrete LC s i e those measured in two or more classes Although the current LC water temperature certainly has an underlying continuous scale i e if we put a thermometer in the water at a given time we get a single value e g 18 4 C this scale can be divided into classes The number of classes to use for a land characteristic and the class limits dividing points depend on 1 the accuracy desired in the decision procedure and 2 the accuracy obtainable in the field In this model we will distinguish water temperature ranges that are important for Tilapia production According to the experts four classe
77. for in ALES limiting and multiplicative ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 85 February 1997 Limiting yield factors Limiting yield factors are used by the model builder to represent limiting effects of a Land Quality The proportional yield predicted by the proportional yield decision tree if any is absolutely limited by any limiting yield factors for Land Qualities that were not encountered on the decision tree path In other words the yield can not be any greater than the most limiting of the limiting yield factors for the set of Land Qualities in the evaluation not including those qualities that the model builder already included in the proportional yield decision tree In the present example there was one limiting yield factor defined by the model builder namely c temperature regime and this Land Quality did not appear in the decision tree path since there wasn t a decision tree However this map unit has no temperature regime limitation since it was determined to have a full season class 1 So this factor did not affect the yield Multiplicative yield factors Multiplicative yield factors are used by the model builder to represent multiplicative effects of a Land Quality The proportional yield predicted by the proportional yield decision tree and the limiting yield factors if any is multiplied by any multiplicative yield factors for the Land Qualities that were not encountered on the decisi
78. formula in the previous section to get some feel for how far in the future it is worthwhile to plan ST Inputs to a Land Utilization Type annual and one time The S inputs to a Land Utilization Type are the things that are required to implement it regardless of the land on which it is implemented If different levels of inputs are required depending on conditions of the land they are included as additional costs tied to a severity level of a specific Land Use Requirement Inputs are of two kinds annual i e needed each year and one time also called by year i e needed only once at some specific year during the length of the LUT The same input can of course be included in both lists for example an initial liming may be required to bring land into production with a supplemental application each year The same one time inputs may be specified at more than one specific year ALES numbers years in the plan starting with year 1 therefore any inputs specified for year 1 are not discounted ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 190 February 1997 Examples of inputs are labor seed or plants fertilizers fuel equipment and tools and construction materials Inputs are first defined in the reference list of inputs for the entire evaluation Then they are available for inclusion as inputs of any or all Land Utilization Types in the evaluation Each LUT can have any number of annual and one time inputs Each input in the refere
79. have enough classes to allow all the relevant LQ s to be determined So for example if a critical limit for erosion hazard is 12 slope and a critical limit for mechanization is 15 slope both these limits must be used as LC class limits Similarly a LC is very often used to determine the severity level of a Land Quality in different LUTs Here again the critical limits may be different even for the same Land Quality Again using the example of erosion hazard in clean cultivated crops there may be critical limits of 2 8 and 15 whereas in pasture there may be critical limits of 12 and 25 all five of these limits should be LC class limits Discrete unordered Land Characteristics without class limits These Land Characteristics are measured in classes but have no underlying continuous scale An example which might be used in evaluations involving supplemental irrigation is source of water for irrigation with three classes rainfall rivers and springs These have no natural ordering they are just three different sources of water The number of classes of unordered Land Characteristics is determined by the different possibilities there is usually no problem in determining these However if several possibilities always behave the same for the land uses in the evaluation they can be grouped For example a Land Characteristic of parent material may have a single class for till residuum and collu
80. if you wish Press Enter to confirm the result for conditions for mechanization and continue on to the next Land Quality Land Quality pl Planting conditions The window is replaced with one for the Land Quality pl planting conditions ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 61 February 1997 The earliness of spring planting greatly affects maize yields in this region because the yields are generally limited by the available heat units If plants develop by early summer they can capture more of the intense solar radiation of the long summer days The first land characteristic to be considered when evaluating for this quality namely dc soil drainage class is displayed along with its six classes Wet areas can not be prepared or planted by machine until they dry out thus planting is considerably delayed Note that the soil even in well drained areas is usually saturated at the end of winter in central New York Supposing that the land area to be evaluated is well drained Move the highlight to branch 2 corresponding to class 2 wd well drained and Press Enter to confirm the selection Now the drainage classes disappear and next to the dc name is the class we selected namely wd Under this is the name of the next land characteristic to be considered on well drained soils namely fpsc the family particle size class from USDA Soil Taxonomy which as yo
81. in the decision trees that determine the severity level of each land quality and ultimately the final suitability ratings of the various LUT s Characteristics are included in the reference list either because they are useful for determining suitability levels the top down approach or because they are available in a resource inventory the bottom up approach In this evaluation we ll take the first approach pick the characteristics we want and then assume that they can be obtained by field survey interviews with the land owner or simple lab test 2 Until we define the severity level decision trees it won t be clear why we defined this particular set of land characteristics For now we will concentrate on the mechanics of entering the chosen LC s into ALES From Menu 1 1 Reference Lists Select Menu 1 1 Option 4 Land Characteristics to enter information on land characteristics A choice box similar to those that we saw for inputs and outputs will appear with a single dummy entry add a new item Press F3 to begin defining the first land characteristic ln this model we are not distinguishing the farmer s own labor from hired labor If we were we could define two inputs and given them different prices 2This comes from the original application of the model in Guatemala where Peace Corps volunteers are expected to determine the values of the land characteristics from interviews and simple
82. is 325mm 20 of the time it is 500mm 40 of the time it is 650mm and 30 of the time it is 375mm The proportions are typically derived by dividing the frequency of a data value in the series by the total length of the series In the present example we have one of five years with 325mm so its frequency is 1 5 0 2 Two years have 650mm so its frequency is 2 5 0 4 Notice that we deliberately made a mistake the proportions don t sum to unity Press F4 to confirm the entry ALES notices the error and displays an error alert informing you of the error Press any key to remove the alert and then Enter and confirm the correct value 325 2 500 2 650 4 375 2 Let s see how this multi value propagates during the computation Press Esc to remove all the Why screens at once and return to the evaluation matrix ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 164 February 1997 Press F3 and then select Yes really recompute to ask ALES to recompute the evaluation After the recomputation is complete the matrix is re drawn with any changed values highlighted Notice that all the values of LQ m for map unit test1 have changed instead of being class 2 they now say 1 6 2 4 This is the same syntax that we used to enter the multi value and means that there is a 60 chance that map unit test1 has LQ rating 1 for LQ m and 40 chance that the rating is 2 The meaning of the proportions
83. is confirmed the definitions will be written to the selected file and you will be informed of the number of definitions that were written l ALES automatically removes characters that aren t legal in DOS file names and truncates the suggested file name to eight characters as required by DOS ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 248 February 1997 To back up the map unit data requires two steps First you will have to define one or more data entry templates using Option 7 Templates of Menu 1 3 Data If you already have all your LCs in one template you do not need to define another otherwise define a new template e g with the name backup and put all the LCs defined for the evaluation into the field list You only need to define this template once and then it is available for use each time you want to back up the data Once you have defined a template containing the LCs you want to save select Option 6 Data to a disk file write of Menu 1 3 Data and when you are asked to select a template pick the backup template After you ve selected a template you will be asked to specify a field delimiter and file name The default delimiter of ASCII 59 is fine for the file give the drive name typically a diskette like a as well as a file name When the form is confirmed the data will be written to the selected file according to the backup template and you will be informed of the numb
84. is not based on a rigorous definition of probability We can look at these linear proportions two ways either that say 60 of the land area has rating 1 or that it is 60 certain that all the land has rating 1 For soil or other space series characteristics the first interpretation is usually preferable For climate or other time series characteristics the second interpretation is usually correct Let s see how the multi valued LQ was derived The cursor should already be on LUT ccc map unit test1 so Press F2 to display the first Why screen You can see that three paths were taken in the severity level decision tree at the lowest level one for May September precipitation lt 400 p 4 one for 450 500 p 2 and one for gt 500 p 4 ALES has three possible values for the discrete LC pptMS and so carries out the computation for each of these Let s see how these classes were derived Press F2 and then select LC pptMS Now we see that pptMS was inferred from the commensurate continuous LC pptMS c remember we set up the inference link by classification In the present case two continuous values 625 and 650 mm classified to the same value gt 500mm so their probabilities were summed Similarly the continuous values 350 and 375 both classified to lt 400mm Now let s see how this multi valued LQ propagates to final suitability Press Esc to remove a
85. keys this time for the help interaction itself Also notice that the lower right corner of the help display says lt more gt this indicates that there are more lines that can t fit in the box You can display these lines by using the down arrow or PgDn keys move back up with the up arrow or PgUp When you are done viewing the F1 help Press F10 to return to the list of evaluation models Actually you can return to the list by pressing either F10 since you re done looking at the help or Enter since you re confirming the help or Esc since you re canceling the help request To see the content help Press F2 You should now be looking at an explanation of what ALES expects in this case that you will select an evaluation model to consult or leave the program When you are done viewing the F help Press F10 to return to the list of evaluation models For this exercise we will use the model named Tutor1 which is a very simple evaluation with only one Land Utilization Type The aim here is to lead you as easily as possible through your first encounter with ALES not to present a comprehensive evaluation model Locate the line in the list of evaluations with the code on the left Tutor1 Notice that it has a descriptive name on the right of ALES V4 Tutorial 1 Simple Consultation This is the line we want to select If
86. knowledge base or database You don t have to save the model as you would a word processing document or a spreadsheet As long as the ALES system doesn t crash your work is safe However Don t risk wasting all your hard work in model building due to disasters natural or otherwise such as 1 disk crashes 2 someone reformatting the disk 3 someone erasing ALES or one of its datasets 4 someone erasing or altering your model within ALES 5 other horrors too many to enumerate Make a backup copy of your model to diskette on a regular basis Even though your test model is very small right now let s practice making a backup Note that the F7 key is marked Save The highlight should already be on the model you ve just created F7 is used to save evaluation models to DOS files Press F7 to initiate the save An entry box appears asking for the DOS file specification to which the backup copy should be written The default file specification consists of 1 an optional path 2 the evaluation code as the file name and 3 a file extension of ALS which stands for ALES Save If the path is omitted the backup is written to the same directory as the ALES program This provides a backup copy in case the model is deleted or altered within ALES however it does not protect you significantly against problems with the hard disk such as a head crash A better strategy is to back
87. list as you wish and the action to be performed will be done on all the selected items and on no others Here as you can see the list is of the Land Utilization Types that is the land uses for which we are evaluating the land The list has three land uses with codes ccc ccc d and ttpp these are the LUTs defined by the model builder We are being asked to specify which LUTs ALES should evaluate let s compare all three land uses Notice in the annunciator line that F6 is marked All So to select all items in this set Press F6 Notice that all the items in the list are now marked with the diamond symbol We re done selecting the set so Press F10 to complete the selection You may have noticed that Menu 1 4 appears when you select Option 3 Again this discrepancy is due to the numbering of menus in model building mode and evaluation only mode ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 80 February 1997 Now ALES displays another set box namely a list of the map units that can be evaluated Let s select only the association we just defined namely A13 Since A13 is the first item in the list the highlight should already be on A13 if not move the highlight there Notice in the annunciator line that F3 is marked Select So to select the highlighted item A13 for the set Press F3 Notice that this item and only this item is now marked wi
88. list of evaluations with the highlight on the evaluation model Tutor4 Setting up related land utilization types Now we want to expand the model ALES makes it easy to define related land utilization types i e LUTs that are similar but which differ enough so that they represent different land use alternatives The easiest way to build a set of related LUTSs is to first build the base LUTs get these models just as you want them then copy them to related LUTs and edit the newly copied LUTs to reflect the differences Examples of differences between related LUTs are 1 different discount rates e g market vs subsidized 2 different optimum S1 yields e g optimistic vs pessimistic or risk averse yield levels or referred to a national vs local context 3 different decision procedures for the same land qualities 4 different levels of added inputs e g in one LUT you may elect to correct a limitation rather than take the yield loss 5 different sets of Land Use Requirements ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 145 February 1997 Clearly there are many permutations of these reasons With ALES you can compare any number of related LUTs side by side in the evaluation matrix This allows what if analysis based on differences in models In this tutorial we want to experiment with different decision procedures for the continuous corn LUT This will allow us to compare two different models for the sa
89. map unit codes can include letters and numbers and even punctuation If you decide to use the IDRISI codes as the ALES codes the legend is not necessary but the documentation file is Before using ALIDRIS you must prepare a source raster image the base map along with a documentation file showing the area of interest The legend which can be added with DOCUMENT in V4 also with COLOR Option Tf you attempt to use ALIDRIS on an image in a different format you will see a note asking you to convert the file first ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 231 February 1997 legend must give the correspondence between the IDRISI codes and the ALES map unit identifiers This map may then be used to produce many interpretive maps both of Land Characteristics from the ALES database and land evaluation results from the ALES evaluation results matrix Here is a typical V3 documentation file with a legend giving the correspondence between IDRISI and ALES codes image title Cayuga County Soil Map Units data type integer file type gt saseada rows 50 columns 80 minimum F 0000000000 maximum 2000000000 cell x 0000000000 cell y 0000000000 legend n n 2 ie a RE Ea eg E n category category category The V4 documentation file is more complex but the information that ALIDRIS uses is the same namely the legend categories Here is an example file title Cayuga County Soil Ma
90. maximum value of one or more LQs shall determine the composite physical suitability As explained below these two can be used together Physical suitability subclass decision trees These trees Menu 1 2 8 Option 1 allow the model builder to assign specific physical suitability classes or subclasses to any combination of severity levels of Land Qualities The evaluator can omit some Land Use Requirements from the tree e g because they do no affect physical suitability only yields or inputs and can weight some requirements more than others The result class numbers do not have to correspond to the severity level class numbers For example if it has been decided to only use two physical suitability classes 1 suitable 2 unsuitable but you have also decided to rate Land Qualities in four severity levels then you would probably want to associate severity level 4 with physical suitability class 2 With the decision tree you can do this by entering 2 at the appropriate leaves of the tree When entering a subclass designation ALES allows the evaluator to append to the class number as many limiting qualities as are on the current path The suffixes can be in any order In this manner the evaluator can 1 omit some qualities thereby emphasizing the others and 2 order the suffixes to indicate the most important ones first The maximum limitation method In this method the model builder specifies Menu 1 2 8 Option 2 the set of La
91. message refer to the section Managing large ALES models and datasets below for instructions After you are done looking at the error message press any key and you should return to the opening screen i e the list of evaluation models Although ideally the program should be able to anticipate these problems ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 246 February 1997 In very rare circumstances MUMPS may seem to freeze the computer system If the computer does not respond to any keystrokes wait until all disk activity stops i e the disk active light is off for a several seconds and try again Usually the freeze is caused by MUMPS expanding or restructuring its database This occurs at unpredictable times when the ALES database becomes too big for the existing MUMPS database Then MUMPS allocated 512Kb more disk space and restructures its files This takes up to one minute on a slow computer However during this lengthy process the disk use light on your computer will be mostly on and after it is done the ALES program unfreezes and you can continue as normal If by contrast the disk use light is off for more than five minutes and the computer still does not respond to any keys including Ctrl C reboot and immediately check the dataset integrity as explained below In some circumstances MUMPS may not be able to shut down correctly This may happen in the freeze situation or more commonly
92. models Finally we explain how to remove ALES from a computer system System requirements CPU microprocessor ALES will run on any processor of the Intel 8086 family i e the processors found in the IBM PC XT and its successors and compatibles or functionally equivalent processors e g from Cyrix or AMD For reasonable performance we recommend at least a 12MHz 80286 No special features of the 80386 80486 or Pentium processors are used by ALES even if these chips are present Co processor A math co processor is not required nor used even if installed Conventional DOS memory ALES requires a minimum 384Kbytes of free RAM but will run faster with more free memory up to the DOS limit of 640Kb since the MUMPS system will use the extra space for more disk buffers Expanded and extended memory ALES does not need nor use these types of memory Hard disk ALES runs only on hard disk systems It uses a minimum 3 5Mb of hard disk space as installed for the MUMPS system the ALES program and support files and a database sufficient for about five evaluations As additional evaluations are added hard disk space is increased by 0 5Mb at each expansion A fast hard disk and or a disk caching program which uses extended or expanded memory e g Microsoft s SmartDrive can dramatically speed up ALES Diskettes ALES uses diskettes for installation and to save and restore models and databases ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 3
93. must be downgraded This completes the editing of the subtree for cfv A 15 50 coarse fragments So Press lt four times to go back four levels and return to the top level of the decision tree cfv A We ve completed the decision procedures for branches 1 and 2 Suppose that the very and extremely stony or rocky soils have too little moisture holding capacity without considering any other factors Move the cursor to the third branch v Press F3 and then select severity level 3 severe stress Move the cursor to the fourth branch e Press and then select branch 3 Alternate criteria and the Unknown branch Up to now we have ignored the branch marked which appears below the list of numbered branches at every level of every decision tree This branch is considered by ALES as it follows the tree while computing the suitability of a particular map unit if the value of the land characteristic at a level is missing from the data base for that map unit V ALES follows the 2 branch if there is no data value for the Land Characteristic Consider the decision tree we ve just been editing At the first level which should still be on the screen ALES will require the value of the LC cfv A volume of coarse fragments from the database when it tries to determine the land quality moisture availability for a map unit Suppose that there is no value of that LC for a par
94. note and return to the decision tree editor We ll see this note again when we compute an evaluation We re all done with this decision tree so Press F10 to leave the decision tree editor The tree disappears and the overlapping windows reappear We re all done editing this Land Use Requirement so Press F10 to return to the choice box for the Land Use Requirements Note that pfc has been added to the list of LUR s for this LUT and the highlight is on it Also note that the LUR is marked with an asterisk indicating that it has a decision tree so that ALES can determine the value of the corresponding land quality You may want to see the whole decision tree at once to more easily check its structure The way to do this is to print or view the tree using Menu 1 5 Reports Option 9 Decision Trees If you choose this option you will see a list the trees in the model along with a brief ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 125 February 1997 description Select the ones you want to print or view with F6 and then select an output device Defining the other Land Use Requirements Now that we ve completely specified the Land Use Requirement pfc potential for construction within the context of the current Land Utilization Type tdp Tilapia in diversion ponds we must specify the remaining two Land Use Requirements for this LUT water availability and water quality By
95. obtained by summing the column above it each entry in this column representing the NPV for that year For example year 1 has an NPV of 393 16 i e a net negative cash flow year 2 has an NPV of 79 14 etc this column summing to 239 45 All of the Why screens are explained by a help screen Press F1 to view the help screen You will see an explanation of present value namely that a cash amount in or out is discounted as follows Present Value 1 0 0 YearsFromPresent 100 DiscountRate PresentValue CashAmounts Discount rate where the DiscountRate is the rate at which money may be borrowed expressed as a percent remember this was shown on the third line of this why screen and in the present case is 10 and YearsFromPresent is the number of years from the present when the CashAmount will be spent or received Note that cash in is considered to be received at the end of a year this is why the year 1 cash in of 280 00 is only worth 254 54 when discounted by contrast cash out is considered to be spent at the beginning of the year so that the year 1 cash out of 647 70 is worth the same amount when discounted Thus the effective years of discounting for cash out always lag those for cash in When you are done reading the help screen Press F10 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 84 February 1997 to return to the Why screen Notice that th
96. restored by pressing F8 and naming the file to be loaded if necessary the diskette drive containing the saved evaluation is placed in the diskette drive so that the saved evaluation may be found User by user backup land unit definitions and data only Once an evaluation model i e an ALES knowledge base is completed it is not necessary to keep backing it up as it doesn t change However the ALES data base associated with the model will change if more map units are added to the evaluation or if new data is entered You can back up just the land unit definitions and data without the knowledge base using Options 3 and 6 of the Data menu 1 3 Note that this method of backup is also accessible to model users who enter ALES from DOS with the evaluate command as well as to model builders The output resulting from these two options is described in the Chapter ALES and other computer systems here we just describe the backup and restore process You can set a default drive and path for the saved database with Menu 2 System options Option 9 Set default path for database import export To back up the list of map unit definitions select Option 3 Definitions to a disk file write of Menu 1 3 Data and specify a field delimiter and file name The default delimiter of ASCII 59 is fine for the file give the drive name typically a diskette like a as well as a file name When the form
97. saw just above the predicted yield with no planting limitations but severe moisture limitations is 60 If these two factors had no interaction e g were entered as limiting yield factors the predicted yield would be min 0 85 0 60 60 If these two factors were both multiplicative the predicted yield would be 0 85 x 0 60 51 The proportional yield tree allows us to assign any yield to this combination from 0 extremely synergistic effects of the two factors through 51 multiplicative through 60 no interaction to 100 positive interaction i e one factor compensates for the other In fact the evaluator decided that this combination of severity levels would result in 60 yield i e corresponding to the maximum limitation What is the correct value This depends on experience with the specific combination of factors The ideal is to find a set of farmer s fields with each combination and measure the yield as a proportion of the optimum farmer s yield with the same technology and management level Or a factorial experiment e g nutrients x water can be used For the purposes of this exercise let s suppose that we have specific information that the proportional yield with medium planting dates and severe moisture stress is 40 that is there is a synergistic effect of the two factors So Move the cursor to branch 3 severe stress Press F3 to enter a value ALES asks for the proportional yield
98. select Gross margin economic class the last item on the list of report types the same report that we just saw in the evaluation results matrix An entry box will appear asking for the name of the output image What is the file name of the new raster image cccGMe The suggested name is the LUT code in this case ccc followed by a standard abbreviation for the report type in this case Gross Margin economic class You could change the suggested name but for now just press Return to confirm it The message Working will appear in the center of the screen as ALIDRIS reclassifies the base map of soil map units TutorS to the thematic map of economic suitability class based on the gross margin for LUT ccc When ALIDRIS is done the Working message disappears and in its place is an information box which reports on the new map This box looks like Answer category 4 spd somewhat poorly drained 2 Answer both are in class s3 marginally suitable ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 179 February 1997 creating new IDRISI raster image cccGMe title ALES Tutorial 5 ccc Gross Margin Economic class type integer type S aASsc is lumns oy 2 rows x L29 system plane Fi UnLES munit dist 1 0000000 X 392500 0000000 X 395000 0000000 aY 4708000 0000000 Y 4710500 0000000 pos n error unknown resolution unknown m
99. select the model However at this point we ll leave ALES Press F10 to leave ALES The screen should clear and you will be looking at the DOS prompt again Congratulations you ve finished the first tutorial With this practice in interacting with ALES and with some idea of how ALES models can be used to evaluate a land areas it s time to move on to a more comprehensive example ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 64 February 1997 Tutorial 2 entering data and running an evaluation The objective of this tutorial is to teach you to define map units and their data and compute evaluation results for these land units using an existing ALES model It is intended for the model user as well as the model builder In this tutorial you will learn to V Start ALES in evaluation mode Enter and edit land unit descriptions from the keyboard Enter and edit land unit data from the keyboard Have ALES compute evaluation results for the land units View evaluation results as a matrix on the screen Use the Why screens to understand how results were computed Edit economic parameters and ask ALES to re compute an evaluation Print evaluation results lt 42444 4 2 Delete map units from the database Before working on this tutorial you should know the basics of interacting with ALES such as moving the highlight in selection boxes making selections using function keys and getting on line help These were all explained in Tuto
100. shorthand for final decision Vy F3 is used to enter a final decision In other words by pressing a F3 we will be able to tell ALES the final decision for this branch Press F3 and you will see a selection box with the four possible choices i e the severity levels Select severity level 4 impossible Notice now that the to the right of the first branch has been replaced with the decision i e severity level 4 The asterisk to the left of the decision is the editor s notation that this is a final decision Notice also that the highlight has moved down to the second branch Now we must make a statement about the severity level for construction of moderately deep soils We can t reject them out of hand and neither can we say without qualification that they have no limitations We must consider other factors Notice that F4 in the annunciator is marked ins gt short for insert subtree Press F4 to insert a subtree rooted at branch 2 Again we see the list of land characteristics but this time it does not include soil depth sd since that characteristic has already been used on the current path Suppose that slope is the next most important factor in determining suitability for construction Select land characteristic sl slope Now things change quite a bit in the display The first characteristic soil depth is fixed at branch 2 mode
101. soil survey and other natural resource inventory information more useful to those responsible for land use decisions This followed several years of work in the International Soils Group on the adequacy of soil resource inventories Forbes et al 1982 The project was initiated in summer 1987 with the hiring of David Rossiter to design and implement an automated land evaluation software The FAO land evaluation method which is outlined in the next Chapter seemed to provide a useful starting point being based on many years of expert consultation However methods based on the FAO method involve many repetitive calculations or table lookups and so are tedious if many alternatives are to be compared Also matching tables can not express all required interactions between land characteristics Manual procedures both for construction of matching tables or similar methods and for calculation of suitability are time consuming and error prone Hence an automated procedure seemed like a natural development and indeed there had been a few previous efforts in this direction most notably the LECS system in Indonesia Wood amp Dent 1983 Purnell 1987 However this successful system was developed for a specific area of the world Sumatra for a specific set of land uses at a specific scale and it requires a specific set of data It also uses maximum limitation tables as its main inference mechanism ALES by contrast is applicable to any area and any se
102. status before we started In order to do this we ll have to delete the map units we added This will give you practice deleting entities which works similarly in all kinds of lists within ALES To do this we first need to display the list of map units So from the main menu Select Menu 1a Option 2 Data Select Menu 1 3 Option 1 Definitions from keyboard enter or edit ALES displays the list of the map units defined in this model Notice in the annunciator line that F4 is the delete key in this context Let s try to delete one of the homogeneous map units we defined in this exercise Move the highlight to Lc Lakemont silty clay loam Press F4 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 96 February 1997 to attempt to delete it ALES displays an error message you can t delete this map unit since it is a constituent of compound map unit A13 If we deleted Lc there would be no way to know what the correct proportions of homogeneous constituents were in the compound unit A13 We must either remove this constituent from the compound map unit or delete the entire compound unit We were going to delete A13 anyway since it was one of the units we added earlier in the tutorial So Press any key to remove the error message and then Move the highlight to A13 Schoarie Odessa association Press F4 to attempt to delete it ALES now asks you if you rea
103. suitability subclass was determined i e by the maximum limitation method applied to the severity levels of the three land qualities You can see that land quality pfc has severity level 3 i e earthmoving is required but construction is possible Since we know from supposed experience that construction is too difficult this severity rating must be wrong Let s find out why Notice in the annunciator 25th line of the screen F2 is marked Why sever level That s exactly what we want to know Why LQ pfc is rated 3 extra earthmoving instead of 4 impossible So Press F2 ALES is now asking Why for which Land Use Requirement Select pic out of the list The second Why screen appears LMU E epsilon 50 00 are LUT tdp Tilapia in diversion ponds LQ pfc potential for construction Severity level 3 extra earthmoving 1 4 Severity Level decision tree 1 sd soil depth m moderately deep 75 200 cm gt sl slope C steep 10 30 gt 3 extra earthmoving In this screen we can see the decision tree path actually taken for this land unit Let s assume that the relevant data values are correct 1 e moderately deep soils and steep slopes The problem is that we incorrectly combined the two land characteristic values in the decision tree on steep slopes with only moderately deep soils excavating for ponds will e
104. temperate into a derived characteristic named mean temperatures combine the two characteristics average minimum temperature of coldest month and average maximum temperature of warmest month into a derived characteristic named average max min and combine the two characteristics annual rainfall and relative humidity into a derived characteristic named moisture Each tree will have 4 16 leaves and four possible results corresponding to the original m These four derived characteristics can be combined into a single tree having 44 256 leaves The total number of leaves will be 320 and there will be five trees These are certainly manageable and understandable numbers This example is typical of the size of decision tree sets found in land evaluation problems ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 209 February 1997 Multi valued land data Usually each map unit in an ALES database has a single data value for each Land Characteristic used in the evaluation model Occasionally however it may be necessary to describe a map unit with more than one data value For example within a single map unit there may be lands of several slope classes The best way to handle this sort of situation is to define compound map units and enter single valued data on their homogeneous constituents However it is possible in ALES to enter a multi value in place of a single data value for a Land Characteristic The data
105. the code Tutor1 So the model builder has left a note for you Let s look at it now Notice that on the annunciator line shows that F9 is marked Note So Press F9 to read the note for evaluation model Tutor1 You should now be looking at the note It gives some background about the entire evaluation model When you re done reading the note Press F10 to return to the list of evaluation models The highlight should still be on Tutor1 Now we want to select this model for the consultation So Press Enter to select the highlighted evaluation namely Tutor1 The list of evaluations should now disappear and the code of the evaluation model you selected namely Tutor1 should appear in the upper left corner of the screen the banner area The upper right corner of the screen has the Land Utilization Type code in this case ccc which stands for conventional continuous corn In the center of the screen should be a dialog box asking if you want to start with data from an existing map unit definition The default answer No is highlighted Press Enter to select the highlighted No answer in other words to enter all the data for the consultation directly from the keyboard You would answer Yes if you had saved land unit data at the end of a previous consultation or if you already had a database of map units from a comprehensive evaluation The
106. the concept that ALES evaluates map units and there is always variability within map units For example a single value of slope is very rarely applicable to a whole map unit and that is why most map units are described in terms of a range of slopes e g 0 3 slopes The number of classes and the class limits dividing points depends on 1 the precision desired in the decision procedure and 2 the precision obtainable in the field The second criterion is fairly obvious we cannot get more precision than can be mapped With existing inventories this decision has already been made for us for example slopes may have been measured in five classes So we cannot define more classes than what was measured The first criterion is more subtle We are only defining Land Characteristics in order to arrive at severity levels of Land Qualities The number of these severity levels must correspond to perceptible differences in physical suitability yields or levels of inputs Once this decision is made it is only necessary to define as many classes of each Land Characteristic as will enable us to place land in one of the severity classes In general the number of LC classes is roughly equal to the number of LQ classes Often a Land Characteristic is used in determining the severity level of more than one Land Quality For example slope may be used in decision trees for both erosion hazard and limits to mechanization In this case the LC must
107. this Tutorial 3 we will ignore this final unknown branch its use will be covered in Tutorial 4 To the right of each branch is a single signifying that no decision has yet been made with regard to that branch V 2 is a shorthand for no decision or unknown Now we must imagine land with each of the three possible depths Can we determine its potential for construction just based on soil depth In the case of shallow soils we can at least in this model it is too difficult to excavate into underlying rock or to transport large amounts of earth from another site to build raised ponds so we can say that shallow soils are impossible to construct ponds on lYou may disagree with this assessment remember that each model builder makes his or her own decisions based on local conditions and assumptions It is certainly conceivable that it would be considered economic or otherwise worthwhile to construct ponds on shallow soils despite the difficulties for the sake of this model we will assume that it isn t ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 121 February 1997 So we want to associate severity level 4 impossible with shallow soils i e those with land characteristic class s for soil depth Notice that the highlight is already on branch 1 the one for class s Also notice in the annunciator line that F3 is marked ins which is short for insert a final decision y is a
108. to accept a yield reduction even if the extra input appears cost effective in the economic analysis This may be due to the opportunity cost for the same input or the money needed to purchase it in the land user s total system or to the effective non availability of the input e g more family labor at labor intensive seasons The assumption that the extra input will be applied thus must be verified and forms part of the LUT definition under the headings of level of inputs access to working capital and even social attitudes A related problem is that the land user must be made aware that a particular land unit requires the additional input For example if a land unit has low soil fertility which can be corrected by extra fertilizer the soil test results must be made available and possibly explained to the user Again this assumption forms part of the LUT definition under the heading of technical assistance or social infrastructure Deciding on the number of severity levels A major decision when defining Land Use Requirements within a Land Utilization Type is how many severity levels also called degrees of limitation or Land Quality classes are to be distinguished for the corresponding Land Quality ALES allows Land Qualities to have from two to nine severity levels In general and following the FAO severity levels should be numbered so that increasing limitations have increasing numbers For example
109. trees may become cumbersome since they grow exponentially with the number of factors ALES therefore allows the use of multiplicative proportional and limiting yield factors and the maximum limitation method for physical suitability in addition to decision trees in appropriate circumstances In addition the evaluator may introduce intermediate inferred Land Characteristics in order to break down one tree into several smaller components ALES estimates yield as an optimum which is reduced on less than optimum land ALES does not itself estimate yields by dynamic simulation modeling or empirical statistical modeling Instead the land evaluator uses historical records models or expert judgment to set an optimum yield of each output of each Land Utilization Type and also specifies how that optimum yield is to be reduced on less than optimal land either by means of multiplicative or limiting yield factors for Land Qualities that can affect yield Menu 1 2 7 Option 5 amp 6 or Menu 1 2 6 Option 3 amp 4 or by means of a proportional yield decision tree of Land Qualities Menu 1 2 6 Option 2 The setting of these yield factors or the construction of the yield decision tree is the most critical aspect of economic land evaluation with ALES The use of dervied land characteristics is optional ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 19 February 1997 Example Papua New Guinea Land Evaluation System As an example of a specific ALES eva
110. two notes ALES asks you which one you want to read Select note 2 Severity Level decision tree ALES now displays the explanatory note for the severity level decision tree When you are done reading the note Press F10 to return to the selection box for notes Press F10 to return to the fourth Why box We are almost at the end of the Why chain but there is one more level namely the actual values of the Land Characteristics that determined the path through the severity level decision tree Notice that F2 in the annunciator line is marked Why a land characteristic value Press F2 to display the fifth Why screen in the backward chain ALES displays a selection box appears asking which land characteristic of the four you want to examine Let s find out why the depth to bedrock was deep So Select Land Characteristic dbr depth to bedrock This final explanation is quite simple the value of the land characteristic was entered from the keyboard remember that we entered it earlier in this exercise Suppose it is wrong During the display of the Why screens you can correct information at the time you notice it s wrong Notice that F4 in the annunciator line is marked Edit land characteristic value So Press F4 to edit the data value for this Land Characteristic for this map unit ALES now displays the current value d is the
111. we enter multiplicative yield factors For now we will enter each year number three times to indicate the three harvests of fish in each year Notice that the default answer for question 2 is 1 2 3 4 5 i e in the absence of more specific information ALES assumes that there is one harvest of each output each year we must correct this answer Answer question 2 years output is produced with Llp ly 29 2 2737373747 4 47 597979 Questions 3 and 4 are pre answered with the defaults Yes and No respectively meaning that adverse conditions reduce the optimum yield but do not delay them This is the usual situation and applies to the present case Confirm the form to return to menu 1 2 6 Specification options for LUT Output tdp ti Determining proportional yield We have just told ALES that each crop of fish on optimum land will yield 35 kg per are Now it we must to differentiate the lands based on the severity levels of their land qualities We must tell ALES how much of the optimum yield we can expect under various combinations of less than ideal conditions In the present simple example only one of the three land qualities that we have defined for this Land Utilization Type affects yields wa water availability Certainly the other two qualities can make Tilapia production impossible if we can t construct the ponds or can t obtain good quality water we can t grow fish However thes
112. will see how ALIDRIS reclassifies this cell For example use option C of COLOR at Column 56 Row 112 or use option X of COLOR at X 393 620 East Y 4 708 240 North This is in a large map unit near the center bottom of the image IDRISI Exercise 1 Use IDRISI command RECLASS to make a map of the areas of map unit ErA only as class 1 and the rest of the area as class 0 How many delineations of ErA are there Hint use command GROUP on the 0 1 image IDRISI Exercise 2 Use command AREA to make a table of the acres covered by each map unit in the study area How much area does map unit ErA cover 2 Creating a thematic map of a land characteristic value The simplest use of ALIDRIS is to make a single factor map of a land characteristic value in the study area For example given a base soils map you can make a map of surface texture depth reaction etc assuming of course that these land characteristics are contained in the ALES database In this exercise we will use the Tutor database to make a thematic map of the soil drainage class Start ALES select Option 1 Build models amp evaluate and select evaluation Tutor from the list of evaluation models If Tutor does not appear in the list of evaluation models see the note at the beginning of Tutorial 2 which explains how to load Tutor from the distribution disk l Answer 15 2 Answer 56ha ALES Ve
113. with your other application programs for recovery from a complete hard disk failure If you are doing incremental backups of DOS files the ALES datasets will generally not be backed up This is because their date of modification is not altered after they are created because the MUMPS run time system manages them without telling DOS they have been modified so that backup software can t tell that they ve changed You must force the backup software to save eval gbl every time whether or not its DOS time stamp has been updated ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 250 February 1997 Working with MUMPS datasets MUMPS stores program code program data such as text and menu structures and user data in files called datasets ALES uses the following datasets you can see this also in the database description file MUMPS DBD SYS BASE ALESS RT ALES5 GB ALES support data structures except text Also includes temporary storage data amp video screens TXSE GB LTX5F GB LTX55 GB LTX5I GB Only the last named dataset EVAL GBL is modified by the ALES program user Dataset ALES5 GB is heavily modified during ALES program use since it contains temporary data and video storage however under normal program exit it is restored to its previous state On program startup any left over temporary storage is deleted as well Each dataset is stored in two DOS files an index extension IND an
114. you The order in which windows are displayed is shown in Appendix 1 Program Structure The basic pattern of interaction with ALES is move and do You move the highlight to a selection and then you press a function or special key to perform an action Function keys cursor control keys typing In ALES most of the interaction with is with special keys that is keys that aren t used for typing text There are four groups of keys 1 Function keys These are marked F1 through F10 and are located either on top IBM extended of or to the left IBM PC of the keyboard These keys are used to perform actions on selected items In general their use in ALES is according to the context Some function keys have a fairly consistent meaning F1 and F2 Help At almost every point in the program you can receive on screen help by pressing the F1 key the F key or both Generally the Fl key displays information about the mechanics of the interaction for example what keys are active and how to move the highlight This is called form help The F2 key by contrast is usually content help it displays information about what is being requested In the Why screens the F key is the Why key F3 add a new item to a list in the evaluation results matrix recompute the evaluation In the decision tree editor enters a final decision at the currently selected position Alt F3 in th
115. 0 Press F10 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 79 February 1997 to confirm the form ALES now saves the information for the new map unit and you will see the new map unit A13 in the list of map units Now we re done entering map unit definitions so Press F10 again to remove the list of map units and return to Menu 1 3 Data Press F10 again to return to the Menu la Main options Note that we can t enter data for a compound map unit this is because the data is associated with each of the homogeneous constituents The only information that ALES has for a compound map unit is the list of its constituents and their proportions Getting ALES to compute evaluation results for the land units Now we ve defined some map units and entered data values for these map units Let s see how well suited are the various map units for the Land Utilization Types defined by the model builder In other words it s time to compute an evaluation To begin this process Select Menu 1a Option 3 Evaluations ALES now displays Menu 1 4 Evaluations t which contains the actions that you will take to compute an evaluation view the results on the screen and print the results or write them to disk file The first thing of course is to compute Select Menu 1 4 Option 1 Compute an evaluation ALES now displays a set box In this interaction you can select as many items out of this
116. 1 February 1997 Video ALES writes to the monochrome MDA or Hercules or color CGA or better video screen depending on which is selected in DOS A graphics adapter video card is not required to run ALES which uses only text mode video If a color graphics adapter is installed ALES can display its windows in various user selected color schemes Printer A printer is not required to run ALES only to obtain printed results ALES does not use any special printer features so any text printer can be used Pointing device ALES does not respond to a mouse or other pointing device Operating system ALES requires a computer capable of running one of the Microsoft operating systems MS DOS or PC DOS V2 3 or higher or another operating system that emulates MS DOS either directly e g DR DOS or in a compatibility mode e g OS 2 or the vpix program running on Un1x 386 Multitasking operating systems ALES can run under several popular multitasking operating systems such as OS 2 2 1 or OS 2 3 and 4 Warp DesqView V2 3 and MS Windows V3 1 V3 11 Windows for Workgroups and Windows 95 but it is not written to take advantage of them i e it does not use their windowing systems or multitasking MUMPS language and database system ALES is written in the MUMPS programming language Lewkowicz 1988 and requires Version 4 of the DataTree MUMPS language DTM PC and database system DataTree Inc 1986 in order t
117. 1997 Interfaces with relational databases the ALES lt xBase interface ALES V4 6 and later includes an interface with xBase format database files This popular database format is used by the PC Arc Info and ArcView GIS programs as well as by dBase II dBase IV Clipper and FoxPro Some other databases e g Paradox can work directly with xBase tables even though they have another native database format How to use the ALES lt xBase interface The following discussion assumes that the reader is familiar with both ALES and some database program which uses the xBase file format Terms such as field data type table etc are used as they are defined in the respective programs The interface appears as item 8 in the main menu of ALES When this option is selected you are presented with the ALES lt xBase Menu 1 8 1 8 ALES lt gt xBase Transfer Edit import export templates Import Land Mapping Unit definitions from xBase to ALE Import LC values from xBase to ALES Export LC values from ALES to xBase Export evaluation results from ALES to xBase To transfer information between ALES and xBase tables you must first define an interface template Option 1 which specifies the file name of the xBase table the key field and the list of fields in the xBase table to transfer along with their correspondence to ALES tables Then you can select one of the other Options each of which uses a specific t
118. 3 and 4 Those whose only interest in using ALES is to evaluate using existing models need only complete Tutorial 2 Finally Tutorial 5 is for those users who will be using the IDRISI Geographical Information System to present the results of their ALES evaluations Throughout these tutorials User Actions are written like this line in the margin and marked with a diamond V The action verb will be in italics for example type press select etc y special keys such as function keys which you press are written in bold type for example F1 Keys other than special keys that you press are written in Courier type for example Type This Text Key terms are written like this the first time they appear and marked with a 2 Extra information is written like this indented You can skip these on first reading First time ALES users sometimes think that the tutorial models are intended to be applied in all situations Please understand that Each ALES model is built independently The model you build may have no resemblance to the tutorial examples The lists of Land Utilization Types their Land Use Requirements the database and diagnostic Land Characteristics the map units and the decision procedures in these tutorials were designed to be educational and may well have nothing to do with your objectives client planning exercise knowledge sources databases etc ALES Version 4 65 Users Manua
119. 3 February 1997 If you really insist on installing MUMPS and ALES to a path that does not end with DTM you will have to edit the installation script INSTALL BAT on the ALES distribution disk accordingly changing all occurrences of DTM to the directory name of your choice before continuing with the installation of ALES Ignore the message on the final installation screen that tells you how to use DTM PC in programmer mode Press Enter to complete the installation of MUMPS Step 2 Installing ALES Once you have installed DataTree MUMPS you are ready to install ALES 1 Insert the ALES distribution disk in a diskette drive 2 Change the DOS prompt to that drive e g by typing a at the DOS prompt 3 Run the command install with one argument the drive and possibly the path where you installed MUMPS not including the final lowest level directory name DTM So If you installed MUMPS to C DTM as recommended above you would simply type a gt install c If you installed MUMPS to a drive and or path other than C DTM enter the drive and path not including the final DTM For example if you installed MUMPS to drive D directory MODELS LECS DTM you would issue the command a gt install d models lecs As another example if you installed MUMPS to drive D directory DTM you would issue the command a gt install d If there is a problem during the installation the script will tell you wha
120. 3a b c so a C6 field would be adequate On the other hand it is easy in ALES to end up with codes like 3LQ_A3 LQ_F22 LQ_I10 LQ_A12 etc so you really have to look at the evaluation results matrix Troubleshooting Most of the error messages are self explanatory This section discusses the case when the transfer appears to go well but results are not as expected Problem No data are exported to a xBase record There was probably no match between the ALES LMU codes and the values in the xBase field you specified as the key field The key field must contain the exact same codes including upper amp lower case However the xBase field will be padded with trailing spaces which will be removed by ALES before matching with the ALES LMU code In the extreme case you specified the wrong xBase field as the key field and it doesn t contain any LMU codes at all Or you specified a xBase field with LMU codes as the key field but the codes are for a different ALES evaluation model Problem No data are imported to an ALES Land Mapping Unit Same as previous comment Problem Only some data are exported to a xBase format record Some of the ALES LC or evaluation results may be too wide for the xBase field in which case they are ignored Check the data or evaluation results with the on screen matrices and compare the width of the ALES value with the definition of the xBase field ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 224 Febru
121. 4 impossible Now the at branch 4 is replaced with an asterisk signifying a decision and the decision itself The cursor has moved to branch 1 notice how it rotates around the branches Make sure that the cursor is on branch 1 move it there if necessary We are now being asked to give a suitability rating for moderately deep soils on nearly level slopes A problem with building fish ponds on nearly level sites is that extra drainage must be provided to allow the ponds to be drained and refilled with fresh water every four months or so Let s enter this decision now With the highlight is on the first branch Press F3 to enter a decision then Select severity level 2 needs drainage out of the pop up list This result is displayed and the highlight moves to the second branch representing sloping lands Sloping land is ideal for fish pond construction because simple outlets from each pond can be used to move water to ponds further down the hillside so no extra drainage is needed and earth dug from the pond can be used for the immediately adjacent down slope dike so no extra earthmoving is needed Press F3 Select severity level 1 no limitation This result is displayed and the highlight moves to the third branch representing steep lands Steep land will have no drainage problem but will require extra earthmoving Ponds are smaller and dikes are higher resulting in more work for th
122. 4 Evaluations Option 1 Compute an evaluation Select all four Land Utilization Types Select the three test map units test1 test2 and test3 ALES will compute the evaluation for the four LUTs and three map units When the computation is complete Select Menu 1 4 Evaluations Option 2 View evaluation results Select L and Quality values Select m moisture availability ALES now displays an evaluation results matrix of single factor ratings for the LQ moisture availability The cursor should be on the upper left cell namely for map unit test1 LUT ccc Press F2 to see the first Why screen ALES displays the decision tree we can see that LC pptMS is on the decision tree path with value 450 500 Let s see why Press F2 to see Why a particular LC value a selection list appears with the LCs that were encountered in the LQ decision tree path for this map unit Select LC pptMs This Why screen shows that the value of pptMS i e the 400 450mm class was inferred from the commensurate continuous LC namely pptMS c which we just defined using the data value of 425mm which we just entered In other words ALES classified the single value on a continuous scale into one of the discrete classes of the commensurate LC Press F2 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 163 February 1997 again to se
123. 5 LMU y 124 10 2 1 This is to be interpreted as saying that on average the IRR for LMU is 20 etc The higher the VI of a map unit the more versatile it is considered to be i e there are more land use options on this land Versatility of Land Utilization Types For a Land Utilization Type the Versatility Index is a measure of the goodness of the LUT as a whole Here it makes sense to weight the index by the land area of each LMU rather than just counting map units With this modification the formula for the VI becomes VI iur S Rag Lur aredryu Y arean LMU LMU where Ry MU LUT is the evaluation result for the matrix cell area yy is the number of hectares or other measure of land area for the map unit ALES gets the areas from the map unit database you must enter the areas with Menu 1 3 Data Option Definitions From keyboard enter or edit or if you read the map unit definitions into ALES from a disk file Option 2 you must have specified an area for each map unit Important note the Versatility Index for a LUT depends completely on the land units in the study areas and their areas If there are no areas listed for a map unit it will not be included in the Versatility Index calculation ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 187 February 1997 Let s see this with an example Continuing with the hypothetical evaluation matrix presented above suppose furthermore that the ar
124. 5 or equivalently SQR dbr clay 1 5 dbr Both of which are in standard math notation 4 clay 2 IF dbr gt 1 5 cfsub 2 cfsup 0 35 cfsub In standard math notation this is if dbr gt 15 then th else cfsup 0 35 That is the formula evaluation is recursive ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 203 February 1997 Computing Land Characteristic inferences directly In normal use ALES automatically uses inferences only when necessary to determine Land Quality values i e when it computes the evaluation matrix Thus a Land Characteristic must be used either in 1 a severity level decision tree or 2 as the inference basis of another LC that is so used In other words if ALES doesn t encounter a LC during its traversal of the decision trees it will not infer its value In addition if the model user has directly entered a value for a Land Characteristic ALES will not infer it during the computation of Land Qualities even if there is an inference link set up for the derived characteristic The idea here is that the model user must have had more specific information about a map unit if a value was entered Both of these problems can be overcome with the use of Option 9 Infer Land Characteristic values of Menu 1 3 Data or with the Alt F3 key from the data entry matrix reached with Option A Edit data in a matrix of Menu 1 3 If either of these are selected by the model user ALE
125. 6 February 1997 of these Land Qualities the yield can be no higher than this minimum For these Land Qualities there is a shortcut to using it in proportional yield decision trees i e assigning limiting yield factors The disadvantage of this method is that it assumes that several yield limiting factors do not interact to predict final yield usually this prediction is too optimistic For example in the example of the previous section the six LQs all rated at 90 of optimum yield would predict 90 yield it doesn t matter if there are one or a hundred limitations The model builder may use multiplicative yield factors Menu 1 2 6 Option 4 to partially or completely replace proportional yield decision trees In the actual calculation if a particular Land Quality has been encountered in the decision tree path any limiting yield factor that it may have is ignored Land Quality severity level decision trees The severity levels of a Land Quality corresponding to a Land Use Requirement can only be determined in one way from a set of discrete Land Characteristics either ordinal or nominal by using a decision tree Thus the model builder must build one severity level decision tree for each Land Use Requirement in the LUT specification Otherwise an LUR can not be used in the decision procedures for physical suitability Missing data using alternate data sources in decision trees ALES provided several ways to deal with missing data Fi
126. 65 Users Manual Page 271 February 1997 Appendix 3 ALES program flow Figure A Computation of Land Qualities and Land Characteristics 1 1 4 3 compute Formulas formulas Land Characteristic Values 1 1 4a 6 continuous LCs Continuous to discrete inferences 1 1 4a 6 Discrete to discrete inferences re classify 1 1 4b 4 1 1 4a 5 r Lewis pa decision trees Land Characteristic tree Values discrete LCs 1 2 7 4 Severity Level Sp traverse decision tree Decision Trees LUT LUR Land Quality Values severity levels MU LUT LUR ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 272 February 1997 Figure B Computation of Predicted Yield 1 2 6 2 Proportional Yield Decision Tree 1 2 6 4 1 2 7 6 traverse decision tree__ Proportional Yield predicted by Decision Tree of S1 yield Limiting Yield Factors LUT LUR Out 1 2 6 3 1 2 7 5 Proportional Yield predicted by Decision Tree and Limiting Yield Factors of S1 yield Multiplicative Yield Factors LUT LUR Out 1 2 6 1 S1 Yield units area harvest LUT Out ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Proportional Yield of S1 yield Predicted Yield units area harvest Page 273 MU LUT Out MU LUT Out MU LUT Out MU LUT Out February 1997 Figure C Computa
127. 997 for the evaluation and F6 to copy a model All this power means you are in model building mode with ALES you are always in control Creating a new evaluation model For this tutorial we will create a completely new model The model will be a simple physical and economic evaluation for fish production in Central America In the interest of simplicity we will only define one Land Utilization Type Tilapia in diversion ponds to be implemented by small farmers with no mechanization but with access to adequate credit and inputs2 In a real evaluation we of course would compare alternatives In order to keep the tutorial to a workable size we will simplify it by only including a few of the most important Land Use Requirements and inputs and by keeping the decision procedures simple The model will be complex enough to be realistic but not comprehensive We are sure you can think of many refinements especially if you have experience with fish farming When you are done with the tutorial you re welcome to experiment with it and enhance it as you see fit Fish farming may seem like an unlikely choice for an ALES model but actually it is a good example of land evaluation we have land and fish farms are land use alternatives to arable and perennial crops Press F3 to define a new model You will be asked to enter a code by which this evaluation will be identified in the list of evaluations A good choice wou
128. A K L and R A Cramb 1996 Integrated land evaluation to generate risk efficient land use options in a coastal environment Agricultural Systems 50 3 287 305 Johnson A K L R A Cramb and J R McAlpine 1994 Integration of biophysical and economic data using an expert system results from a case study in northern Australia Soil Use amp Management 10 181 188 Keyzer M A 1992 Land evaluation towards a model representation Centre for World Food Studies Stichting Ondersoek Wereldvoedselvoorziening van den Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam van Lanen H A J Hack ten Broeke M J D Bouma J amp de Groot W J M 1992 A mixed qualitative quantitative physical land evaluation methodology Geoderma 55 37 54 van Lanen H A J and H Wopereis 1992 Computer captured expert knowledge to evaluate possibilities for injection of slurry from animal manure in the Netherlands Geoderma 54 107 124 Leon P rez J C 1992 Aplicaci n del Sistema Automatizado para la Evaluaci n de Tierras ALES en un sector de la cuenca del rio Sin C rdoba Colombia Revista C I A F 13 1 19 42 Lewkowicz J 1988 The Complete MUMPS Prentice Hall Englewood Cliffs NJ USA McRae S G amp Burnham C P 1981 Land evaluation Monographs on soil survey Oxford Clarendon Press viii 239 pp ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 258 February 1997 MUMPS Users Group 1985 ANS MUMPS programmers reference manual MUMPS Users Group C
129. AB on ccc d and ccc Do this and assign a legend with COLOR I This completes Tutorial 5 If you want to clean up the effects of this tutorial erase images dc and cccgme using IDRISI command MAINT option delete and sub option 1 image Answer their suitability is the same for corn with and without drainage 2 Answer at most one class better or worse 3 Answer Map unit 1 Ad You can see this directly in the ALES evaluation matrix the map unit goes from n1 to s3 or by comparing Tutor5 with the areas with class 5 in difl i e where ccc d was better than ccc ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 181 February 1997 Building ALES models In this Chapter we present design strategies for the model builder By far the most difficult aspect of using ALES is building good models There are several reasons for this 1 nature is complex 2 data sources are limited and 3 the FAO framework as implemented within and extended in ALES imposes a certain structure on the model builder Tutorials 3 and 4 of the previous Chapter are an introduction to the model building process However it was not possible in the context of a tutorial to completely describe all the decisions and judgments that go into successful model building In the present Chapter we present the outline of the model building process stressing the design decisions that the mo
130. AF AF AF U vU VUUUUUW FAO models E FAO ALES5 RT FAO GBL Lform Lmenu 7 SLtxt d ATES Lconfig version Lconfig mode Lstate Lvideo WWwWWWwowow wow w a eR ee mmm ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 50 February 1997 Removing ALES from your computer system If you need to remove ALES from a computer altogether 1 Copy the file rmdtm bat from the ALES directory to the root directory or to a diskette 2 Change to the directory where you copied rmdtm bat and issue the command RMDTM C or wherever you installed ALES This will remove the paper key MUMPS and ALES including all your ALES models Make sure you have a backup of all your models as ALS files before removing ALES from your computer 3 Now you can delete rmdtm bat itself ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 51 February 1997 Learning ALES This chapter presents five tutorials that have been designed to teach you how to use ALES Tutorial 1 Consulting an ALES model Tutorial 2 Entering data and running an ALES evaluation using the Why screens Tutorial 3 Building a simple ALES model Tutorial 4 Advanced model building techniques Tutorial 5 ALIDRIS ALES to IDRISI interface All ALES users should start with Tutorial 1 which explains how to interact with ALES ALES users interested in building or modifying ALES models should continue with Tutorials 2
131. ALES should compute proportional yield First we ll examine proportional yield decision tree and then limiting yield factors Proportional yield decision tree Select Menu 1 2 6 Option 2 proportional yield decision tree ALES displays the top level of a decision tree This tree is at a higher level of abstraction than the Severity Level decision trees we constructed in Tutorial 3 In fact this tree uses as its decision entities the severity levels that are the result of the Severity Level decision trees The result of this decision tree is the proportional yield i e a fraction on the interval 0 1 by which the optimum yield should be multiplied to calculate the predicted yield As you can see the first LQ is pl planting conditions and at each branch there is a subtree based on the LQ m moisture availability The highlight should be on branch 1 early Press gt to expand branch 1 Now you can see the proportional yields with no limitations to planting but with increasing moisture limitations 100 80 and 60 Press to collapse branch 1 and return to the top level Move the cursor to branch 2 medium planting date Press gt to expand branch 2 Now you can see the proportional yields with medium planting date and with increasing moisture limitations 85 70 and 60 Notice that the predicted yield with medium planting date but no moisture limitations is 85 as we
132. An easy way to move among rows is the prefix method i e by typing a unique prefix of the map unit name Let s see why the Cazenovia map unit CeB has a predicted NPV of 239 45 per acre for continuous corn with land improvement ccc d Press gt to move the highlight to the column corresponding to ccc d ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 83 February 1997 Press to move the highlight to the row corresponding to CeB Now the highlight is on the cell which we want to query Notice in the annunciator line that the F2 key is marked Why So Press F2 to initiate the Why screens Why screens ALES now replaces the rightmost two thirds of the screen with a Why box notice the box title In the box are the full names of the land unit and Land Utilization Type followed by the discount rate i e rate of interest at which cash flows are discounted Below this is a table showing the cash flows and their present value for each year in the planning horizon The screen is only big enough to show the first 12 years Notice that the last line in the box says lt more gt this indicates that there are more lines below To see these lines Press PgDn and ALES will scroll the screen until the final years of the planning horizon are visible The key number here is the very last one on the lower right 239 45 per acre is the NPV This was
133. Both of these main menu options were presented in Tutorial 2 However there is one aspect of data entry that was not explained in that tutorial namely defining data entry templates ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 133 February 1997 Data entry templates are used to specify the land characteristics for which data is to be entered and their order in the data entry form that will be filled in by the model user The model builder often defines different templates for different sorts of data e g climatic variables in one template soils variables in another Or the model builder can choose to put all data fields in one template in the present example that s what we ll do because there are only a few land characteristics Another purpose for templates is to specify the order in which data will be read from an external data base To define a template now Select Menu 1 Main options Option 3 Data Select Menu 1 3 Data Option 7 Templates data entry formats An empty list of template codes should now appear Press F3 to add a new template and when asked for its code Type All because all the land characteristics will be fields in this template Press F10 to confirm this code ALES now ask for the descriptive name of the template Type all land characteristics Press F10 to confirm this form Menu 1 3 7 Specification options for Data Entry Template with two menu options no
134. Cornell University Department of Soil Crop amp Atmospheric Sciences SCAS Teaching Series No T93 2 Revision 6 Ithaca NY USA February 1997 ALES Automated Land Evaluation System ALES Version 4 65 User s Manual February 1997 Printing David G Rossiter Armand R Van Wambeke ALES Project Internet ales cornell edu Department of Soil Crop amp Atmospheric Sciences SCAS FAX 1 607 255 8615 or 2644 Bradfield amp Emerson Halls 10th floor Voice 1 607 255 3207 Cornell University WWW http wwwscas cit cornell edu Ithaca NY 14853 1901 USA landeval ales ales htm Internet discussion group ales l cornell edu ALES computer program amp documentation Cornell University 1988 1997 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Correspondence regarding this manual or the ALES program should be addressed to ALES Project Department of Soil Crop amp Atmospheric Sciences SCAS Bradfield Hall 10th floor Cornell University Ithaca NY 14853 1901 USA Internet ales cornell edu FAX 1 607 255 8615 or 2644 Voice 1 607 255 3207 World Wide Web http wwwscas cit cornell edu landeval ales ales htm Internet discussion group ales 1 cornell edu Notice This documentation may be freely copied or translated as long the copyright notice ALES computer program amp documentation Cornell University 1988 1997 and this notice is included unchanged This document and al
135. E k orae e aaaea eSis 24 An annotated bibliography of land evaluation eee eeceeeeesseeceseeeeeecececesecseeseneeeesaee 26 Installing Configuring and Running ALES 31 System TequireMents isese oae nia ike eaten ss rensea yicaetesis A A A EaR 31 Installation procedures irons c Si PS oa Ss phen d Pada Sa bse ces Paks peta dose onda Raabe eties i ee 32 Running ALES under a single tasking operating system DOS eeeceeseeeseeeeneeeeee 39 Running ALES under Multi tasking Operating Systems eseceeseeeseeeeneeeeneeeeteeeeeaee 42 Installing and running ALES on a Novell Local Area Network 45 Customizing ALES 1 6 Sects fa Sess cvs aa eeto aeree adel conten vices sdb POENOS E Stash Aaa tebeslov Pee aA 47 Removing ALES from your computer SYSteM csscccsseeceeseeesseecsneeceseeeesaeeesaeessaeeesee 51 Learning ALES 52 Tutorial 1 Consulting a modelni a aaa n aaae oat eit 53 Tutorial 2 entering data and running an evaluation eseeeseeeseeereeereseresererreeressrereresees 65 Tutorial 3 Building a Model 0 0 eee eeeeeeeseessseeceeecsseeceseeessaeecsacecsseeseeseseeeesaeesseesenees 99 Tutorial 4 Refining a Model eee eeeeeeneecseessneecsseecsseecesaeecsecesaeecsaeesseesesaeeesaeenaes 143 Putorial 5 ALIDRIS o oo ssi ceveaten sae ces tet ea A asia ee aa iat em AEE OER 175 Building ALES models 182 Outline of the model building process eceeeeeeeeeesneeseneceeeeseessaeecseeseseeseeeeeseeeesaes 182 Physic
136. ES using F8 at the list of models The file TUTOR2 ALS supplied on one of your ALES distribution disks contains this model In ALES select model Tutor2 You can test ALIDRIS Options 1 and 3 right away as these take Land Characteristics from the dat base If you want to test Options 2 and 4 you will first have to compute an evaluation Menu 1 4 Evaluations Option 1 Compute an evaluation Moving ALES to another location If you move ALES to another computer system for example a newer computer or a computer at another office or to another disk or directory on the same system for example to rearrange the files on your hard disk you will have to re enter the PaperKey information the next time you start ALES or MUMPS You don t have to go through the whole installation procedure you can copy MUMPS and ALES with the DOS xcopy command or with a file manager such as XTree or with the DOS BACKUP and RESTORE commands but MUMPS and ALES won t run in the new location until you re enter the PaperKey information Each copy of DataTree MUMPS and ALES is licensed for use on one computer system at atime You may transfer ALES to another system or even leave it installed in several systems as long as there is no possibility that more than one copy can be used at the same time If you move ALES to another system you can leave ALES installed on the original system if you remove the key so that ALES won
137. F3 to initiate the recomputation Select Yes really recompute the evaluation ALES now re computes and re displays the matrix with the changed results When ALES finishes re computing you will see that the NPV s of LUT ccc d have greatly improved and in fact are now all cost effective some were negative at 10 interest Check that the highlight is still on map unit CeB and LUT ccc d and then Press F2 to see the cash flows you will see that the cash flows for the later years in the plan are worth much more as present value than they were with the higher discount rate Since the cash flows for all years past the first are positive the lower discount rate results in increasing present value Let s change the discount rate back to its original value to leave the tutorial in good condition for the next person Note that the annunciator line shows that F4 may be used to edit the discount rate directly from this Why screen since it is relevant to the displayed calculation so Press F4 to display the data entry form for discount rate Change the discount rate to 10 Press F10 to confirm the original discount rate Press F10 to return to the evaluation matrix Now to return to the original evaluation results follow the procedures of this section to Recompute the evaluation results We re done looking at the results for Net Present Value so Press F10
138. In particular you must adjust the batch files which start ALES if you are using Windows 95 Running ALES for the first time The first time you start DataTree MUMPS or any program that uses it such as ALES after installating DataTree MUMPS you have to enter your special PaperKey code The Paper Key is your proof of ownership of a license from DataTree for MUMPS as well as Cornell for ALES You must enter your special PaperKey code the first time you start ALES or DataTree MUMPS Locate your paper key which is part of your license document from DataTree Connect to the directory where you installed MUMPS and ALES and type the command ALES and press the ENTER key You will see the message Pleas nter the license registration information exactly as shown on your PaperKey Certificate KEY Enter the Paper Key code exactly as it appears on the Paper Key form including punctuation and spaces This code looks something like 6000 001 E0594 U1 J4 L1 X3 V708230 Note that the code for your license will definitely be different from this example ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 36 February 1997 If you enter the key correctly MUMPS will next prompt you for the supplier name Enter this as it appears on the paper key certificate This is usually CORNELL UNIVERSITY SCAS Enter the Supplier Name exactly as it appears on the Paper Key form including punctuation and spaces and upper or lower case letters as shown
139. Ithaca NY USA Lecture notes from a graduate level course in land evaluation methods Available on the Internet at http wwwscas cit cornell edu landeval le_notes lecnot htm ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 26 February 1997 Sys C Van Ranst E amp Debaveye J 1991 Land evaluation Part 1 Principles in land evaluation and crop production calculations Part 2 Methods in land evaluation Agricultural Publications 7 General Administration for Development Cooperation Brussels This is the text used in the University of Ghent s training course for professional soil scientists Sys C Van Ranst E Debaveye J amp Beernaert F 1993 Land evaluation Part 3 Crop requirements Part 3 of the Ghent land evaluation training course Agricultural Publications 7 General Administration for Development Cooperation Brussels These are the only publication where extensive crop requirement tables have been collected Use with caution These should be validated in each study area and for each Land Utilization Type Primary sources Beatty Marvin T Petersen Gary W amp Swindale Leslie D eds 1979 Planning the uses and management of land Agronomy Monograph 21 American Society of Agronomy Madison WI USA Large 1027 page collection of articles on land use planning from the perspective of natural resource scientists Emphasis on practical problems of land use in the USA Beek Klaas Jan 1978
140. LIDRIS make sure that the IDRISI environment is set to point to the images or value files you want to reclassify For example suppose the IDRISI images you want to re classify are located in p DATA maps First using the IDRISI environ command you should specify this data path This ensures that the environment file IDRISI ENV points to the correct images Find this file 1pRISI ENV on your system it is almost always located in the IDRISI home directory where IDRISI is installed for example c I1DRISI Then answer the ALES question as follows Where is the IDRISI environment file c idrisi Once the environment file is located ALIDRIS determines the IDRISI version number and displays this at the top of its menu This menu has four options 1 7 ALES gt IDRISI Interface V4 Reclassify IDRISI raster image with LC values Reclassify IDRISI raster image with evaluation results Reclassify IDRISI values file with LC values Reclassify IDRISI values file with evaluation results Options 1 amp 2 are discussed in the next section and 3 amp 4 in the following ALIDRIS applied to raster images The existing image must be of data type integer or byte and file format binary or ASCII with the integer codes representing the ALES map units This image must have a documentation file with a legend giving the correspondence between the IDRISI integer codes and the ALES alphanumeric map unit codes i e the ALES
141. Menu 1 2 3 Economic parameters for LUT 1 Discount Rate Form discount rate 2 Economic class limits Gross Margin Form lower limits for suitability classes s1 s2 and s3 3 Economic class limits Net Present Value Form lower limits for suitability classes s1 s2 and s3 4 Economic class limits Internal Rate of Return Form lower limits for suitability classes s1 s2 and s3 5 Economic class limits Benefit Cost Ratio Form lower limits for suitability classes s1 s2 and s3 4 Inputs annual List which input Form number of units per unit area per year 5 Inputs by year Choose which year List which input Form number of units per unit area this year 6 Outputs List output Menu 1 2 6 Specification options for LUT Output 1 Optimum yield years when produced how yield is affected Form Optimum yield years when produced reduce yield delay production 2 proportional yield decision tree Decision Tree Editor 3 Multiplicative Yield Factors Select multiplicative yield factors for which LUR Form multiplicative yield factors for each severity level of the LQ 4 Limiting Yield Factors Select limiting yield factors for which LUR Form limiting yield factors for each severity level of the LQ 5 Production dependent inputs List which input Form Number of units of the selected input per unit of production of this output 7 Land Use Requirements List land use requirements Menu 1 2 7 Specification options for LUT LUR
142. No 6 Enschede The Netherlands Burrough P A 1986 Principles of geographical information systems for land resources assessment Monographs on Soil and Resources Survey No 12 Oxford Science Publishers New York Cornell University 1989 1989 Cornell Recommends for field crops New York State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Cooperative Extension Ithaca NY Cox W J amp S D Klausner eds 1987 Cornell Field Crops and Soils Handbook 2nd ed New York State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Cooperative Extension Ithaca NY DataTree Inc 1986 DTM PC reference manual and operations guide DataTree Inc Waltham MA Date C J 1990 An introduction to data base systems 5th ed Addison Wesley Reading MA Davidson D A 1980 Soils and land use planning Longman s London Davidson D A 1992 The evaluation of land resources Longman Scientific London Davidson D A ed 1986 Land evaluation Van Nostrand Reinhold AVI Dent D amp A Young 1981 Soil survey and land evaluation George Allen and Unwin London England van Diepen C A Van Keulen H Wolf J amp Berkhout J A A 1991 Land evaluation from intuition to quantification In B A Stewart Eds Advances In Soil Science 15 139 204 Springer New York Dumanski J and C Onofrei 1989 Techniques of crop yield assessment for agricultural land evaluation Soil Use amp Management 5 1 9 16 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual
143. ON and listing the IDRISI images LIST If you are not so familiar with IDRISI you should follow at least the first four IDRISI tutorials before continuing This tutorial follows the command structure of IDRISI V4 for DOS In IDRISI for Windows you must find the equivalent command on the menus or you can use the Command box to type the command directly The basic idea of ALIDRIS is that the ALES database or evaluation results are used to reclassify an existing IDRISI raster image that represents the map units in the ALES database From one IDRISI base map which shows the ALES map units ALIDRIS can make single factor maps of any land characteristic in the ALES database any Land Quality of any Land Utilization Type LUT or the final evaluation results physical or economic for any LUT without the need for any further work in IDRISI Then IDRISI can be used to display the derived maps or apply any GIS operations on them distances adjacency operators cross tabulation etc ALIDRIS can also be applied to IDRISI values files commonly used to give legends to vector maps The base map Before you can use ALIDRIS you must already have a base map of the land mapping units that you are using in the ALES evaluation In this tutorial we will not create this map but rather use one that has already been created for the tutorial Normally you would create a base map by digitizing an existing paper map of the map units with the TOSCA di
144. Rate of Return IRR based on the cash flows in units of currency per hectare Except for the gross margin these all depend on the discount rate which is the interest rate to be applied to future cash flows In a commercial non inflationary environment this is the rate at which money may be borrowed In an inflationary environment if it is assumed that costs and prices will rise together with inflation the discount rate can be set equal to the commercial interest rate less the inflation rate the so called adjusted discount rate For project analysis the discount rate is often set to a lower value than the commercial interest rate to reflect the social value of the project a so called social discount rate Each of these metrics have their uses 1 The gross margin is appropriate for LUT s that do not involve any land improvements with a one year or short term rotation planning horizon The gross margin is not susceptible to errors due to incorrect assumptions about the discount rate LUTs with different planning horizons can be compared with this measure since it is expressed on a per year basis The comments of Dent amp Young p 177 in FAO 1983 are relevant here Because of the assumptions involved in discounted cash flow analysis it is better to use gross margins as a basis for land suitability classification where possible namely where land improvements are not important or not costly in relation to annual production Whe
145. S Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 222 February 1997 Some facts about evaluation results export If the xBase key field is not unique i e there are more than one record with the same value of the key field the same ALES evaluation results values will be written to every record with the same LMU code This is the usual situation when writing to a PAT It is possible to ask for the same evaluation results to be written to multiple fields just specify the same evaluation results as the source for several fields when you specify the template When exporting to numeric xBase fields non numeric ALES evaluation results will be ignored If the length of a continuous numeric ALES value e g gross margin formatted according to the xBase field specification is wider than the xBase field the value will be ignored For example if the gross margin is 1 234 56 it will just fit into a xBase field of type N7 2 and also into N6 1 or N4 0 because the decimals will be removed but not in N6 2 N5 1 or N3 0 When exporting to logical xBase fields any numeric evaluation result other than zero will be written as True Numeric zero and any character value other than T or t will be written as False When exporting numeric results e g Internal Rate of Return to character xBase fields these results will be written as character strings with all decimal values as displayed in the ALES evaluation results matrix If the complete string will
146. S or its products The basic flow of information is as follows y First model builders construct and validate ALES models for the set of Land Utilization Types to be considered in the study working with a group of land use experts V Second model users enter land data and ask the program to compute evaluation results V Third evaluation consumers use the results of the evaluation to make their land use decisions They might also use ALES in consultation mode V All the while the system administrator ensures that the computer system including ALES is working correctly The following sections explain these roles in more detail Model builder This is the person who constructs the expert system within the ALES framework This person can be the land evaluation specialist or a specialist in the use of ALES working with the land evaluation project team There is no need for the model builder to be a computer programmer or systems analyst however familiarity with the principles of systems analysis will certainly be helpful The model builder is often a natural resource scientist e g soil scientist charged with conducting a land evaluation Since no scientist is expert in every field the model builder must build a team of land use experts to help make the decision decisions as models are built Since these experts will not be versed in ALES terminology nor land evaluation methods the model builder must translate the expert judgments int
147. S will infer values of the set of derived LC s specified by the user thus over writing any directly entered values The idea here is that the model user is directly asking ALES to infer values To see the values of derived LC s not used to determine LQ s the model builder must set up a data entry template which includes these LC s and then display the data entry form or matrix using this template Modifying Land Characteristic definitions ALES is designed for incremental model building and so allows you to change everything about the model In particular Land Characteristic classes can be added or deleted from both LCs with units Menu 1 1 4a Options 7 amp 8 and without Menu 1 1 4b Options 5 amp 6 Land Characteristic codes can be changed Menu 1 1 Option 4 select the LC to recode then Alt F6 All decision trees and LUTs will be adjusted accordingly Decision procedures The heart of an ALES model is the set of decision procedures by which land suitability may be assessed There are several steps to this as explained in the computation diagram of Appendix 3 The following sections explain the different decision procedures used in ALES models Determining physical suitability subclasses The FAO method differentiates between physical suitability classes and subclasses Classes are used to express the overall physical suitability rating on a scale of 1 completely suitable to some maximum physically unsuitable t
148. Select Land Use Requirement code pfc Specifying Severity levels You are now being asked for the number of severity levels of the corresponding land quality for the Land Use Requirement potential for construction i e the number of classes of this land quality that will be distinguished in the context of the current LUT The default value of 4 is displayed recall that we specified this default when we defined LUR pfc in the reference list of LUR codes For this Land Use Requirement the default of four severity levels is correct Level 1 will correspond to no problems with construction level 2 to additional costs for drainage level 3 to additional costs for earth moving and level 4 to extreme conditions that make construction impractical In this example level 3 is not necessarily worse than level 2 they just represent different types of additional costs which are not necessarily increasing as the severity level increases To accept the displayed value of 4 severity levels Press F10 to confirm the form Note The number of severity levels can be changed with Options 8 and 9 of Menu 1 2 7 Specification options for Land Use Requirement Now you will see menu 1 2 7 Specification options for LUT LUR tdp pfc The first menu option is used to give descriptive names to the four severity levels these will appear along with the severity level in reports explanations consultation mode etc and are
149. Such areas must be placed in the highest numbered physical suitability class since this is the class that corresponds to FAO suitability subclass n2 i e physically unsuitable In this evaluation that is class 4 corresponding to FAO suitability subclass N2 physically unsuitable ALES does not carry out an economic evaluation of land that is rated as physically unsuited for a Land Utilization Type The other reason for doing a physical suitability assessment is to indicate the degree and nature of physical limitations to management The various physical suitability subclasses can be expected to have different management requirements To specify how ALES should determine overall physical suitability Select Menu 1 2 Option 8 Physical Suitability Subclasses Menu 1 2 8 Physical suitability options for LUT tdp with three options should now appear The simplest method by which ALES determines the physical suitability of each land unit from the set of Land Use Requirements is the maximum limitation method This is very easy for the model builder to specify and is appropriate if the severity levels of each Land Quality represent the same degree of physical limitation to the Land Utilization Type In the present example this is true each LUR was defined with four severity levels and the meanings of the levels are roughly comparable as we can see from the following table ALES Version 4 65
150. These are followed by five data fields giving the actual and discounted cash flows The record format is Lmuld d LutId d YrId d cash in d cash out d PV in d PV out d NPV ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 242 February 1997 where 1 d is the field delimiter 2 Lmuld is the map unit code 3 LutlId is the land utilization type code 4 YrId is the year within the planning horizon 5 cash in is the actual cash in to the LUT from sales of outputs in the local currency 6 cash out is the actual cash out from the LUT for purchase of inputs 7 PV in and 8 PV out are the discounted values of these at the beginning of the planning horizon 9 NPV is the net present value i e PV in PV out Here is an example output AaA agh 1 187 17 156 28 183 5 156 28 27 22 AaA agh 2 249 99 335 2 240 27 328 61 88 34 Spreadsheet format of the evaluation matrix The spreadsheet format output resembles the evaluation results matrix V The first top row contains the LUT codes V The first leftmost columns of each row after the first contain the LMU codes V The columns and rows after the first contain the results as they are displayed in the evaluation results matrix Any kind of result physical or economic suitability classes yields Land Qualities profitability can be written in this format Non numeric results are enclosed in quotation marks Files written with this option can be read dire
151. This tutorial does not explore all the capabilities of ALES consult mode it is mainly an introduction to interacting with ALES 2This section assumes that you want to start ALES directly from DOS You may also have installed ALES under a multitasking operating system such as OS 2 Microsoft Windows or DesqView or as an item in a menu system such as the MS DOS shell or you may normally start your programs from a shell such as the Norton Commander or Xtree Gold In this case you should already know how to run CONSULT BAT ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 53 February 1997 1 Change to the disk where ALES is installed Typically this will be disk drive c Supposing this to be the case at the DOS prompt Type c and Press the Enter key If you are already working on disk c you can omit this command 2 Change to the directory where ALES is installed Typically this will be directory dtm Supposing this to be the case at the DOS prompt Type cd dtm and Press Enter If you are already connected to directory dtm you can omit this command 3 Start ALES in consultation mode At the DOS prompt Type consult and Press Enter At this point you should see the initial welcome screen which includes the program name your organization s name and the serial number Press any key for example Enter to continue beyond this screen Selecting the evaluation model to cons
152. Users Manual Page 131 February 1997 Land Use Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Requirement no limitation needs drainage extra impossible re for earthmoving construction high moderate very low water availability no limitation lime lime impossible water quel In all cases level 4 means that the land use is impractical and level 1 means that there is no limitation Levels 2 and 3 are increasingly severe limitations assuming that extra earthmoving is more difficult that extra drainage So the maximum limitation method is appropriate in this case The more general method of determining physical suitability is with a physical suitability subclass decision tree this can account for interactions between Land Qualities This method is presented in Tutorial 4 Select Menu 1 2 8 Option 2 Choose factors for Maximum Limitation A set box will appear with the title Consider which LUR s in the Maximum Limitation showing the three LURs defined for this LUT In a set box we can pick any number of items In the present case all three LURs should be used in the maximum limitation method of determining physical suitability So Press F6 to select all the LURs You will see a diamond next to all three LUR codes Press F10 to confirm this set and return to menu 1 2 8 Press F10 999 to return to menu 1 2 Specification options for LUT tdp Now ALES knows how to evaluate the overal
153. Utilization Type To consult ALES enter with the DOS batch command file CONSULT 2 In this mode users can not change the model or economic parameters However they can record the values of the land characteristics that they entered during the consultation in a map unit in the database for later use either in this mode or with the EVALUATE batch command file System administrator This person works with the operating system performs backups adds and configures new hardware and programs and so forth The system administrator is responsible for installing and maintaining ALES They may also be called on to interface ALES with other systems The system administrator enters ALES with the DOS batch command file ALES and may also use the DOS batch command file UTIL to maintain the MUMPS system Tutorial 2 explains how to use ALES in this mode 2Tutorial 1 explains how to use ALES in this mode ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 9 February 1997 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 10 February 1997 Introduction to Land Evaluation This chapter introduces the concepts of land evaluation and how they are realized in the ALES software What is land evaluation The result of a land evaluation is a prediction of the use potential of land for several actual or proposed land use systems In other words land evaluation predicts how each land area would behave if it were used according to each of these systems Its main purp
154. V1 and V2 was developed Ms Mary Ellen Niederhofer of Cornell s Department of Soil Crop amp Atmospheric Sciences has served as ALES project coordinator since mid 1989 She is responsible for inquiries and sales ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 3 February 1997 Introduction to ALES This Chapter provides an overview of the ALES program and project as well as the different people who use ALES and the results of ALES land evaluations The ALES program The Automated Land Evaluation System or ALES is a computer program that allows land evaluators to build expert systems to evaluate land according to the method presented in the Food and Agriculture Organization Framework for Land Evaluation FAO 1976 It is intended for use in project or regional scale land evaluation The entities evaluated by ALES are map units which may be defined either broadly as in reconnaissance surveys and general feasibility studies or narrowly as in detailed resource surveys and farm scale planning Since each model is built by a different evaluator to satisfy local needs there is no fixed list of land use requirements by which land uses are evaluated and no fixed list of land characteristics from which land qualities are inferred Instead these lists are determined by the evaluator to suit local conditions and objectives To reiterate the key points Evaluators build their own expert systems with ALES taking into account local conditions a
155. VAL GBL instead of something like DATASET F DTM EVAL EVAL GBL Change all the other datasets to be read only for example DATASET F DTM ALES5 ALES5 RT RO Remove the namespace mappings of the temporary files to ALES5 GB this will ensure that the temporary files are in each user s private EVAL GBL So remove these two lines from the mappings MAP Lstate TO ALES5 GB MAP Lvideo TO ALES5 GB Finally you must explicitly list the system databases SYS GBL and SYS RTN in MUMPS DBD and mark them as read only as well these are implicit in stand alone DTM PC system datasets DATASET F DTM SYS GBL RO DATASET F DTM SYS RIN RO Here is an example of a completed MUMPS DBD This example only has English amp Spanish texts ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 46 February 1997 tasets ES V4 65 DTM V4 3 MUMPS DBD Database description file for Novell networks system datasets DATASET F DTM SYS GBL RO DATASET F DIM SYS RTN RO program object code DATASET F DTM ALES5 ALES5 RT RO program support files except text DATASET F DTM ALES5 ALES5 GB RO text databases 1 per language DATASET F DTM ALES5 LTX5E GB RO DATASET F DTM ALES5 LTX5S GB RO user evaluations DATASE Zi EVAL GBL a namespaces a program SE E ALE
156. al and economic evaluations ccescceseccssccescesssecsseeesaeessaeecseeceseeeeseseneeeesaes 183 Defining Land Utlization Types isenesest tlie ESES N TEES Eee ei Deset 188 Land characteris Se cisccdaetebsdverileiasddvevdacodvendustepeplaatesidvapieadepaute E ATE RATE 199 Modifying Land Characteristic definitions esseeeseeeeeeeeeeseereesrsrrrsrrrsrersreseressreserserese 204 D cision PLOCECULES ss 543525 enrian a a REN ET E e aias 204 Multi v l d land dafa ina asertas ae nte ies ahs Pe esha a AES A e KE aea 210 Working with multiple datasets 20 0 ee ceeeesseeesseecsneeceseescecseecsseeeesaeecsaeecaeessaeesseeesee 210 ALES and other computer systems 212 ALES as part of an Integrated Land Evaluation System 0 cceeeeeeseeeseeseneeeeseeeeeeeeee 212 Interfaces with relational databases the ALES xBase interface eee eeeeeeeeeeee 217 Interfaces with GIS hreini re r E A E ee eed a A eee Sn 225 Interfaces with word processors s sseccesseessseeesseeceseecnseeesseeesaeecsseecseeceeeseseeeesaeersaeers 233 Interfaces with spreadsheets csssescesscecsseecsseeceseecneecesaeecsaeecscecsseeceseseseeeesaeeesaeers 234 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page i February 1997 Interfaces between ALES systems ceeesecesseecesseeeseecseecsceecesaeecsaeecseesssaeeesseeesaters 234 File FOrmats x02 E SOE E S A 236 Maintaining an ALES system 246 Progra ELLOLS 55 sos sscbs ces ennot eseeto en ES a
157. al use of this feature would be to go from a Land Characteristic for which data is available to a similar Land Characteristic used in a severity level decision tree The LC used in the severity level tree is typically selected in a top down manner i e according to the severity levels that were to be determined The LC for which data is available is typically found in an existing resource inventory such as a soil survey For example if a soil survey is available with slopes reported in classes 0 3 3 8 8 15 15 30 and gt 30 but the ALES model was set up to use a slope LC with different classes e g 0 5 5 12 12 25 and gt 25 the model builder would set up a second slope LC called for example slope ss meaning slope from the soil survey and then set up the link in the definition of the LC to be inferred i e the one that is to be used in the severity level decision trees An obvious problem with this sort of inference is that the class limits may not match so that a value of the base LC may be assigned to more than one value of the inferred LC In the example above what value of slope should be assigned to a map unit with a slope ss value of 5 12 This range overlaps two classes of slope namely 3 8 and 8 15 The land unit could in fact all be in the first class if the slopes are all less than 8 all in the second if the slopes are all greater than 8 or some land could be in each class
158. alues of currency per unit area plan for discounted cash flow analysis or currency per unit area year for gross margin analysis which divide s1 from s2 s2 from s3 and s3 from n1 If economic class limits for a kind of economic analysis are not specified by the model builder ALES will not be able to display or print FAO economic suitability classes for that kind of analysis The economic class limits are assigned separately for each Land Utilization Type and need not be the same This is because the economic suitabilities are expressed per unit area and some land uses may be much more extensive than others and thus require less present value or gross margin per area to be equally desirable An example is small scale vegetable gardening vs pasture the pastoralist is satisfied with a much lower return per unit area than the gardener The model builder must consider these factors when setting economic class limits The limit between s3 and nl should be set at the gross margin below which the land user will elect not to implement the Land Utilization Type This limit should be non negative i e any positive margin should motivate the farmer however if the farmer s labor has not been considered as an input to the LUT this limit should be some positive amount that takes into account the value of labor since the farmer requires a certain income to be able to live The limit between s1
159. ame values of all Land Characteristics over all its extent Land characteristic values are typically measured in ranges and in a homogeneous map units these ranges cover all the variability in the map unit Typeh Press to confirm this answer and move to the next question ALES is now asking for the land area of this map unit Notice that this question is not marked with an asterisk which means that it is not mandatory We will enter a value nonetheless In the study area map unit SeB occupied 550 acres2 So Type 550 Press to confirm this answer and move to the next question Since there are no questions below this one the highlight moves back to the top of the form and the first question If you make typing mistakes while entering items in the form you can move between questions with the up and down arrow keys Within a question the left and right arrow keys can be used to move around and the Backspace and Del keys can be used to erase mistakes You can always press Fl to see a list of available keys Now you ve filled in all three questions of the form so Press F10 to confirm all the answers in the form at once ALES now records the new map unit in the database Notice that the list of map units now includes the map unit we just defined SeB and in fact the highlight is on it lAs you can see from the annunicator line you can also use Enter to move
160. an increased cost of production the additional costs mentioned in the previous a decreased yield or both Costs of production may be recurrent termed annual costs in ALES or in a specific year within the plan Note that the LUT description must specify that the farmer is aware of this difference in lime requirement between different land units and will treat each land unit according to its need ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 16 February 1997 Costs are expressed by listing the number of units of inputs that are required prices are maintained in a separate table Thus if the price of an input or product changes the entire cost of production can be recomputed With the ease with which ALES computes yields and economic returns the supposed disadvantage of economic evaluation namely that economic conditions change quickly evaporates Within a few minutes an ALES user can enter new economic parameters into a model recompute an evaluation and print the new results Suitability classes Although ALES expresses its economic results in exact monetary amounts the FAO Framework defines two suitability orders S and N and five suitability classes S1 S2 3 NI and N2 For consistency with the Framework ALES allows the exact economic results to be classified into four economic suitability classes S1 S2 S3 and N1 separately for each of the four economic metrics Menu 1 2 3 Options 2 5 As in the FAO Framework class N2 i
161. an write their own notes annotations that can be displayed by the model user to explain the model builder s reasoning ALES runs on the JBM PC microcomputer and its successors and on PC compatible machines i e those which are not made by IBM but which function similarly under the PC DOS operating system or MS DOS for compatibles version 2 3 or later It requires at least 384 Kb of primary RAM memory preferably 640 Kb and a minimum of 3 5 Mb of space on a hard disk Either a color or monochrome monitor may be used It runs under Microsoft Windows V3 1 V3 11 Windows for Workgroups Windows 95 and IBM OS 2 V2 1 or later as well as under PC DOS or MS DOS ALES is written in the MUMPS programming language and uses the DataTree MUMPS language and database system Background of the ALES project ALES was written to meet certain specific needs in the international land evaluation community In this section we discuss the demand that led to ALES then why ALES was built and a little history of the ALES program itself Demand for information There is today a high demand worldwide for information on the suitability of land for a wide range of land uses This demand comes from farmers and other rural land users farmer cooperatives banks and other lending agencies planning offices government ministries and rural and urban development officers The intent of the individual land user is to optimize the use of their land The
162. and moderate erosion hazard is in physical suitability class 1 because there is no single limitation that prohibits the use Suppose however that this combination of two moderate limitations is in fact severe enough to prohibit the use Let s change the tree accordingly Move the cursor to branch 2 limiting Press gt to expand the tree at branch 2 Select Land Use Requirement e erosion hazard Fill in this level as follows f flood hazard 1 me conditions for mechanization 2 limiting e erosion hazard 1 1 none 2me 2 2 slight 3me e 3 3 moderate 4me e de Notice that the combination of limiting mechanization and moderate erosion hazard makes a land area unsuited for this LUT ccc m Press F10 to return to Menu 1 2 8 To see the effects of this change we ll have to recompute the evaluation with this new decision procedure Press F10 three times to return to Menu 1 Main options Compute evaluation results for LUTs ccc and ccc m for map unit test1 View evaluation results for Physical Suitability Subclass You can see a difference between the two methods LUT ccc is rated in physical suitability class 1 whereas LUT ecc m is in physical suitability subclass 3me e even though both have the same severity levels of all LQs This ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 172 February 1997 is because of the decision tree we construc
163. anization s name and the serial number Press any key for example Enter to continue beyond this screen An initial menu will now appear ALES Evaluate Only Evaluate System Options About ALES In this tutorial we will only explore option 1 Evaluate You use Option 2 System Options to change system characteristics such as screen colors the human language English Spanish French or Indonesian and default directories You use Option 3 About ALES to obtain license version and maintenance information The highlight should be on Option 1 Evaluate Press Enter to select menu Option 1 Evaluate You should now be looking at a list of evaluation models in the center of the screen and an annunciator line at the bottom of the screen For this exercise we will use the model named Tutor2 which is a simplification of an evaluation for common field cropping systems in Cayuga County New York State USA If Tutor2 does not appear in the list of evaluation models you must first leave consultation mode press Esc and load it into your list of ALES models The saved model tutor2 als is included in the self extracting archive examples exe on the distribution diskette Copy this file to any convenient place on your hard disk and then run it to extract its files including tutor2 als then start ALES with the DOS command ales and then load tutor2 als int
164. annunciator line that F4 is marked Clear So Press F4 to clear the existing answer and then Type 650 which is the correct number of acres We re done with this form so Press F10 to confirm all the answers in the form at once and return to the list of map units We re done adding map unit definitions for now so Press F10 to return to Menu 1 3 Data Entering and editing land unit data from the keyboard Before ALES can evaluate a map unit it must know the data values for each land characteristic that the model builder has included in the evaluation In other words we must fill in the data base for this map unit Move the highlight to Menu 1 3 Option 4 Data From keyboard Enter or edit Press Enter to select it ALES will now ask which data entry template should be used to enter the data There are two choices in this model template cl climatological LC s and template ss Cayuga County soil survey data as you can see from the choice box Data entry template Data values are entered using one or more data entry templates These are lists of the Land Characteristics which are included in the database Model builders usually group related data items e g that appear on the same paper ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 70 February 1997 form or in the same survey report into templates so that the model user you can enter data separately for
165. aphs Add the following codes to the list of Land Use Requirement codes code levels level names wq water quality 4 none wa water availability 4 none You should now have a list of three LUR codes These are now available for use in all Land Utilization Types and in fact we will add them to the LUT later When you are done entering this list Press F10 to return to Menu 1 1 Reference Lists Now we will enter information on the possible outputs products to be considered in this model Select Menu 1 1 Option 2 Outputs products to enter information on outputs You will see an empty list Only one thing will be produced by our only Land Utilization Type fresh Tilapia fish Press F3 to begin the definition of a new output When asked for the code Enter ti which is an abbreviation for Tilapia and then Press F10 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 106 February 1997 to confirm your entry A three item data entry form now appears For each output we must specify 1 a descriptive name 2 the units in which the output is measured and 3 a selling price per unit For this output Fill in the data entry form 1 Tilapia whole fish 2 kg 3 4 Confirm the form In other words the output is fresh fish and 1 kg of fresh fish sells for 4 Notice that the list now has one item Press F10 to return to Menu 1 1 Reference Lists Select Menu 1 1
166. appropriate DOS command is mumps eval L par 50k 12k 16k The first field mumps is the DOS command name and the second field eval is the namespace in which MUMPS will find its programs and data files The third field L is the routine name in other words the name of the first module of the program to be run in this case L After these fields is a slash and then some program options If there is a third field listed before the slash MUMPS will look for the named program and run it When the program is completed MUMPS will halt and you will again see the DOS prompt This is the way ALES is set up to run The portion of the command line after the forward slash is a list of startup parameters The other way other than program execution mode to run MUMPS is in direct mode You will probably never want to do this In direct mode you are conversing with an interpretive shell this is similar to most BASIC language environments You type MUMPS programming language commands to the shell and it immediately responds by executing these commands The command for entering direct mode in the System namespace is mumps sys par 32k 16k 16k Note there is no third field before the slash so MUMPS doesn t start a program Instead it displays the MUMPS shell prompt a single left carat greater than sign i e gt There are many MUMPS commands but only two that you need to know in ord
167. aracteristics e g cloud cover latitude elevation which defines optimum This illustrates the importance of knowing and stating in the model the area of applicability of a model Depending on the purpose of the evaluation exercise the area of applicability may be larger than the area to be evaluated For example to compare yields on a national or continental scale the optimum yield could be set to the expected optimum in the country as a whole even though only a section of the country is being evaluated The level at which the optimum yield is set has a great impact on economic evaluations It should be set according to the purposes of the evaluation For example if the Land Utilization Type is to be implemented by risk averse farmers it should be set conservatively e g the lowest expected yield over a ten year period or an average yield less 20 In this way the optimum yield will be attained on the best land in the evaluation area except in unusually bad years On the other hand if the farmers have sufficient reserves to withstand unfavorable years an average yield would be an appropriate level for the optimum yield In some situations the same crop may have different yields at different harvests within a rotation An example would be early midsummer and late summer cuttings of a forage It would not be correct to specify three crops per year each with the same optimum yield To solve this problem the same cr
168. ary 1997 Problem Only some data are imported to an ALES Land Mapping Unit Some of the data in the xBase file may be invalid In particular for classified Land Characteristics the equivalent field of the xBase file must contain valid class codes any invalid codes will be ignored Similarly for discrete Land Characteristics the equivalent field of the xBase file must contain valid numeric values that fall within the data validation range any out of range values will be ignored Also ALES can not match any LMU codes with trailing spaces e g CeB Embedded spaces will work however e g Ce B Problem Evaluation results appear for only some polygons in a PAT So the resulting ArcView map has holes The most likely causes are 1 some polygons have a null key field or 2 the key field for some polygons contains a LMU code that is not in the ALES database or 3 the key field for some polygons contains a LMU code that is in the ALES database but you didn t ask ALES to compute results for that LMU Problem some of my compound map unit constituents are not being imported Most likely you did not first define or import all the homogeneous constituents Another possibility is that the percentages of the constituents for a compound map unit do not sum to 100 Do a summary report on your xBase table grouping by compound map unit and summing the field with the percentages to see if the sums are in fact
169. ast the point you re at before you start a fix up process You should always be in a situation where if all else fails you can re install ALES from scratch i e from the original distribution diskettes and then re load your evaluations and data into it Program errors You may encounter a program error while running ALES These can be caused by programming errors by a model which exceeds the capacity of the program unlikely or combinations of circumstances unforeseen when the program was designed as well as by limitations of the computer system such as a full disk If an error occurs an error message will appear in front of the other windows giving the internal MUMPS name of the error and its location in the program If you wish you can copy the message and contact the ALES project along with information about the circumstances in which the error occurred You can try to avoid the error by making sure your model is reasonably complete and contains reasonable values often problems occur when unforeseen data values exceed the capacity of the system Some kinds of errors call for action on your part In particular if you see a Disk Full error this is because ALES has attempted to allocate more disk space for an evaluation model or data and was not able to because at least 512Kb was not free You must free up at least this much disk space before restarting ALES If you see a Dataset Full or Index pages full
170. at in the annunciator line F2 is marked Why Land Characteristic value so Press F2 to find out why this map unit is in soil management subgroup 2A ALES displays the fifth Why screen in the chain showing a land characteristic to land characteristic decision tree which the model builder constructed to allow inference from the basic map unit properties here type of parent material amount of limestone in the parent material and Soil Taxonomy family particle size class to the higher level LC here the management group When you are done looking at the tree Press F10 to return to the explanation of Land Quality nr Then Press F10 to return to the breakdown of additional costs by Land Use Requirement Editing economic parameters and re computing an evaluation Since in this exercise we started ALES with the evaluate command although you can t change most aspects of the models e g such as decision trees you are able to edit some economic parameters namely input purchase prices output selling prices and discount rates In this section you ll learn how to edit economic parameters and then re compute an evaluation Input prices Notice that in annunciator line in the present explanation of the additional costs F5 is marked Edit prices This is the editable economic parameter that affects the calculation that is shown on the current Why screen Let s s
171. ategory 1 which corresponds to s1 2 This completes the basic tutorial on the use of ALIDRIS More fun with ALIDRIS and IDRISI If you want to see a bit of the power of IDRISI combined with ALIDRIS continue with this section No explicit how to instructions will be given instead you will be told what to do not how to do it Answer category 3 s3 2TAnswer 27 8 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 180 February 1997 1 Use ALIDRIS to make thematic map of the economic suitability class based on gross margin analysis for LUT ccc d i e the related LUT to ccc but with artificial drainage The name of this map should be ccc dgme the default suggested by ALIDRIS 2 In IDRISI use OVERLAY to subtract the thematic map for ccc d with drainage from the map for ccc without drainage calling the result dif This map shows the areas which changed their suitability when drained It has values which could range from 6 to 6 In order to use COLOR add 6 to the map with SCALAR call the result difl Display this map with COLOR Question A large part of this map has value 6 i e had value 0 before SCALAR was used What can you say about these areas Question How much did the suitability change in all map units 2 Question What map units benefit most from drainage 3 Maybe a better way to examine the effect of drainage on the economic suitability is to run CROSST
172. ates Set Print which templates C List Land Use Requirements by LUT D List Outputs by LUT E List Inputs by LUT F List Land Characteristics by LUT6 6 Consult Select evaluate for which LUT Select start with data from a map unit in the database Yes ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 266 February 1997 Select map unit Consultation F2 Why consultation results F3 Re consult F10 Done with consultation Select save the data from this consultation Yes Enter map unit code Enter descriptive name 7 ALIDRIS Enter path to IDRISI program first time only Menu 1 7 ALES gt IDRISI interface V4 1 Reclassify an IDRISI raster image with LC values Enter name of the source image Select land characteristic to map Enter name for the new IDRISI map 2 Reclassify an IDRISI raster image with evaluation results Enter name of the source image Select Land Utilization Type to report Select Type of evaluation result to report like Menu 1 4 Option 2 Enter name for the new IDRISI map 3 Reclassify an IDRISI values file with LC values Enter name of source values file Select land characteristic to map Enter name for the new IDRISI values file 4 Reclassify an IDRISI values file with evaluation results Enter name of source values file Select Land Utilization Type to report Select Type of evaluation result to report like Menu 1 4 Option 2 Enter name for the new IDRISI values file 8 ALES xBase Menu 1 8 ALES xBase tra
173. atic maps of land characteristics with the additional step that suitability rating must have been computed for a LUT prior to a thematic map for that LUT being produced First let s ensure that an evaluation has been computed Run ALES select the evaluation model Tutor2 select main menu item 4 Evaluations in menu 1 4 select menu item 1 Compute an evaluation mark with F3 LUTs ccc and ccc d to be evaluated select all the map units with F6 finally press F10 so that ALES will compute the evaluation When ALES finishes computing the evaluation display the evaluation results matrix by selecting menu item 2 View then selecting the report for Gross margin economic class the last item on the list of report types What are the economic suitability classes for map unit ErA for the two LUTs 2 Return to the main menu by pressing F10 three times and select item 7 ALIDRIS If you left ALES to view the IDRISI map of drainage classes you will have to enter the path to IDRISI again otherwise this question is skipped In the ALIDRIS menu select item 2 Reclassify an IDRISI raster image with evaluation results Enter the name of the source image namely TutorS exactly as in the previous section ALIDRIS will now ask which LUT should be used to make the thematic map Select LUT ccc corn grain continuous conventional tillage ALDRIS then asks for the type of map
174. ations due to daylength could be corrected by putting supplemental lighting in the field So strictly speaking there are no completely limiting Land Use Requirements In practical terms however there certainly are The model builder determines the concept of impracticality in the context of the Land Utilization Type LURs which reduce yields These LURs typically have to do with intrinsic factors of plant growth such as water light temperature and nutrients Some limitations to culture can also be included here e g planting conditions or harvesting conditions The model builder must determine which Land Qualities can reduce yield LURs which increase costs Limitations can result in reduced yields however in the context of a Land Utilization Type we may choose to correct completely or partially a limitation by increasing inputs Any yield reducing Land Use Requirement can be included here as well If certain severity levels of a Land Quality increase costs the model builder expresses this by listing the additional inputs which can be either annual recurring or one time at one or more specific years within the plan The inputs are selected from the same reference list of inputs mentioned above Each severity level may have a different amount of the input needed to correct the limitation Although the application of an input to correct a limitation may be attractive to the extensionist it may not be so to the land user who may prefer
175. ave any number of outputs Harvest years For each output of a Land Utilization Type the years in the plan when the output is harvested must be specified An output may be harvested not at all once or several times within any given year From this information ALES is able to determine the present value of the output over the extent of the plan Thus ALES can evaluate multiple crops intercrops perennial crops etc any outputs specified to be harvested in year 1 are discounted For example consider a six year planning horizon corresponding to the following rotation first year establish alfalfa with an oat nurse crop harvest the oat grain and straw and take one cutting of alfalfa second and third years take three cuttings of alfalfa fourth year take three cuttings of alfalfa and then plow it down with a cover crop of winter rye fifth year harvest the rye as green chop plow it down and plant corn harvest corn grain sixth year plant and harvest corn grain In this situation we have the following outputs and years when harvested oat grain 1 oat straw 1 alfalfa 1 2 2 2 3 3 3 4 4 4 rye green chop 5 corn grain 5 6 For perennial crops there are typically fewer harvests than the plan length For example a forest stand that is expected to last 30 years 1 e this is the length of planning horizon may have a thinning crop at 5 10 and 15 years and a timber crop at 30 years so that we have the following outputs a
176. ayed in Why screens and reports whenever the 4e class is displayed Enter and confirm subclass name non arable Now the list of subclasses has one item namely 4e with the descriptive name non arable At this point we can add a note to this subclass since it has an entry in the list The cursor is already on this item in the list so Press Alt F9 to start the note editor Enter and confirm an appropriate note You might say something about there being too severe an erosion hazard for row crops Note in the list of subclasses that code 4e has the symbol to its left indicating that there is a note for this item Press F10 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 173 February 1997 to return to the evaluation matrix Press F10 four times to return to the list of evaluation models You might want to save your model to diskette with F7 Congratulations you ve finished Tutorial 4 You should now be able to use a wide variety of techniques to build ALES models Refer to Chapter 8 for a full discussion of the various model building concepts Press F10 twice to leave ALES and return to the operating system How to delete evaluation models In Tutorial 3 you learned how to make a backup copy of an evaluation model knowledge base and database Eventually you will want to delete evaluation models For example once you are done with the tutorials there is no need
177. be compared on the basis of what people are willing to pay for them While it is true that at times this simplistic view of the common basis of currency can be carried too far it has a certain validity Several objections may be raised to economic evaluations 1 Economic evaluations are unstable over time This is certainly true However ALES makes it extremely easy to recompute an entire evaluation with changed economic parameters such as prices of inputs and outputs and interest rates An economic evaluation implemented in ALES can be completely revised in response to changed economics in a matter of minutes 2 Economic parameters are difficult to obtain This is true in general However decision makers including individual farmers and planners base much of their decision on economics and they must obtain best estimates of things like expected prices So it does not seem unreasonable to ask the evaluator to determine these In also seems quite desirable to force natural resource specialists to work with agricultural economists 3 People don t base their decisions on economics alone Again this is very true However without adequate economic return a land use is patently impossible There are two kinds of distortions to pure economic decisions cultural and societal A cultural bias is best handled by omitting the Land Utilization Type in question from consideration For example if in a certain area it is considere
178. c is important Although the geographic characteristics of each individual delineation can be input into the ALES database it is usually more convenient to conduct the geographical analysis in a GIS The ALES evaluation results predicted yields and individual Land Quality ratings can be used as data overlays in the GIS ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 213 February 1997 Diagrams The following diagrams show ALES as part of an integrated land evaluation system that also includes a soils and laboratory database programs and vector and raster based GIS In this example a special interface program is included to extract information from the soil survey and soil laboratory databases and compute Land Characteristics2 that will be used in ALES decision trees These are modified from the integrated land evaluation system of the Second Land Resource Evaluation and Planning Project Part C Strengthening Soil Resources Mapping Centre for Soil and Agroclimate Research Bogor W Java Indonesia 2 For example available water capacity to a specified depth ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 214 February 1997 ALES as part of an Integrated Land Evaluation System 1 Soil Laboratory Analysis DataBase Field Observation amp Sampling laboratory Laboratory results Analysis Sites Series amp Mapping Units DataBases Site amp Horizon S amp H DataBase Define ie
179. ce box titled Production dependent inputs for LUT tdp Output ti with only the dummy item Manual labor is needed when harvesting the Tilapia fish to process and package them Naturally the more fish the more work So Press F3 to add a new input to the list You will see a selection list of all the inputs that were defined in the reference list of inputs Menu 1 1 Option 3 Select input labor ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 130 February 1997 Now you are being asked how many days of labor per kg of fish is required The key point is that the amount of work depends on how much fish was produced which you can see by the units of measure Enter 002 That is one person can process 500 kg in one full day note that 1 500 0 002 Confirm the data entry form There are no more production dependent inputs so Press F10 to return to Menu 1 2 6 We don t need to say anything more about output Tilapia so Press F10 to return to the list of outputs There are no more outputs for this Land Utilization Type so Press F10 999 to return to menu 1 2 Specification options for LUT tdp Determining physical suitability subclasses We now must tell ALES how to determine the physical suitability of each land area from its set of severity levels of the land qualities A physical suitability assessment is always necessary to exclude areas that are physically unsuitable
180. ch is enforced by the table structure the one to one relation between map units and attribute value is not an automatic result of the table structure For example the sample table could be edited using TABLES so that one polygon of map unit 7 was silty clay loam and another was silt loam leading to a logical inconsistency the map unit is the same so the texture should be the same but the table shows otherwise This is also known as an update anomaly A related problem is redundancy in the table e g the fact that map unit 7 has silty clay loam topsoil is repeated many times In database terms both these problems risk of inconsistency and redundancy arise because the single table database presented above is not fully relational This leads to a more consistent table structure a fully relational database which we now discuss Homogeneous map units fully relational database We remove the redundancies and possible inconsistencies by normalizing the table into two tables which are related on a common field which in this case is the key field of the first example i e the map unit ID Here are two tables equivalent to the first example First the PAT itself ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 227 February 1997 Second the map unit table RECNO LMU_ID TEXT_A PS_LUT3 s 133 sil Because these are normalized it is impossible to have an inconsistent result where two polygons of the same map unit have
181. codes and the text may appear garbled Some word processors from the dark ages of the PC only work with 7 bit characters and use overstrike and backspace for extended characters ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 233 February 1997 Good examples of this kind of problem character are non English characters such as accented vowels For example i has extended ASCII code 161 decimal On an English keyboard you would have entered it as Alt 1 6 1 typing the numbers on the numeric keypad but on a French or Spanish keyboard you could have typed it directly You will probably not encounter problems with a non English DOS word processor A similar problem arises if you export to a Microsoft Windows based word processor These use the so called ANSP character set versus the so called OEM character set used by MS DOS Many of these word processors e g Microsoft Word recognize DOS text and automatically convert it to ANSI characters Interfaces with spreadsheets Spreadsheets e g Quattro Pro Microsoft Excel Lotus 1 2 3 are probably the most important personal computer applications programs In land evaluation the spreadsheet can be used in pre processing to calculate Land Characteristics e g minimum maximum median etc weather data depth weighted averages of soil characteristics It can be used in post processing for farm budget calculations and optimization where the technical coefficients of the constrained
182. cond question with c this tells ALES that A13 is a compound map unit Press F10 to confirm the form Homogeneous constituents of a compound map unit Now you will see at the upper right of the screen a window for the list of the constituents of this compound map unit We told ALES that A13 was compound so now ALES needs to know which homogeneous map units are included in the compound unit At first the list is empty containing only the dummy item Add a new item Looking at the annunciator you can see that F3 is again used to enter a new item in this case to add a homogeneous map unit to the list of constituents So Press F3 to add the first constituent A selection list will now appear on the right of the screen showing all the homogeneous map units Notice that this list is not the same as the choice box in which we added the A13 map unit That choice box is still visible in the middle of the screen although it is partially covered by ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 78 February 1997 the more recently active windows and you can see that it includes both compound and homogeneous map units That choice box was used to define the compound map unit whereas the currently active selection list is used to define the homogeneous constituents of the compound unit You must pick the first homogeneous constituent out of the selection list Select map unit SeB Scho
183. cond sort of problem is caused by an ALES user mistakenly altering or deleting an evaluation from within ALES i e performing a legal but undesirable operation User by user backup In the user by user approach each user is responsible for making backup copies of their own evaluations and datasets A drawback of this approach is that the system manager must rely on the users to act in their own best interests Although this is clearly desirable from their point of view experience shows that many computer users don t think about backup until a disaster strikes In this case you as system manager might want to have acted to save them from themselves and earn their heartfelt thanks for it This is the motivation behind system wide backup ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 247 February 1997 User by user backup models and data Both the model knowledge base and data can be backed up to the same DOS file To do this the user must be at the ALES screen in model building mode i e when ALES is invoked from DOS with the ales command where the list of evaluations in the system is displayed The user moves the cursor to highlight the evaluation to be saved then presses F7 ALES then asks for the name of the DOS file to which to write the evaluation The default is to a file named eval ALS in the same drive and directory as the ALES program where eval is the evaluation code displayed on the left of the screen display
184. consider the LC subsoil permeability In some cases this is measured or estimated in the course of routine survey but some surveyors may not have enough experience to do this reliably so some published surveys may not include values for this LC However soil physicists can infer approximate permeabilities certainly close enough to place a soil into one of a few classes using simpler LCs that are routinely measured such as soil texture structure type and grade type of clay flocculation of the clay dry and wet consistence etc The expertise of this soil physicist can be codified in the LC to LC decision tree so that data values of the higher level LC permeability can be inferred by ALES from data values of the lower level LCs just mentioned The advantage of using this sort of tree is that the model builder can use higher level more abstract LCs in the severity level decision trees thereby making them easier to build fewer factors need be considered and more accurate the LCs are closer to LQs while still being able to use low level soil survey data that have already been collected ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 201 February 1997 Discrete to discrete by linear interpolation ALES allows you to set up an inference link between two discrete LCs that share the same unit of measurement i e are commensurate in exactly the same manner as an inference link is set up between a continuous and a discrete LC A typic
185. consultation At the top of the list are the four Land Qualities in the model corresponding to the four decision tree boxes we just completed The land area being evaluated has no planting condition or mechanization limitations but is moderately limiting for both erosion hazard class 3 out of 4 and moisture availability class 2 out of 3 Suitability Below the Land Quality ratings are the final physical and economic suitabilities 1 The physical suitability subclass here 3e 2 The economic suitability based on the present value per unit land area of the cash flow 3 The economic suitability based on the benefit cost ratio of the cash flow 4 The economic suitability based on the internal rate of return of the cash flow 5 The economic suitability based on the gross margin per unit land area amp year For all four kinds of economic analysis ALES computes an economic suitability class using the FAO system of three suitable classes S1 very suitable S2 suitable and S3 marginally suitable and two unsuitable N1 economically unsuited and N2 physically unsuited As you can see this land area is suitable for the proposed land use Although it is in physical suitability class 3 due to erosion hazard the economic value is sufficient to place it in economic suitability class S1 by IRR S2 by NPV and gross margin or S3 by benefit cost ratio 2 At this point we could follow the Why screens with F2 to s
186. ctly by Quattro Pro with the Tools Import Comma delimited command or by Microsoft Excel with the File Open file Type text command The record format is Row 1 EvId d LutId d LutId d Lutld Row 2 Lmuld d Resulty d Resulty 2 d Results Row m Lmuld 1 d Result 1 d Result 9 d Result y where 1 d is the field delimiter 2 EvId is the evaluation model code 3 Lmuld is the map unit code for row i 1 4 Lutld is the land utilization type code for column j 5 Result j is the evaluation result for map unit i land utilization type j Notice that the first row consists of spreadsheet column headers and that the first column consists of spreadsheet row headers ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 243 February 1997 Here is an example output for the yield of corn grain from model Tutor2 wow Tutor2 ccc ccc d A3 102 168 114 968 A8 85 158 99 456 Ad 59 4 112 If read into a spreadsheet starting in cell A1 and after a bit of formatting in the spreadsheet this data looks something like A B C mue oee eea O m w tts m l s This looks very much like the evaluation results matrix in ALES the rows are map units and the columns are land uses Now you can apply the usual spreadsheet manipulations to the data e g calculate averages sums differences In Quattro Pro for DOS or Windows use the Tools
187. d computation diagram ALES Program Flow Overview Land Utilization Types Land Mapping Units Land Use Requirements amp their Economic parameters Knowledge Land Characteristics Base Data Base Infer amp Compute Why Screens y Land Utilization Types Physical Suitability NPV B C Ratio IRR Gross Margin Evalution Land Qualities Matrix Predicted Yields Input amounts Land Mapping Units Export Reports Spreadsheets Geographical amp Optimizers Information Systems The program is highly interactive and takes advantage of the PC video display and keyboard It is designed to be self explanatory and leads the user through a series of menus data entry forms Why explanations and dialogues as well as context sensitive help screens Function keys control most operations The program user can choose to interact with ALES in any human language to which the display text has been translated currently French Spanish and Indonesian in addition to English Special attention has been given to ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 5 February 1997 the creation editing and display of decision trees which are the way in which the evaluator express expert knowledge about the relation between land and land uses In addition model builders c
188. d namely Tilapia in diversion ponds The model builder should look at the evaluation results matrix for anomalies between map units or inconsistencies with what is known from experience Let s suppose that we know from experience that map unit E is in fact not suitable for fish ponds construction was attempted at a test site but abandoned because it proved too difficult to dig the ponds bedrock was exposed on these steep slopes However we can see that the ALES model evaluates map unit E as suitable with extra earthmoving i e it is rated in physical suitability subclass 3pfc Let s see where the model went wrong and adjust it Move the highlight to map unit E Press F2 to initiate the series of Why screens The first Why screen looks like this ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 138 February 1997 LMU E epsilon 50 00 are LUT tdp Tilapia in diversion ponds Physical Suitability Subclass 3pfe 1 4 Land Use Requirements and their severity levels LURs used by the maximum limitation method are marked with a pfc potential for construction 3 extra earthmoving 1 4 wa water availability 2 moderate 1 4 wq water quality 2 lime 1 4 No Physical Suitability Subclass decision tree Land Use Requirements that were maximally limiting pfc potential for construction Take the time to read this screen it clearly explains how the physical
189. d Qualities or 9 the amount of an input needed to implement the LUT The predicted ratings should be compared against values computed by other methods and rankings of map units may be reviewed If there are actual yield data they may be compared with expected yields Viewing this matrix should cause the evaluator to ask many questions Some ratings will appear unreasonable either in absolute terms e g the model predicts total crop failure but the map unit in question does provide a reliable low yield or in relative terms e g two map units are predicted to have very different gross margins for a particular LUT but farms on the two areas are not noticeably different in their economic status ALES provides a way to query the model and data to determine the source of any discrepancies and correct them thus allowing for iterative model building While viewing the matrix the evaluator may repeatedly press a function key called the Why key to follow a backward chain showing every step of the reasoning by which a particular map unit was assigned a particular suitability In this way the model builder will be able to identify those components of the model that are responsible for unexpected or incorrect results At each Why screen all data economic parameters and decision trees that entered into the current step of the computation are available to be edited Thus the model builder can correct any problems immediately upon d
190. d Use Requirements Possible Requirements suggested FAO number FAO code LQi LQr LQf i r How significant Importance Existence Availability Availability for the of critical f of use knowledge How many levels Affecting Physical Suitability Lowering yields Raising costs Group A Agro ecological growth requirements 1 growing period db 2 Alt 3 A1 2 lair humidity forgrowth Th establishment conditions g A15 maturity conditions _ ______ i A1 4 oxygen availability drainage d w A1 3 6 8 water quality short term Iq 5 6 7 9 At6a At 6blsodicity fy At 7 toxicities direct effectsofpH_ z x A1 11 diseases pests weeds pp 1 10 1 A1 10 2 physiographic hazards landslide _ A1 9 1 climatic hazards fire TT A1 9 2 climatichazards frosts_ A1 9 3 climatic hazards wind joje CO RI N COo sMm Q v23 v3 v23 v23 Group A2 Estimates of forest volume growth and yield A2 1 present forest stands A2 2 estimated growth rates A2 3 estimated survival rates A2 4estimated yield of non timber products Group B Management water management proximity to nursery sites B4 B7 access within the production unit 22 shape and size of the parcel 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 Group D Land improvement 19 18a clearing c v 18b land shaping 20 f
191. d beneath the dignity of the population to engage in a certain activity no amount of projected cash return will induce them to do so therefore the activity should not be considered as an alternative A societal bias will typically be reflected in economics the society as a whole via the government will subsidize selling prices or input prices or give tax breaks to encourage an activity Thus societal imperatives can be incorporated into an economic analysis 4 Economic analysis requires predicting yields and we re not good at that True again yet if we cannot predict yields in some useful form e g average worst case year in 5 worst case the concept even of physical suitability classes is in question A difficult problem must be attacked for natural resources information to be useful In some situations a strictly physical evaluation may be sufficient An example is if land is to be rated for several uses but the uses are not to be compared with each other For example the interpretive tables in a soil survey report for non farm uses such as buildings pipelines sewage disposal etc could be constructed as physical evaluations with each use represented as a completely independent Land Utilization Type Physical evaluations In a physical evaluation map units are assigned physical suitability classes which indicate a relative suitability from 1 best to some maximum number specified by the model builder For exa
192. d database design see below In this example you would specify ALES LMU field LMU_ID ALES descriptive name field LMU_NAMEP ALES map unit area field AREA Then you can later transfer the data itself 2 Importing compound map units Compound map units for ALES are LMU codes don t themselves have data but which are defined by a list of homogeneous constituents and the percentage of each constituent in the map unit For example Map unit A3 60 CeB 40 OvA To evaluate the compound map unit ALES evaluates each constituent separately then combines the suitability according to the percent composition Compound map units are frequently used at mapping scales smaller than 1 20 000 and are of various types e g associations or complexes ALES doesn t make any distinction between these The import of compound map units is a three step process since three xBase tables are involved 1 Import all homogeneous constituents as in section 1 above Menu 1 8 2 Option 1 It does not make sense to include an area for the constituents unless they are also mapped themselves This table should contain the Land Characteristics for each constituent ALES knows these are homogeneous units from the menu option you selected Import all compound map unit definitions from a primary table including the map unit symbol name and area Menu 1 8 2 Option 2 also as in section 1 ALES knows these are com
193. d into ALES from a text file that has been output by another program or prepared by a word processor Alternately it can be entered within ALES and later written out to a text file that can be read by another program or a word processor You request that land unit data be written to a DOS file with Option 6 Data To a disk file Write of Menu 1 3 Data you request that land unit data be read from a DOS file with Option 5 Data From a disk file Read of Menu 1 3 Data The file format is the same as given above for Land Map Unit definitions The restrictions on delimiters given there are also applicable However the line format differs in land data files each line has the following format Lmuld d Laval1 d Laval2 d Lavalp where d is the user selected delimiter character LmulId is the map unit code and Lavali is the value of a Land Characteristic that is listed for field number i out of n fields in the data entry template Non numeric fields are enclosed in double quotes on output from ALES on input the quotes are optional Before data on a land unit can be read into ALES that land unit must already have been defined either by having been read in from a file see previous section or by having been entered using Option 1 Definitions From keyboard Enter or edit of Menu 1 3 Data The number of fields and their order is specified by the evaluator by means of
194. d the actual data extension DAT The index is a highly optimized B Tree which is what gives MUMPS its very fast data access The data does not occupy fixed fields as in xBase format data files but instead all fields are variable length and in fact may be missing altogether the index keeps track of this The only disadvantage to the MUMPS dataset structure is that it may become fragmented or corrupted The following sections explain how to deal with these problems Dataset compression After a period of intensive use MUMPS databases become fragmented in two ways First the expansion of the dataset creates DOS fragments on the hard disk Second the internal structures used by MUMPS within the dataset become spread out within the disk area available to them Both of these instances of fragmentation lead to degraded performance and wasted disk space Periodically the system manager should compress the MUMPS databases used by ALES The only dataset that should need compressing is that containing the user evaluations i e EVAL GBL Compressing a dataset is accomplished by the use of the dscompress MUMPS utility described in 7 1 8 of the DataTree manual This is invoked from the util batch file in the same manner as dsbackup see the previous section Backup except that this is database maintenance utility menu Option 7 Compact Dataset in place of the sub menu You can instead choose Option 6 Co
195. d to the level of production of an output For example a portion of harvesting costs depends on how much must be harvested ALES allows the model builder to specify using Menu 1 2 6 Option 5 these production related costs by means of a list of inputs with each the amount of each input ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 192 February 1997 specified per unit of output not per unit area of land The inputs are selected from the same reference list of inputs mentioned above Proportional yield as a production delay In some Land Utilization Types increasing limitations delay production e g harvest rather than or in addition to lowering the yield of each production event e g harvest A typical example is forestry the trees may eventually grow to the same marketable size but may take longer to do so in unfavorable circumstances such as cool climates soils with limited rooting volume etc In discounted cash flow analysis the year when a harvest is realized can greatly affect the analysis because of the time value of money ALES now allows the model builder to specify that yields be deferred instead of or in addition to being lowered due to increasing limitations How to specify that production is to be delayed There are two relevant questions in the form from Menu 1 2 6 Specification options for LUT Output Option 1 Optimum yield years when produced how yield is affected the model builder must specify if the pr
196. dating it is the key to OS 2 s flexibility Make sure the following are set DOS_BACKGROUND_EXECUTION ON ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 42 February 1997 DOS_FILES 30 DOS_HIGH ON DOS_RMSIZE 640 IDLE_SECONDS 0 IDLE_SENSITIVITY 1 This last setting prevents DataTree MUMPS from slowing down the system by constantly checking for keyboard activity Other optional settings which might make your OS 2 system run faster are DPMI_MEMORY_LIMIT 0 EMS MEMORY LIMIT 0 XMS_MEMORY_LIMIT 0 Why OS 2 for ALES users OS 2 is a reliable fast true multitasking operating system that has been refined for over eight years as of 1996 It runs each DOS program in a separate Virtual DOS machine and unlike under Microsoft Windows an ill behaved DOS program can t crash the system DOS programs like DataTree MUMPS can be individually optimized via their settings as explained for ALES in the previous J DOS programs including ALES run faster than in native DOS Certainly for the user who likes DOS applications and who have a 386 33 or better with 6 to 8MB RAM OS 2 is an excellent choice OS 2 also runs all Windows 3 1 applications including those using Win32s up to Rev 1 25 but not applications written specifically for Windows 95 so that for example Arc View 1 and 2 Word 6 0 Excel 5 0 Paradox for Windows etc run well under OS 2 You can cut and paste between ALES screens and OS 2 Win OS 2 or other DOS programs
197. del builder must make The term model as used in ALES refers to a set of decision procedures not to a process model e g of plant growth as related to soil conditions or a empirical model e g regression equations relating land use to Land Characteristics The term model still is appropriate however The ALES model is a representation of the judgment of the land use expert which in turn is a mental model of reality Indeed process or empirical models can be used to help build ALES decision procedures Outline of the model building process ALES models are built incrementally and interactively It is important to have a sound design however it is not necessary that all particulars of an ALES model be determined before beginning to build it In particular verification should take place on a preliminary model before too much effort is expended on extensive data entry and evaluation Computer programmers have a well known folk expression Build one program to throw it away While a bit of an exaggeration it is certainly true that the exercise of building the first model will reveal many pitfalls which can be avoided in a second try This section describes a typical sequence of actions First the model builder should build a preliminary version of a land evaluation model This involves the following steps 1 selecting a few representative Land Utilization Types 2 expressing these in terms of their most important Land Use Req
198. dialog box should now disappear and the first decision tree box should appear Following decision trees to obtain Land Quality values When ALES computes the suitability of a map unit it begins by computing Land Quality values corresponding to the set of Land Use Requirements that the model builder defined for a Land Utilization Type Corresponding to In this example we have only defined one Land Utilization Type if there had been more you would have been asked to select one ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 56 February 1997 each Land Use Requirement is a Land Quality which is the attribute of the land that is to be matched with the requirement In consultation mode you follow this computation one step at a time ALES asks you for the data that it needs in order to compute the first Land Quality value then the second and so forth until all Land Quality values have been computed Once ALES has determined all the Land Quality values it computes overall suitability ratings In this simple model there are only four Land Qualities to be determined 1 erosion hazard 2 moisture availability 3 me Conditions for mechanization and 4 planting conditions These four Land Qualities were considered the most important for mechanized maize production in New York State Planting conditions determine how early maize can be planted moisture availability determines how well the maize will grow erosion hazard determines what con
199. different attribute values Also all redundancy has been removed We can recover the original flat file table structure by means of a relational join on the common field which in this case is LMU_ID PC Arc Info and all relational database managers provide commands to do this e g the JOIN command for a temporary join or JOINITEM for a permanent join To export or import between ALES and xBase the xBase file to specify is the one which contains the attributes for the map units In the fully relational structure this would be the map unit table just presented Compound map units flat file database A common method for representing compound map units is to have several columns in the PAT each representing a constituent with another column showing its proportion Fc a T S S nif mc nif mc This is not a good idea Clearly this is a non normalized database with the same problems as detailed above For this reason ALES can not import from this kind of table you need to set up a relational database as now explained Note It is possible to get this structure directly into ALES by writing the relevant fields out to a flat ASCII file along with another column that indicates that the map units are compound This ASCII file can be read using ALES Menu 1 2 Data Option 2 Map Unit definitions from a disk file read Compound map units fully relational database A better idea for representing compound map units is to ha
200. down one question 2Please accept our apologies for the US customary units that are used throughout this tutorial Unfortunately the United States of America has not decided to join the rest of the world with respect to the use of SI or even metric units Since the knowledge sources maps production costs yields etc are expressed in US customary units we were forced to use these for our tutorial ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 69 February 1997 Once you ve created the map unit definition you can t change the code or whether the map unit is homogeneous or compound but you can change the descriptive name or area To practice editing in a data entry from we ll change the descriptive name of map unit SeB Notice that the annunciator line shows that F5 or Return may be used to edit the definition So with the highlight on map unit SeB Press F5 to begin editing this map unit definition The data entry form for the definition of map unit SeB appears but because this is an existing as opposed to new map unit the form has only two items and your original answers appear as defaults i e if you don t change them ALES will keep their existing values Press to move to the last question the land area We will change the answer from 550 to 650 The easiest way to edit answers in a data entry form is to clear the current answer and then type the new answer Notice in the
201. e Why for the continuous LC as you can see from the screen this value was entered from the keyboard Multi valued land data At this point we ll edit this data value in order to illustrate another feature of ALES namely its ability to process multi valued land data This is data which has more than one value each of which has an associated linear probability This mechanism provides an elementary way of handling probabilistic or time series data Notice in the annunciator line for this Why box that F4 is marked Edit LC We can edit the LC value without leaving the evaluation matrix Why screen section of the program So Press F4 to bring up a data entry form for this LC value with the current value 500 as the default In the present example let s suppose that we have climate records for map unit test giving the May to September precipitation for each of the last 5 years as follows 650mm 325mm 500mm 650mm 375mm These average to 500mm the value we entered previously for pptMS c and which is now displayed as the default answer in the one item data entry form To erase this answer Press F4 and then enter the multi valued answer as follows Enter 325 2 500 2 650 4 375 3 The format of a multi valued data item is straightforward a series of pairs of data_value proportion separated by commas So the previous entry can be read as 20 of the time rainfall
202. e Why screens to understand how results were computed The matrix now on the screen gives results but it is natural to wonder what is the basis for these How were they computed What data were used What assumptions were made by the model builder Which factors were considered and which were omitted The model user i e the consumer of the land evaluation has a right and a duty to be suspicious One of the outstanding features of ALES is that it allows you to review the logic and data that it used to reach its conclusions Although computation proceeds in a forward direction from basic data to final suitability the logic is most conveniently reviewed using a backward chain beginning with the results and proceeding backwards through intermediate calculations to the land data In this top down approach the most important points are seen first and only as much complexity as necessary to understand the results needs be reviewed To examine the reasoning for a particular map unit Land Utilization Type pair we must first move the highlight so that the matrix cell containing that pair s result is highlighted We can move among columns i e left and right by using the left and right arrow keys and gt We can move among rows i e up and down by using the up and down arrow keys 7 and J and the PgUp PgDn Home and End keys see the Fl help for a complete description
203. e replace this with the name of the DOS file for the backup without the extension dsbackup will automatically add the extensions 0 202 etc as needed If at all possible you should back up to a removable medium such as a diskette When you have entered a valid name complete the form by pressing Esc 6 You will be prompted to insert the first diskette do so and press P to proceed 7 The dataset will be backed up to the disk you specified If the dataset is too big to fit on a single diskette dsbackup will prompt for more diskettes as necessary 8 When the backup is done you will be returned to the database options menu Press End to return to DOS System wide backup should be every day when there is any use of ALES You should prepare at least three sets of diskettes for backup the current father and grandfather sets These are rotated so that for example one day s grandfather set becomes the next day s current set In this way you can go two backups before discovering a problem and still recover from it Every few months e g quarterly you should make an archival backup and store it off site If the entire EVAL GBL dataset becomes corrupted for example by a hard disk problem accidentally erasing the dataset file or a MUMPS induced database degradation error you must restore the entire database using the dsrestore MUMPS procedure You invoke this from the util batch
204. e two will be handled in the physical suitability below since either they make production impossible or they allow full production This simplifies the proportional yield calculation considerably Recall that we entered additional inputs of lime for the two intermediate severity levels of the land quality wq water quality The additional lime completely corrected the limitation due to low pH so that the growth of the fish will not be lowered in these situations Therefore wa does not appear in the proportional yield decision tree If we had elected not to correct this limitation we would not have entered additional inputs This would result in lower costs of production on map units with the two intermediate severity levels of wq however there would also be a lower yield due to the slower growth rate of the fish so that we would have had to include wq in the proportional yield calculation In other words a limitation can affect costs or returns or both depending on the definition of the LUT We defined a land quality wa for water availability to represent this factor ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 129 February 1997 You will notice that Menu 1 2 6 Options 2 3 amp 4 all have to do with proportional yield Since in this LUT only one LQ affects yield and its effect is to multiply predicted yield by a proportion that represents the number of crops of fish 3 3 2 3 1 3 or 0 3 per year i e 1 0
205. e ALES it is advisable to use a programmer s editor outside the MUMPS environment In this case you load routines from the editor s text file into MUMPS with the rload routine David Rossiter highly recommends Epsilon for DOS OS 2 and Windows 3 1x or 95 A very good text on MUMPS is The Complete MUMPS An Introduction and Reference Manual for the MUMPS Programming Language by John M Lewkowicz of Cornell University published by Prentice Hall Englewood Cliffs NJ in 1989 You can also obtain tutorials and general information on the language from the M Technology Association 4321 Hartwick Road Suite 510 College Park MD 20740 USA We do not recommend attempting to alter the ALES program although we have included the program source code with the ALES distribution mainly so you will feel secure in your purchase of ALES You should be able to use the framework provided by the program to build models to suit your needs in this sense the ALES program provides a high level programming language of its own Also you can not modify or extend the ALES program without a Memorandum of Understanding with Cornell because the program code is copyrighted lLugaru Software 5824 Forbes Ave Pittsburgh PA 15217 1 412 421 5911 FAX x6371 e mail sales lugargu com Web http www lugaru com ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 255 February 1997 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 256 February 1997 References Se
206. e LUT This screen shows the map unit LUT and year in the plan The cost per area year of implementing a particular LUT on a given LMU is the sum of three factors Costs 1 The S7 cost i e those costs that are incurred in every map unit regardless of their specific Land Quality values 2 The additional cost of implementing the Land Utilization Type on this particular map unit with its own specific set of Land Quality values severity levels and 3 The production related costs 1 e those that depend on the level of production of the various outputs that are produced this year in this LUT These may differ among map units because production levels usually differ These were entered with ALES Menu 1 2 Land Utilization Type Options 4 Inputs annual and 5 Inputs by year 2These were entered with ALES Menu 1 2 Land Utilization Type Option 7 Land Use Requirements sub options 2 additional Annual inputs and 3 additional By year inputs ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 88 February 1997 Let s look at these three types of cost in detail Notice in the annunciator line that F2 is marked Why S1 cost F3 is marked Why additional cost and F4 is marked Why Production cost Press F2 to find out why the S1 cost ALES displays the third Why screen in the chain explaining the year 1 S1 costs as a sum of two lists of in
207. e Requirements LUR which are the conditions of land necessary for the successful and sustained practice of a given LUT FAO 1984 For example a land use including rainfed crops might include a LUR for water for crop growth y Land units are defined by the values of a set of Land Characteristics LC which are simple attributes of land that can be measured or estimated in routine survey In the FAO approach Land Characteristic values are usually combined into levels of Land Qualities LQ which are complex attributes of land which influence the suitability of land in a semi independent manner These are matched with the LUR one by one Notice that Land Use Requirements express the demands of a land use whereas Land Qualities express the supply i e what a particular land area can offer The distinction is partially semantic but mostly depends on one s point of view For example a crop demands an adequate water supply this is a LUR On the other hand a particular land unit can supply a certain amount of water this is a LQ In ALES the model builder express the LUT in terms of its LUR s and the system computes the relevant LQ s based on the land unit data The suitability of each Land Mapping Unit for each Land Utilization Type is computed by 1 Determining measuring or estimating the actual Land Characteristic values for the land unit by field survey laboratory measurements remote sensing etc 2 Combining th
208. e a useful tool in your land evaluation activities l Actually just deleting a model from the list does not free up any DOS disk space it only frees space in the MUMPS dataset You can recover the space for DOS using the dataset compression procedure explained in the Chapter Maintaining an ALES system ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 174 February 1997 Tutorial 5 ALIDRIS The objective of this tutorial is to teach to you use the ALIDRIS interface between the ALES database and evaluation results and the IDRISI Geographic Information System GIS For more information on ALIDRIS and IDRISI see section ALIDRIS in the Chapter ALES and other computer systems In this tutorial you will learn to y reclassify IDRISI base maps with ALES database values y reclassify IDRISI base maps with ALES evaluation results We built an interface to IDRISI in response to the needs of our users IDRISI is not the only suitable GIS for use with ALES Using the techniques explained in the Chapter ALES and other computer systems ALES can be interfaced to any GIS that can read relational database tables in ASCII format or xBase format database files Before working on this tutorial you must have installed the IDRISI V4 for DOS or IDRISI for Windows GIS on your computer and you must be familiar with the basic operations such as displaying classified images COLOR adding a legend DOCUMENT changing the IDRISI environment ENVIR
209. e also the annotated bibliography of land evaluation in the Chapter Introduction to Land Evaluation Beatty M T G W Petersen and L D Swindale eds 1979 Planning the uses and management of land Agronomy Monograph 21 American Society of Agronomy Madison WI USA Beek K J 1978 Land evaluation for agricultural development International Inst for Land Reclamation and Improvement Wageningen publication 23 Beek K J P A Burrough D E McCormack Eds 1987 Quantified land evaluation procedures Proceedings of the international workshop on quantified land evaluation procedures held in Washington DC 27 April 2 May 1986 International Institute for Aerospace Survey and Earth Sciences ITC Publication No 6 Enschede the Netherlands ITC Bouma J and A K Bregt Eds 1989 Land qualities in space and time Proceedings of a symposium organized by the International Society of Soil Science ISSS Wageningen the Netherlands 22 26 August 1988 Wageningen Pudoc Bouma J amp H A J van Lanen 1987 Transfer functions and threshold values from soil characteristics to land qualities pp 106 110 in Beek K J P A Burrough and D E McCormack ed 1987 Quantified land evaluation procedures proceedings of the international workshop on quantified land evaluation procedures held in Washington DC 27 April 2 May 1986 International Institute for Aerospace Survey and Earth Sciences ITC publication
210. e annunciator line at the bottom of the screen shows how to find out more details about the calculation F2 is marked Why Cash In and F3 is marked Why Cash Out Let s first determine how the figure of 280 00 cash in was determined so Press F2 to display the second Why screen in the backward chain ALES displays a selection box asking which year s cash flow should be explained In this case all the years have the same cash in so Press Enter to accept the default choice of year 1 ALES now displays a new Why box the previous one is hidden behind explaining the cash flow in it is based on one harvest this year of one crop namely grain maize with a return of 280 00 per crop If this Land Utilization Type included more crops or harvests in year 1 this box would be more important showing all the outputs harvested this year Notice in the annunciator line that the F2 key is now marked Why an output return So Press F2 to display the third Why screen in the backward chain ALES displays a new Why box showing why each crop of maize is predicted to return 280 00 per acre Optimum S1 yield Proportional yield The computation of the return for one crop is the optimum yield here 140 bushels of grain per acre multiplied by the proportional yield predicted for this particular map unit here 0 8 or 80 of optimum resu
211. e changed Also the decision of severe stress for shallow soils the first branch is still correct So we only have to edit the second branch moderately deep Move the cursor to the second branch m moderately deep Press gt to expand the subtree rooted at branch 2 m to the third level Now we are considering previous erosion on moderately deep soils with significant coarse fragments Suppose that classes 3 and 4 moderately severe and severe erosion are now completely limiting because not enough water can be stored in the reduced rooting volume Right now branch 3 has a subtree marked gt text B we want to remove this and replace it with a final decision However if we use F5 to cut it this subtree will replace the present contents of the paste buffer Suppose we don t want to erase the contents of the paste buffer but we do want to remove this subtree In this case we use an alternative to the F5 key namely Alt F5 to clear the subtree without replacing the contents of the paste buffer V Alt F5 is used to clear a subtree without replacing the contents of the paste buffer Let s do this now Move the cursor to the third branch ms moderately severely eroded Press Alt F5 ALES will ask if you really want to erase the subtree without saving it in the paste buffer Answer Yes really delete this branch Now the gt text B subtree at branch 3 i
212. e class codes and then use pick the correct choice out of the pop up list So Press F3 to pop up a list of choices A new window appears with the five choices for the first data item ffs which stands for frost free season The highlight is on the first choice Choices for ffs frost free season 110 130 110 130 days 130 150 130 150 days 150 170 150 170 days lt 110 0 110 days 170 190 days Schoharie soils occur in an area with 150 to 170 frost free days so Move the highlight to 150 170 Press Enter to select this data value You will see 150 170 appear in the answer space in the form The highlight and answer box move to the next question gdd50 which stands for Growing degree days base 50 F For practice we will answer this question using another method namely typing the answer in the answer box The correct answer here is 2 4 6k but we will make a mistake on purpose and see what ALES does So Type 2 4 6 making sure not to type the k at the end of the class name and then Press to confirm this entry and attempt to move to the next question An error message now appears in the middle of the screen telling you that the data value just entered is not one of the correct values and recommending the F3 method of data entry So Press any key to remove the error message and return to the data entry form still s
213. e data entry matrix infers Land Characteristic values F4 delete the currently highlighted item from a list In the decision tree editor inserts a subtree at the currently selected position F5 edit the currently highlighted item In the decision tree editor cuts the currently selected branch and saves it in the paste buffer Alt F5 In the decision tree editor deletes the currently selected branch without saving it in the paste buffer F6 select all items in a list copy an item in the list In the decision tree editor pastes a tree or branch that was saved in the paste buffer ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 40 February 1997 Alt F6 rename or replace an item in a list F7 save all or part of an evaluation model to a disk file In the decision tree editor joins the currently selected branch to another branch F8 restore what was saved by F7 In the decision tree editor cuts the entire tree and saves it in the paste buffer Alt F 8 In the decision tree editor deletes the entire tree without saving it in the paste buffer F9 Notes If the model builder wrote an annotation note for the currently active entity this key will display it Items in lists that have associated notes are marked with small degree signs Alt F9 enter or edit a note F10 Completes an interaction saving any new information you entered 2 Selection keys Enter may be labeled Return or W
214. e data processing languages like COBOL Linguistically it is a hybrid between LISP and BASIC with the added feature of sparse hierarchical disk based arrays as the main data structure The language is used in transaction oriented data processing applications in medicine libraries and business With the emergence of modern 4th generation database languages and linguistically superior procedural languages MUMPS will probably never be a major programming language although the MUMPS Development Committee affiliation with ANSI and ISO is working a new version of the standard language and the M Technology Association is actively promoting M n e MUMPS If you would like to program in MUMPS you don t need any additional software since you have already purchased the required license from DataTree and the MUMPS programming language is included with the ALES software However you will want the complete DataTree user s manual And if you want technical support from InterSystems you will have to purchase DTM PC directly from them Write to DataTree Division InterSystems Corp One Memorial Drive Cambridge MA 02142 USA or phone them at USA 617 374 9191 FAX 617 494 1631 for prices and terms Be sure to include a copy of your current paper key in your correspondence To write programs in the DataTree MUMPS environment you use the zedit command When you exit from this editor the program is automatically compiled For large projects lik
215. e decision tree path includes four LCs dbr erode text B and ppt MS Display the first Why screen for LMU ErA and the modified LUT ccc m Notice that the decision tree path also includes cfv A and that there were some coarse fragments in this soil enough to downgrade the LQ rating Why are some of the ratings the same for the two decision procedures Display the first Why screen for LMU CeB and the modified LUT ccc m You can see that the added LC cfv A has a value of n i e not enough coarse fragments to be named Recall that we pasted the entire original decision tree below this new top level branch in the new tree so the inferred LQ value remains the same even though another LC is considered in the decision tree path Let s see now how the new decision procedure propagates from single LQs to yields ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 156 February 1997 Press F10 to leave the matrix display and return to the Report Type question Select Y Yields ALES asks which output to display There is only one output of both LUTs so Select cg corn grain Select Yes display yields on a per area basis ALES now displays an evaluation results matrix of yields of corn grain in bushels per acre for each map unit for the two related LUTs Notice that one of the yields in the ccc m column are lower namely for the ErA
216. e high level LCs from other LCs In fact intermediate LCs can be set up by the model builder specifically to group sets of related low level LCs to reduce the size of severity level decision trees If the original set of LCs in a decision tree is combined pairwise into intermediate LCs the total number of leaves needed to express the same inference that required m leaves in the original tree is m n 2 m The branching factor m is raised to a lower power in fact half of the original However the number of trees T has increased from 1 to n 2 As a simple example of the savings which may be obtained by such a pairing consider a realistic problem in land evaluation the determination of the severity level of the climate Land Quality for tea in Sys 1985 p 316 from eight Land Characteristics each with four classes possible values Here n 8 m 4 so that the size of the complete tree would be 4 65536 which is prohibitively large Introducing four intermediate Land Characteristics each pairing two of the original eight Land Characteristics would result in five trees with a total of 44 4 4 320 leaves a realistic number This divide and conquer strategy can be continued by combining the intermediate LCs pairwise into another level of intermediate LCs Theoretically this results in greater savings but in the size of problems likely to be encountered in ALES the benefits are not great LCs can be combined i
217. e interior nodes branch points of the tree are decision criteria such as Land Characteristic values These trees are constructed by the model builder and traversed during the computation of an evaluation result using actual land data for each map unit to be evaluated Figure 3 1 shows a simple decision tree using the logic of Sanchez et al 1982 which would allow ALES to determine the value of the land quality potential for P fixation by iron from the land characteristics 1 ratio of free Fe203 to clay in the topsoil 2 percentage of clay in the topsoil 3 hue of the topsoil matrix and 4 topsoil structure Note that ALES decision trees allow missing data to be replaced by other criteria should the tree builder determine this is appropriate In ALES decision trees are used to determine 1 Factor levels called severity levels in ALES of Land Qualities from values of Land Characteristics Menu 1 2 7 Option 4 2 Expected proportional yields of outputs from values of Land Qualities Menu 1 2 6 Option 2 3 Physical suitability subclasses from values of Land Qualities Menu 1 2 8 Option 1 and Proportional yield can also be determined by limiting or multiplicative yield factors see the Chapter Building ALES models 2Physical suitability subclasses can also be determined by the maximum limitation method see the Chapter Building ALES models ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 18 February 1997 F
218. e maximum land unit area which will multiply the normalized value For example a normalized Gross Margin in the USA might be on the order of US 100 to US 1000 and a field type of N4 0 might be adequate But a non normalized Gross Margin on a 1000ha parcel in Indonesia US 1 Rp 2300 might be on the order of 100 x 2300 x 1000 Rp 230 000 000 or ten times more in which case a field type of N10 0 would be necessary e Almost always there is no justification in specifying decimal places except for Benefit Cost Ratio because the precision of the input economic data combined with the uncertainty of the yields and input amounts is far too low However if something is measured in very small units e g yields measured in Megatons some decimal places may be significant e g a yield on the order of 1000 kg ha which would require field type N4 0 is the same as a yield of 0 000 001 MT ha which would require field type N10 8 e To determine the width of character C fields where none are given in the table you must examine your evaluation results matrix or printed report to see how wide a field you will need This depends on 1 the length of results for homogeneous map units and 2 for compound map units the maximum number of homogeneous constituents in the compound map unit For example if one character LUR codes are used for physical suitability and there are never more than 3 limitations indicated the longest code looks like
219. e same area of ponds To enter this decision Press F3 Select severity level 3 extra earthmoving This result is displayed and the highlight moves to the fourth branch representing very steep lands we ve already entered a result here You have now completed the first paths in this decision tree The tree should look like this on your screen ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 123 February 1997 sd soil depth 2 m moderately deep 75 200 cm sl slope 1 A nearly level 0 3 2 needs drainage 2 B sloping 3 10 no limitation 3 C steep 10 30 3 extra earthmoving 4 D very steep 30 200 4 impossible 222 Now we ve told ALES how to evaluate land areas with shallow and moderately deep soils But what about deep lands We have to backtrack in the tree and enter decisions for them V use the left arrow key lt to move up one level V use the right arrow key gt to move down one level Presse to go up a level in the tree The last LC in the path slope disappears and the branches for the first LC soil depth are redisplayed Notice that to the right of the second branch the one we just completed is a gt sl gt indicates a complete subtree i e a subtree where all the leaves have been filled with decisions is attached at that branch and sl is the land characteristic that begins the subtree Move the highlig
220. e see that the LUT s are ranked 1 ttpp 2 ccc and 3 ccc d This tells us what the best uses are for this land using NPV as the economic metric Notice at the bottom of the first page is the notation VI 187 50 P VI is an abbreviation for versatility index i e a composite measure of goodness of the map unit as a whole In the case of economic metrics it is just the average of the metric over the Land Utilization Types If you are displaying the report on the video screen you will have to Press any key to move from page to page After the report has finished printing the Working message will disappear from the screen and you will again be asked for the kind of information to be printed This is so you can select another report to go to the same output device without having to set it up again Notice that the highlight is on the type of report we just printed namely N et Present Value Let s print this report again but this time by columns So Select Report type N Net Present Value Select NPV Report type N Net Present Value ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 95 February 1997 Select Yes report results on a per area basis Select Columns land utilization types Again the Working message will appear on the screen and the report should appear on the printer or screen This report has one page for each Land Utilization Type F
221. e set to reflect current or anticipated future market rates or a subsidized social rate depending on the purposes of the evaluation If you want to compare two rates for the same LUT you can copy the 1E the USDA Land Capability Classification has 8 classes ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 189 February 1997 LUT to another alter the discount rate compute an evaluation with the two LUTs and see the comparison side by side in the evaluation matrix In general expected inflation should not be included in the discount rate So a market rate should be adjusted for inflation For example if the market rate is 22 and inflation is expected to be 8 the discount rate in ALES should be set at 14 Then the entire analysis is in constant usually present currency This assumes that all prices move equally with inflation Length of Planning Horizon Each Land Utilization Type has a separate length of planning horizon 1 e the number of years over which costs are incurred and or outputs are produced In discounted cash flow analysis the planning horizon sets a limit on how far in the future cash flows can be specified Depending on the discount rate the present value of future cash flows become insignificant at some point in the future so that there is no point in a planning horizon beyond this point Note also that two net present values NPV can only be compared for equal planning horizons In gross margin analysis
222. e them from a backup are available This is intended for the model user Land data can be entered or imported evaluations can be computed and reports printed Economic parameters including prices and interest rates can also be edited ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 38 February 1997 V CONSULT enters consultation mode directly to consult one or more ALES models about the suitability of a single tract for a single use Land data can not be altered This is intended for the occasional model user and for demonstrations y UTIL runs system maintenance procedures see the Chapter Maintaining an ALES system for details V RMDTM delete the MUMPS system You may wish to include the main ALES sub directory on your DOS search path to allow you to start ALES from any directory ALES should start within 30 seconds on a basic IBM PC XT within 10 seconds on a IBM PC AT and within 3 seconds on a 386 or faster machine Running ALES under a single tasking operating system DOS ALES has been designed to be easy to operate The intellectual activity of constructing models and collecting data is difficult enough interacting with the computer should not cause the land evaluator further difficulties This chapter presents a brief summary of how the ALES user interacts with the program and problems that might be encountered Starting ALES from DOS There are three different commands to start ALES from DOS each intended for a different ty
223. e units of measurement we just entered The fifth through eighth options will not be covered in this introductory tutorial We will however work through options 2 3 and 4 We have already told ALES that this LC is to have four classes now however we have to give it some information about each class Select Menu 1 1 4a Option 2 class abbreviations A data entry form appears with four items one for each of the four classes of this LC You are being asked to enter short 8 character or less abbreviations for each class These are codes which are used in data entry They should be short and mnemonic i e the abbreviation should remind you of what the class signifies They need not contain any numeric limits as these limits will always be displayed to the user during data entry after they are entered at menu Option 4 below Let s use abbreviations for the descriptive words cold temperate warm and hot Fill in the data entry form 1 g 2 t 3 W 4 h Confirm the form Now we will specify class names So Select Menu 1 1 4a Option 3 class names You are being asked to enter descriptive names for the LCs to be used in printed reports data entry screens etc So ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 110 February 1997 Fill in the data entry form 1 2 Bs 4 Confirm the form cold temperate warm hot Now we will specify the numeric limits in C of the four cla
224. eas of the three map units are LMU a 3000 ha LMU B 2000 ha LMU y 5000 ha Then the VI s are calculated as follows LUT A 20 3000 0 2000 12 5000 3000 2000 5000 12 0 LUT B 20 3000 30 2000 10 5000 3000 2000 5000 7 0 So LUT A is more versatile on average than LUT B i e averaged over the entire study area LUT A would give a better IRR Now let s see what happens if we change the proportions of the map units in the study area LMU a 5000 ha LMU p 3000 ha LMU y 2000 ha Then the VI s are calculated as follows LUT A 20 5000 0 3000 12 2000 3000 2000 5000 12 4 LUT B 20 5000 30 3000 10 2000 3000 2000 5000 17 0 Now LUT B is more versatile furthermore all the VI s have changed This illustrates that it is impossible to evaluate the overall suitability of a LUT without reference to a specific study area with specific proportions of land mapping units The Versatility Index for physical suitability sub classes In this case the subclass number is used in the calculation therefore the Jower VI is better the ideal would be 1 0 which would indicate that this LMU has no limitation for any of the LUTs evaluated The Versatility Index for severity levels of Land Qualities Again the lower VI is better assuming that the corresponding Land Use Requirement was set up with increasing class numbers representing increasing limitations The Versatility Index for economic suitab
225. ed for this evaluation will now appear These map units are all from the Cayuga County NY soil survey We will add four new map units to this list first the drainage sequence topo sequence of phases of the Schoharie Odessa Lakemont soils and then an association of these three homogeneous map units You may have noticed that Menu 1 3 appears when you select Option 2 This discrepancy is due to the numbering of menus in model building mode and evaluate only mode ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 67 February 1997 Notice that the list is longer than the screen the usual cursor motion keys can be used to see the hidden part of the list Notice that the annunciator line shows that F3 is to be used for a new map unit so Press F3 to begin the entry of a new map unit An entry box should appear asking for the code for the map unit Land Mapping Unit code This is a kind of interaction we haven t seen before Occasionally ALES must ask you to type rather than press function keys This happens when ALES needs new or revised information In the present case we have told ALES by using the F3 key that we want to define a new map unit therefore ALES now needs a code for the new unit so it is asking us for this code Map unit codes are typically found on the map legend for a natural resource inventory such as a soil survey and is a mnemonic for the map unit name Let s enter the map unit Schoharie si
226. ed to the PAT by a relational join within the TABLES command of PC Arc Info Step 1 Create xBase fields in the PAT to receive the results Arc Info Tables command ADDITEM or you can use the database structure editor of your database program to create new fields Step 2 Determine the names of the key field and the other attribute fields from step 1 The key field is the field that will be related to the map unit LMU code in the ALES database Note that a key field in the sense of this transfer is usually not a key field in the PAT The PAT key field is usually the polygon ID and the field which contains the ALES LMU code is one of the attributes of the polygon This is why this transfer is usually one ALES LMU to many PAT polygons Step 3 Create the import export template in ALES Menu 1 8 Option 1 Specify the key field which corresponds to the ALES LMU code and the attribute fields and for each attribute field the type of evaluation results to transfer Step 4 Compute the evaluation results as usual in ALES Menu 1 4 Evaluations Option 1 Compute evaluation results Compute results for all the LUTs that you want to export and all the LMU in your target map i e all LMUs that correspond to any polygons Evaluation results are exported from the same evaluation results matrix that you view on screen with Menu 1 4 Option 2 View evaluation results Step 5 Export the evaluation results Menu 1 8 Option 5 ALE
227. ed with pond construction for the first year in the plan Press F3 to add an input to this list you will see the five inputs we defined in the reference list of inputs Select input tile A form appears asking for the number of units in units of measurement per unit area in this case linear meters per are for each severity level of the potential for construction Land Use Requirement Recall that severity level 2 is to be associated with additional costs for drainage construction so this is the only one of the four levels with an additional by year cost for drainage tile Move to question 2 in the form Enter 10 With this entry we are saying that land that has land quality rating 2 for potential for construction will require 10 additional linear meters of plastic tile per are 10x10 meter area in order to make it fit for Tilapia production in diversion ponds in addition to the 4 linear meters that were specified for the LUT as a whole Press F10 to confirm the form and return to the list of additional by year inputs for year 1 which now has one item tile Press F3 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 119 February 1997 again to add another input you will see a list of four inputs to choose from The list doesn t include tile since we have already entered added by year costs for this input Select input labor A form appears asking for the number of units
228. ee how the composite suitability values were obtained this is explained in the next tutorial or re consult the same model with different land data with F3 To keep this tutorial short however we ll just end the consultation So when you are all done looking at the results Press F10 to finish the consultation You will now be asked if you wish to save the land data from this consultation During the consultation ALES made a temporary list of the data values you entered These could be saved for starting another consultation with pre defined data values or for use in a more comprehensive evaluation In the present case the data we entered were hypothetical and not from a real map unit so there is no point in saving them Notice that the highlight is already on the default answer No so The terminology and methods of economic suitability analysis are explained in the Chapter Building ALES models 2The question of which economic metric to use and how to assign economic suitability classes is also explained in the Chapter Building ALES models ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 63 February 1997 Press Enter to pass by this question and return to the list of evaluation models Ending the consultation ALES now displays to the list of evaluation models with the one we ve just consulted namely Tutor1 highlighted If you wanted to re consult the same model you would press Return to
229. el Section 8 4 4 discusses how to reconcile differences between data sets A combination of the two approaches is the middle out approach This begins by applying the top down approach in its entirety Now however rather than go to the field to determine values for the set of Land Characteristics that was defined by the top down approach we instead define another set of Land Characteristics namely those that would have been defined in the bottom up approach Then we link the two by using several Land Characteristic to Land Characteristic inference methods to allow ALES to determine the unknown values of the top down set from the known values of the bottom up set These methods are 1 Land Characteristic to Land Characteristic decision trees and 2 inferring from a commensurate Land Characteristic Land characteristics in ALES can be of three types 1 discrete and ordered i e ordinal 2 discrete and unordered i e nominal and 3 continuous The following subsections explain each of these in detail ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 199 February 1997 Discrete ordered Land Characteristics with class limits These Land Characteristics have an underlying continuous scale for example C slope pH gm cm and so forth However ALES decision procedures require that the scale be divided into two to sixteen classes that can be used in decision trees Each class then has a range of values This is in accordance with
230. ell as the more advanced sections of the Chapter Installing Configuring and Running ALES V As you build your own evaluations you should refer to the Chapter Building ALES models which explains the various alternative strategies for mode building ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 1 February 1997 Acknowledgments David G Rossiter was responsible for the requirements analysis and logical design of the system as well as its implementation including system design coding testing and documentation He wrote this manual and supervised its translation into the Spanish language He also developed the sample evaluations on which Tutorials 1 2 4 and 5 are based Versions 1 2 and 4 of ALES were developed when he was employed by the Department of Soil Crop amp Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University He wrote Version 3 and developed the ALIDRIS module as a private consultant He has given training courses on ALES and land evaluation methods in Brazil Colombia Indonesia Mexico the Philippines the USA and Venezuela He supervised the translation of ALES into the Spanish language and translated the updated V4 65 texts into Spanish and French Professor Armand Van Wambeke head of the International Soils Group conceived of the idea that land evaluation software for the microcomputer would be of great benefit to the soil survey and land evaluation community worldwide and initiated the project that grew into ALES All throug
231. en Broeke M J D Bouma J amp de Groot W J M 1992 A mixed qualitative quantitative physical land evaluation methodology Geoderma 55 37 54 A good example of using the right tool for each job ALES for a semi quantitative rapid assessment of problem areas then a simulation model for more detailed assessment in critical areas van Lanen H A J amp Wopereis H 1992 Computer captured expert knowledge to evaluate possibilities for injection of slurry from animal manure in the Netherlands Geoderma 54 107 124 More from the Staring Centre team van Lanen H A J van Diepen C A Reinds G J amp De Koning G H J 1992 A comparison of qualitative and quantitative physical land evaluations using an assessment of the potential for sugar beet growth in the European Community Soil Use amp Management 8 2 80 89 Leon P rez J C 1992 Aplicaci n del Sistema Automatizado para la Evaluaci n de Tierras ALES en un sector de la cuenca del r o Sin C rdoba Colombia Revista C LA F 13 1 19 42 A physical suitability evaluation for a variety of tropical land uses in a semi arid river basin Results were transferred to the ILWIS GIS for spatial analysis and map display Work of the Augustin Codazzi Geographical Institute of Colombia Venema J H amp Daink F 1992 Papua New Guinea Land Evaluation Systems PNGLES Port Moresby Papua New Guinea Department of Agricult
232. en format the documentation file in a spreadsheet to create the ASCII file After ALES Post processing A common reason for writing land unit definitions or data from ALES is to make these available to a another database program for example a natural resources database This would be useful if the data was originally prepared within the ALES environment ALES can be used as a data collection system either in data entry or consultation mode which may be easier to use than commercial database systems Evaluation results are written from ALES in order to further process them with GIS spreadsheets linear programs and other programs that perform analysis that is beyond the scope of ALES ALES predicts the performance of each land mapping unit in isolation However a land user typically needs a mix of different enterprises LUTs in an integrated operation For example dairy farm needs a certain proportion of grain crops forage and pasture A planning unit such as a municipal council has similar constraints with respect to kinds of land use Allocation of land in the correct proportion can be done with an optimization program with the input data to the program being the results of the ALES evaluation including economic metrics such as gross margin and amounts of inputs needed on each land mapping unit ALES evaluates map units or delineations In many applications the geographic location with respect to roads other map units villages et
233. entry syntax to enter a multi value is as follows val prob val prob val prob where val represents a permissible data value and prob represents a linear probability in the interval 0 1 The probabilities in the entire multi value must sum to 1 0 A multi value may be entered for any data item in a data entry form For example if a map unit is described as being composed of 60 somewhat poorly and 40 poorly drained soils in close proximity and inseparable on a map when asked for the drainage class in a data entry form we would enter spd 6 pd 4 Note that 0 6 0 4 1 0 as required This is an example of a spatial series of related data Another example is a time series of climate data In this case the proportions are typically derived by dividing the frequency of a data value in the series by the total length of the series When ALES encounters a multi value in its evaluation it evaluates each case in the multi value separately and combines the individual results It is not necessarily true that the evaluation results will be multi valued since there might be no difference from the point of view of a land use between the values In the previous example if a Land Utilization Type is not appropriate on any but well drained soils the multi valued drainage class would reduce to a single result The meaning of the proportions is not based on a rigorous definition of probability We can look at these linear proportio
234. equirements correspond to the demand of a land use whereas the qualities correspond to the supply by the land of that factor When you are building models of land uses in ALES you specify the requirements When ALES computes suitabilities for each land use it will compute the corresponding qualities Land Utilization Types have Land Use Requirements Land Mapping Units have Land Qualities The ALES model builder specifies the Land Use Requirements ALES computes the values of the corresponding Land Qualities The FAO has published lists of suggested Land Use Requirements for rainfed agriculture FAO 1983 for irrigated agriculture FAO 1985 and for forestry FAO 1984 along with suggestions on how they might be evaluated e g which Land Characteristics are important for these requirements A worksheet below lists the suggested LURs These suggested LURs can be grouped into categories 1 Agro ecological These affect the growth of the crop or animal For example temperature radiation water oxygen nutrients 2 Management These affect how the land user must manage the land For example conditions for land preparation and harvest irrigation frequency 3 Land Improvements These are requirements that must be met in order to bring the LUT into production For example land clearing irrigation and drainage requirement for leaching of salts 4 Environmental risks These are requirements that the land not degrade For exam
235. er coverages So in this sense ALES acts as a front end providing new coverages showing for example values of Land Characteristics or suitability for a given Land Utilization Type ALIDRIS applied to attribute value files ALIDRIS can also reclassify V3 or V4 attribute values files The attribute values file to be reclassified must contain the integer polygon identifiers IDRISI feature identifiers in the first column and the ALES map unit ID codes alphanumeric strings in the second column Any V3 documentation file for the values file is ignored since such files are optional in IDIRISI V3 In IDRISI V4 a documentation file dvl is required It must specify that there are two free format format 0 fields the first one field 0 integer and the second field 1 string and in addition that the values file is ascii Here is a typical values file giving the correspondence between IDRISI feature identifiers e g vector polygons and ALES codes ALIDRIS reclassifies this file as explained above and writes a documentation file with a legend if possible Attribute files are most commonly used to display vector maps using the PLOT command taking the graphic treatment from the new attributes file The legend can be drawn directly from the attributes documentation file Attribute values files can also be used with the ASSIGN command to reclassify a raster image although this is a round about way to create a map based on ALES
236. er of homogeneous map units for which data was written To restore saved definitions or data follow the above processes in reverse Select menu 1 3 Data Option 2 Definitions from a disk file read to restore map unit definitions and Option 5 to restore map unit data In the second case you will be asked to select a template pick the same one you used to back up the data In both cases you will be asked to specify a delimiter and file name be sure to specify the same ones you used when you wrote the files Before ALES reads definitions or data from the file it shows you the first few lines of the file and asks if you want to proceed This allows you to peek at a file to make sure you have the right one If you confirm ALES will try to read the file any errors will be reported at the bottom of the screen and also written to the log file After the file is completely read ALES will tell you how many records were read and how many were in error The log file will give details of any problem you can read the log file with any text editor If the land unit definitions or data are already in the ALES database they will be overwritten with the values read in from the file System wide backup In system wide backup the system manager backs up the entire ALES database and knowledge base at once There are two methods 1 from within MUMPS recommended and 2 from DOS An advantage to the within MUMPS system wide backup is tha
237. er to interact with the MUMPS shell for system maintenance purposes halt and do these can be abbreviated to just h and d respectively All commands are terminated by pressing the Enter key The halt command is used to leave the interpretive shell and return to DOS At the gt prompt type and then press Enter To exit from the MUMPS interpreter type halt and then press Enter The do command is used to execute programs For example to run the dataset compression utility program from the shell type do dscompress and then press Enter The MUMPS subroutine name e g dscompress in the previous example must be preceded by the up arrow or carat When ALES is finished the shell will regain control Remember exit from the MUMPS interpreter back to DOS with the halt command ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 254 February 1997 You can also calculate at the prompt using the set command and display the results with the write command For example set 98 6 set c f 32 1 8 Note that the MUMPS interpreter evaluates from left to right and does not use conventional algebraic precedence rules Programming in MUMPS The MUMPS language which was used to write the ALES software is a procedural language with a built in database manager It was originally developed at the Massachusetts General Hospital in the early 1970s as a minicomputer language to replace mainfram
238. erpretive maps In either case the ALES xBase interface can be used to modify the PAT or an associated table See the previous section for the mechanics of using this interface ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 225 February 1997 This section presents some sample GIS database structures mainly thinking of PC Arc Info which uses xBase format files to store all attributes and shows how they can be interfaced to ALES via the ALES lt xBase interface For a thorough treatment of relational database theory see the classic textbook by Date 1990 Homogeneous map units flat file database The simplest case is when a single PAT polygon attribute table contains all the information for a map unit This is a common structure which we will show is not the most desirable In the case of PC Arc Info this table will be file PAT DBF in directory sworkspace cover where sworkspace is the current workspace which here is represented as a DOS environment variable The polygon label is the key field for transfer with ALES Consider the following table from a PAT DBF erssivof of s 3024318 10505 g fel 2n me The field names AREA PERIMETER and LMU are assigned by Arc Info during topology creation BUILD or CLEAN and can not be changed The LMU_ID field is the polygon label which is assigned by the map creator during digitizing and is the key field in the terminology of the ALES xBase interface In other words
239. ese Land Characteristic values into Land Quality values i e inferring the LQ from the set of LC s ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 11 February 1997 3 Matching the Land Quality values with Land Use Requirements 4 Combining these Land Quality values into land suitability classes i e inferring the suitability from the set of LQ s There are two kinds of land suitability Physical suitability which expresses the degree to which the sustained implementation of the LUT on a certain land unit is feasible without unacceptable risk to the human or natural community and Economic suitability which is based on a calculation of the economic return which may be expected if the LUT in question is implemented on the land unit The FAO methodology has three levels of detail V At the highest level is the Framework which is the methodology with no content ALES is an automated realization of the framework At the middle level are specific Guidelines which provide suggestions for content V At the lowest level is each separate evaluation which incorporates parts of one or more Guidelines as well as local modifications Traditions of land evaluation There are two main currents of land evaluation practice The first follows the FAO Framework for Land Evaluation and subsequent guidelines The FAO Framework itself developed from earlier land capability approaches that emphasize relatively permanent limitations to land use
240. ess and then select branch 3 The cursor should move to the tenth branch f fine Press and then select branch 3 The cursor should move to the eleventh branch vf very fine Press and then select branch 3 The remaining branch number 7 for fine loamy soils represents the highest water holding capacities We will insert a subtree here based on summer precipitation as for the loamy soils So Move the cursor to the seventh branch fil fine loamy Press F4 to insert a subtree ALES displays the list of available discrete LCs not including cfv A and fpsc which are already on the path Select pptMS May September precipitation ALES expands the tree at the fil branch The cursor should be on the first branch lt 400 Press F3 and then select severity level 3 severe stress ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 154 February 1997 The cursor should move to the second branch 400 450 Press F3 and then select severity level 2 moderate stress The cursor should move to the third branch 450 500 Press F3 and then select severity level 1 adequate The cursor should move to the fourth branch gt 500 Press F3 and then select severity level 1 adequate Note that these are upgraded one class from the subtree rooted at fpsc I because these fine loamy soils have the best water holding capacit
241. ess Alt F5 and then answer Yes Press and then select branch 1 Move the cursor to the twelfth branch c clay Press Alt F5 and then answer Yes Press and then select branch 1 Also we will equate the decision for branch 9 silty clay loam with branch 4 loam Move the cursor to the ninth branch sic silty clay loam Press and then select branch 4 When you are all done this level of the tree should look like this ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 150 February 1997 cfv a volume of coarse fragments 2 s enough to be named 15 50 dbr depth to bedrock or root impenetrable layer 2 m moderately deep 50 100 cm erode previous erosion 1 n not eroded text B USDA texture of subsoil 1 s sand 3 severe stress 2 Is loamy sand 3 sl sandy loam 41 loam 5 sil silt loam 6 si silt 1 7 scl sandy clay loam 8 cl clay loam 9 sicl silty clay loam 10 sc sandy clay 10 sic silty clay 12 c clay 2 227 Notice in this example how branches can be joined into groups In this example the loamy textures l sil and sicl form one group with the highest water holding capacity and the other textures form another group Only one representative of each group needs to be specified in this example they are I loam and s sand Because of the structure of the previous tree more than one join may have to be fol
242. ess Enter to select this map unit ALES now displays a data entry form with fifteen items one for each land characteristic in the template Fill in the data entry form ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 73 February 1997 according to the following table 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 parent material limestone slope previous erosion depth to bedrock drainage class flooding reaction family particle size class texture of surface soil sand modifier surface soil type of coarse fragments volume of coarse fragments texture of subsoil lacustrine dominant gently sloping moderate deep moderately well drained never mildly alkaline fine silt loam not enough to be named silty clay loam sand modifier subsoil Press F10 to file your answers and return to the list of map units Press F10 to return to the list of templates and again Press F10 to return to Menu 1 3 Data Copying land units and editing land unit data Now we want to define and enter data for the two other members of the Schoharie Odessa Lakemont drainage sequence Odessa and Lakemont soils resemble Schoharie for the most part and only differ with respect to their drainage class previous erosion and surface texture The climate is the same So we can save a lot of work by taking advantage of the ability of ALES to copy entities in almost any list of de
243. ess F3 to initiate the recomputation ALES will ask you if you really want to recompute the evaluation this is to guard against accidentally pressing F3 instead of F2 Select Yes really recompute the evaluation ALES now recomputes all the cells in the matrix As it works you can see the progress in the annunciator line exactly as when we originally computed the evaluation results After the recalculation is complete the annunciator line reappears and the matrix is updated with changed values Any values which have changed during the computation are highlighted In the current case the two LUTs with corn as their output have been changed as the result of the recomputation but the pasture LUT hasn t been since N is only specified as an input for corn Notice that the NPVs were reduced e g for CeB by 51 63 to 187 82 by the price increase Let s change this economic parameter back to its original value to leave the tutorial in the same condition as we found it for the next user We can do that right from the evaluation matrix without going into the Why screens again Notice that F5 on the annunciator line is marked Edit Econ 1 e edit the economic parameters So Press F5 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 91 February 1997 to edit the economic parameters ALES displays Menu la 1 Economic parameters ccc d consisting of three Options We want to edit an input pr
244. ess and rockiness exturel topsoil texture 0 25 cm t texture2 subsoil texture 25 100 cm ee ee Le eee A Each of these is measured in classes which are defined according to the available survey information For example Class names for Land Characteristic landform 1 1 mangrove swamps ae 2 estuarine plains and deltas I 3 beach ridge complexes l e4 4 undifferentiated coastal plain 5 12 narrow alluvial floodplains 6 13 composite alluvial plains aed 15 meander floodplains 8 18 composite levee plains 9 21 back plains 110 22 back swamps 11 23 blocked valley swamps 12 24 undifferentiated swamps 113 25 braided floodplains 114 26 composite bar plain 115 35 volcano alluvial plains 116 0 landforms other than class 1 15 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 21 February 1997 The database itself consists of a list of the map units to be evaluated along with the values of each land characteristic in the database schema Land Mapping Units 3 001 1 CENTRAL RMUOO1 SOIL1 i 3 001 2 CENTRAL RMU001 SOIL2 i 3 001 3 CENTRAL RMU001 SOIL3 3 002 1 CENTRAL RMU002 SOIL1 i C i C 3 002 2 ENTRAL RMU002 SOIL2 3700253 ENTRAL RMU002 SOIL3 Each map unit has its data values for example Land Mapping Unit Data for 3 001 1 CENTRAL RMU001 SOIL1 LC code altitude anionfix
245. evaluation Suitability see land suitability ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 25 February 1997 Suitability classes Divisions of suitability orders that indicate the degree of suitability not simply suitable vs not suitable Suitability orders Land is either suitable or not suitable for a LUT Suitability subclasses Divisions of suitability classes which indicate not only the degree of suitability but also the nature of the limitations that make the land less than completely suitable Suitability units Divisions of suitability subclasses which have different management requirements An annotated bibliography of land evaluation This is a brief list of texts and reference works on land evaluation The material presented in these is sufficient to understand the FAO framework its applications to various land uses and its relation to other methods of land evaluation For more background information on land evaluation see the Cornell Land Evaluation Home Pages on the Internet at http wwwscas cit cornell edu landeval landeval htm Texts Bridges E M and Donald A Davidson eds 1982 Principles and applications of soil geography Longman London An advanced British undergraduate text with excellent summary chapters on soil survey soil classification automated data handling agricultural and urban uses of soils information Good bibliographies Burrough Peter A 1986 Principles of geographical informati
246. example would be inferring hydraulic conductivity fast medium slow from particle size class sand sandy loam structure granular blocky prismatic vertic characteristics none weak strong etc In this example all the base LC s are discrete there is no valid way to combine them with a formula Instead a decision tree can be used to combine their classes As with any continuous LC those that are determined by formulas must be related to a commensurate discrete LC to be useful in ALES evaluations This is explained above Formulas are evaluated when ALES needs the value of the continuous LC for which the formula is defined These in turn are evaluated when ALES needs the value of the discrete LC which is inferred from the continuous LC These in turn are evaluated when ALES is traversing a severity level decision tree which uses the discrete LC ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 202 February 1997 Note that formulas can refer to continuous LCs that themselves are computed by formulas If you would like to compute values of inferred LCs that are not yet used in the evaluation or if you want to force them to be evaluated for all map units select option 9 Infer Land Characteristic values of menu 1 3 Data Formulas are entered for continuous LC s with option 3 Infer by a formula of menu 1 1 4c Specification options for continuous LC They can have the following components Constants i e numbe
247. expresses the NPV in terms of the leverage of each unit of currency invested The higher the B CR the more return is expected for each unit of currency invested Also the higher the B CR the less risky the LUT because a lower than expected benefit or higher than expected cost will still leave the BC R greater than one Many industries and lending agencies have guidelines for acceptable BC R s e g that they be greater than 3 4 The Internal Rate of Return is the discount rate below which the LUT has a positive NPV If interest rates are higher the project will lose money over its lifetime if lower it will make money The IRR can also be used to express the risk of a LUT the higher IRR is less risky because faced with an unexpected rise in discount rate the LUT with a high IRR will still be profitable This measure is time neutral so can be used to compare LUT s with different planning horizons Economic land evaluation with ALES In an ALES model Land Utilization Types may have any number of outputs with any number of crops of each output over the planning horizon Inputs are allocated to specific years within the plan or may be related to the level of production of any output ALES can analyze rotations multiple cropping systems and intercrops Outputs can have negative value price so that for example loss of topsoil could be reflected in the economic calculation Environmental degradation outside the project area or other ex
248. f land that have both intrinsic value and a specific size For example if map unit Alpha has a predicted NPV of 100 ha for LUT LandUse1 and map unit Alpha represents a parcel of 40ha the per map unit NPV is 100 x 40 4 000 In ALES you have the option to view print export to a spreadsheet or export to an IDRISI map evaluation results either on a per area or a per map unit basis for Gross Margin NPV and yield You will be asked which on basis to report just before the evaluation results are output The default is to report on a per area or normalized basis as in ALES V4 0 and earlier For the per map unit basis to be valid the land area of each map unit must have been entered into the map unit data base Menu 1 2 Data Option 1 Definitions from keyboard enter or edit or read from a disk file along with the map unit codes and names Menu 1 2 Data Option 1 Definitions from disk file read Economic suitability classes The NPV and gross margin are expressed on a continuous scale i e as currency For compatibility with the FAO framework ALES is able to group these continuous values into four discrete suitability classes corresponding to FAO classes s1 s2 s3 and nl Class n is reserved for land that was previously rated as physically unsuitable To allow ALES to perform this grouping the evaluator must assign three economic suitability class limits i e v
249. fetime of the project without considering the time value of money and without considering fixed costs of the economic unit e g the farm Gross margin analysis is satisfactory for analyzing LUTs with no capital improvements and only recurring costs and outputs ALES economic analysis generally does not include fixed costs of the economic unit e g the farm because these do not depend on the land area the farm except indirectly However if a LUT is assumed to have a typical size the fixed costs can be divided by this size and then included as a per ha S1 cost for the LUT In this case ALES gross margin is really a net of fixed costs margin Discounted cash flow analysis considers the time value of money and is appropriate for any plan in which cash flows in and out are spread out over a number of years It is especially necessary if one time costs e g capital works such as permanent land improvements are incurred and the benefits of the one time cost are then received over a number of following years The measures of economic suitability in discounted cash flow analysis are 1 the predicted net present value NPV 2 the benefit cost ratio of the present value of cash in vs cash out and 3 the Internal Rate of Return for each Land Utilization Type land unit pair The NPV is measured on a continuous scale as currency per unit area plan where plan refers to the planning horizon i e length of the project
250. file in the same manner as dsbackup see immediately above except that this is Option 5 restore dataset of the database maintenance utilities sub menu If a user has erased or corrupted an evaluation but the EVAL GBL dataset is otherwise intact the valid evaluations must be saved to diskette using the F7 method explained in the user by user backup method above next dsrestore is used to recover the dataset as it was last saved and then the valid evaluations are restored with the F8 method If the valid evaluations have not been altered since the most recent backup it is not necessary to save and restore them with F7 F8 System wide backup from DOS Another approach to system wide backup is to use the DOS backup command or a commercial backup product such as Microsoft Backup including your MUMPS dataset files in the backup This may be desirable if you already have a data integrity policy for your PC then if you include the ALES datasets they will be similarly protected The only files that need to be backed up are the datasets containing the user evaluations As distributed these files are c dtm eval eval gbl There is no need to back up the MUMPS program system utilities or ALES program source and support files as these do not change and can be reloaded from the original distribution diskette should anything happen to them Of course you may choose to back them up along
251. finitions Move the highlight to Menu 1 3 Option 1 Definitions From keyboard Enter or edit Press Enter to select this option A list of the map units that have been defined for this evaluation will now appear including map unit SeB which we just defined and for which we entered data This is the map unit we are going to copy so Move the highlight to map unit SeB Notice that the annunciator bottom line of the screen shows that the F6 key is to be used to copy land unit definitions so Press F6 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 74 February 1997 to begin the copy An entry box should appear asking for the code for the map unit Land Mapping Unit code copy from SeB This is similar to the entry box we saw when we pressed F3 to define a new map unit except that the box shows that the new map unit will be copied from SeB Type OdA Press F10 to confirm this code Now ALES copies all information from SeB to OdA including data values Once the data has been copied a two item data entry form as for a new map unit will be displayed Name Schoharie loam 2 6 Area acre 650 1 Name Schoharie loam 2 6 Since this map unit was copied from another the answers are filled in with the values of the original map unit namely SeB The first question the descriptive name is of course incorrect So Press F4 to clear
252. first land characteristic to be considered when evaluating for this quality namely cfv A volume of coarse fragments in the surface soil is displayed along with its four classes If coarse fragments are too numerous or too large they interfere with mechanical land preparation Supposing that there are no significant coarse fragments in the land area being evaluated Move the highlight to branch 1 corresponding to class 1 n not enough to be named and Press Enter to confirm the selection The next land characteristic to be considered when determining the conditions for mechanization slope is displayed If slopes are too steep farm equipment can not safely be operated Notice that the highlight is already on branch 3 C sloping Recall that this is the value of this land characteristic that we entered in the first Land Quality box e erosion hazard Also notice that the annunciator line is different the arrow keys are no longer active Since you have already entered a value for this land characteristic you can t change it now to do so would be inconsistent ALES still shows you this step in the decision tree however You can only confirm this value or back up to the previous land characteristic Press Enter to confirm the selection ALES now displays the final result no limitation to mechanization class 1 on a scale of 1 to3 There is a note for this Land Quality read it
253. from ALES to an ASCII text file Menu 1 5 Options 2 3 and 6 through B 4 2 from ALES to a delimited ASCII file Menu 1 5 Options C through F Before ALES Pre processing A common reason for reading map unit definitions and data into ALES is that there is an existing database with the appropriate information and reading it directly into ALES not only saves typing but ensures consistency between the two databases This situation might arise if there is a national soils database which contains land unit definitions or data Although ALES provides a way for continuous Land Characteristic values to be combined according to formulas you might find it easier to perform simple manipulations e g of laboratory data in a spreadsheet or database and then import the calculated data values to ALES A typical example is if lab data must be weighted by horizon thickness in order to compute available water capacity to some depth or if the horizon including a particular depth must be identified Another pre processing operation is the definition of Land Mapping Units by GIS overlay of several source maps soil types climate zones political divisions etc If the GIS uses xBase format tables to store map unit definitions e g as in PC Arc Info you can use the ALES xBase interface otherwise you must use intermediate ASCII files In IDRISI you would use the CROSSTAB command to define homogeneous zones assign them map unit names with DOCUMENT and th
254. g data for three map units the field delimiter in this example is the semicolon ASCII 59 decimal Aa s A s sicl 6 5 Bb E sl 7 4 Ce B c 5 7 In this example map unit AA has a slope of class A i e nearly level a texture of sicl i e silty clay loam and a reaction of pH 6 5 File formats Land unit data from the data entry matrix ALES V4 5 and later allows data to be entered and edited in matrix form using Option A Edit data in a matrix of Menu 1 3 Data While viewing the data matrix the data can be saved to with the F7 key or read from using the F8 key a disk file The format of the disk file with the land unit data is as explained in the previous section except that there is an additional header line with the evaluation code in the leftmost column followed by the LC codes This is so that the data can be read into a spreadsheet format with the header line being the column headers Here is the example output from the previous section but using the comma as the delimiter as required by many spreadsheets Notice the additional header line nn nn MyEval slope texture Aa A sicl 6 5 Bb E s1 7 4 Cen B CSST reaction If read into a spreadsheet starting in cell Al and after a bit of formatting in the spreadsheet this data looks something like This looks very much like the data entry matrix in ALES the rows are map units and the columns
255. ge c dtm The answer will be partly filled in with the path to the IDRISI images ALES determines this from the IDRISI environment file Complete the answer by typing the name of the image Tutor5 without the extension remember ALES already determined the extension for images and their documentation from the IDRISI environment If ALES can t find the image you will see the error message Couldn t open file c dtm tutor5 img Check the path and try again If you see the message ALIDRIS can t read packed or real valued images CONVERT the image first you will have to convert the image with IDRISI command CONVERT to an integer non compressed format If ALIDRIS finds the image and if it is in the correct format a selection box will appear asking you to select the land characteristic for which ALIDRIS should make a thematic map We want to map a map of the soil drainage class so move the highlight to LC dc drainage class and press Return to select it An entry box will appear asking for the name of the output image What is the file name of the new raster image dc This is the same way that the other IDRISI modules use the environment file ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 177 February 1997 The suggested name is the LC code in this case dc You could change the suggested name but for now just press Return to confirm it The message Working will appear in the cen
256. gitizing package supplied with IDRISI or with a specialized digitizing package such as ROOTS or with a drafting package such as AUTOCAD or MicroStation2 The resulting vector map would be rasterized with the POLYRAS command to a blank image Decision Images 196 Tamarack Circle Skillman NJ 08558 USA FAX 1 609 683 4068 2Intergraph Corporation Huntsville AL 35894 USA Phone 1 800 345 4856 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 175 February 1997 created with INITIAL and you would add a legend with the DOCUMENT command or with COLOR interactive option L First change the IDRISI environment command ENVIRON so that IDRISI is looking for images in directory C DTM or wherever you unpacked the ALIDRIS examples Run LIST to make sure that IDRISI can find the image TUTORS If image TUTORS does not appear in the list it must be loaded from the distribution diskettes as explained in the section Installing the ALIDRIS samples of the Chapter Installing Configuring and Running ALES Use IDRISI command COLOR to display TUTORS This is a map of hypothetical soil mapping units in southeastern Cayuga County NY Notice that the legend consists of map unit codes just as they were used in the second tutorial e g ErA Key point The legend of the IDRISI map is its link to the ALES database or evaluation results Move around the map and find an area of ErA note its coordinates or row column position We
257. grams The format is a modification of the MUMPS gsave format used to exchange MUMPS data files The file contains the selected LC and any LCs that are needed to infer the selected LCs for example LCs used in its LC to LC decision tree They are saved in reverse order so that when a LC is restored all the LCs on which it depends will already be restored More than one LC definition may be written to the same file using the Append option File formats Land Use Requirement codes The default file extension is ALR These files are created with F7 at the reference list of LUR codes and default severity level names Menu 1 1 Option 1 These are not intended to be read by any other programs The format is a modification of the MUMPS gsave format used to exchange MUMPS data files All LURs are saved in one file File formats Input codes The default file extension is ALI These files are created with F7 at the reference list of Inputs Menu 1 1 Option 2 These are not intended to be read by any other programs The format is a modification of the MUMPS gsave format used to exchange MUMPS data files All input codes are saved in one file File formats Output codes The default file extension is ALO These files are created with F7 at the reference list of Outputs Menu 1 1 Option 3 These are not intended to be read by any other programs The format is a modification of the MUMPS gsave format
258. graphics adapter ALES is a text mode DOS program and expects a 80 column by 25 line display ALES is distributed with a set of pre defined color schemes and in Menu 1 2 System Options menu items 1 through 5 can be used to select color schemes for five types of screens 1 the main screen 2 the banner top and annunciator bottom or 25th lines 3 the help screens 4 consultation mode and 5 annotations user defined notes If you are running on a monochrome or Hercules adapter you should set all these to one of the monochrome color scheme On a color monitor you can select different schemes until you find ones that are pleasing to you If you are ambitious you can add or edit color schemes This is not part of ALES itself it is a small stand alone program which you run with the DOS command mumps ales Edit Lzattr Use the key to get help for each question The next time you start ALES your revised or new color scheme should be in the list Changing the human language ALES models and databases can be created in any human language that can be represented by the IBM character set the language for these is determined by the model builder The ALES program itself contains many texts such as menus data entry forms prompts and help screens These were originally written in the English language but most of them have been translated into French Spanish and Indonesian You can change the language in which
259. h Physical Suitability Subclass LMU LUT 1 2 3 2 gross margin 1 2 3 3 Net Present Value 1 2 3 4 Internal Rate of Return 1 2 3 5 Benefit Cost ratio Physical Suitability Highest numbered class Economic Suitability Class Limits _ classify Economic Suitability Class S1 2 S3 N1 or N2 LMU LUT ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 279 February 1997 Figure l Legend for Figures A H Menu Option where entered Model parameter units cope parameter influencing the computation its effect data flow Computed value units Input Land Characteristic Land Mapping Unit Land Use Requirement Land Utilization Type Output Severity level Year represents any currency represents any areal unit ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 280 February 1997
260. h the project his insistence that the software apply to practical objectives guided many design decisions He critically read drafts of the manuals and suggested many changes that made them much clearer He has publicized the ALES project in the course of his travels to Africa Europe and Latin America He supervised the translation of ALES into the French language Professor Christian Schvartz of the Institut Sup rieur d Agriculture of the University of Lille France translated into French all texts included in Version 3 of the ALES software as well as most of the Version 3 User s Manual Dr Ngongo Luhembwe of the University of Zaire contributed to the French translation of the sections of the Version 3 User s Manual tutorial exercise and building ALES models Ms Isabelle Castel translated the updated program texts of Version 4 5 into French Ing Agr Antonio Jim nez of the Venezuelan Ministry of the Environment was mainly responsible for the Spanish translation of the program texts and manual He also developed new tutorials for the Spanish language version of ALES The Venezuelan Ministry of the Environment Ministerio del Ambiente y de los Recursos Naturales Renovables MARNR granted Ingeniero Jim nez leave with pay and provided him with transportation to Ithaca so that he might work on the Spanish translation of ALES The Directors General responsible were Dr Anibal Rosales and Dr Claudio Caponi Dr Eugenio Marcano
261. harie loam 2 6 You will see SeB added to the list of constituents in fact it is the only item so far Now repeat the selection process to add three more constituents Press F3 Select map unit OdA Odessa silt loam 0 2 Press F3 Select map unit Lc Lakemont silty clay loam Press F3 Select map unit CeB Cazenovia silt loam 2 8 Notice how items that you select as constituents are removed as choices for further selections Once you added these four items to the list Press F10 to confirm the list of constituents Now ALES knows what constituents are included in the A13 association but it also needs to know their proportions within the compound map unit These proportions are used to compute weighted averages for crop yields costs and economic suitability You will now see another data entry form of four items namely the proportion of each of the four homogeneous map units The default values of 25 are shown for each one The default of 25 in this case is because there are four units and ALES assumes in the absence of more specific information that they occupy equal proportions of the association In fact according to the soil survey the true proportions are 40 Schoharie 30 Odessa 15 Lakemont and 15 Cazenovia Let s change the form accordingly Fill in the form as follows Percent CeB 15 Percent Le 15 Percent OdA 30 Percent SeB 4
262. hat polygons 2 and 5 LMU_ 2 and LMU 5 both are part of map unit 7 LMU_ID 7 This is because the map unit is distributed over space for example a map unit associated with alluvial soils will occur in many of the floodplains in the mapped area and these generally are not connected so that there are many polygons i e many different values of field LMU_ for a single map unit i e one value of field LMU_ID One Polygon gt One Map Unit Many Polygons amp One Map Unit ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 226 February 1997 The relation between the map unit field LMU_ID the key field and the attribute fields such as TEXT_A and PS_LUT3 is one to one i e for each map unit there is exactly one value of each attribute This is logical because if the land unit is the same its properties and hence its suitability should be the same For example in the sample table both polygons of LMU_ID 7 have surface soil field textures of silty clay loam TEXT_A sicl But considering the other direction the relation between the attribute values and the key field is one to many i e one attribute value can be shared by many map units In the example table both map units 7 and 85 have silty clay loam topsoils Many Map Units lt One attribute value There is a problem with the structure presented here Unlike the many to one relation between polygons and map units whi
263. he FAO framework suggests that four classes be used corresponding to 1 complete suitable S1 2 suitable CSZ 3 marginally suitable S3 N1 and 4 physically unsuitable N2 Within each class subclasses are used to designate the kind of limitations or other qualities that result in the placement of a map unit in the class Subclasses can be used as management groupings For example subclass 4e me might indicate land that is unsuitable because of high risk of erosion e and difficulties for mechanization me The FAO provides suggested lists of LQ codes in its various Guidelines In ALES the model builder can use either classes or subclasses as the result of a physical evaluation it is suggested that subclasses be used as they are more informative providing as they do a list of the kind of limitations present hence the management problems ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 204 February 1997 ALES has two ways to determine the physical suitability subclass of a land unit for a Land Utilization Type from the severity levels of Land Qualities 1 In the most general case the model builder may construct a physical suitability subclass decision tree which ALES follows during computation of physical suitability to combine severity levels of LQs into a composite physical suitability 2 A more restricted case is the maximum limitation method in which the model builder specifies that the
264. he LCs hue of the topsoil matrix and topsoil structure may be used instead This is expressed in the ALES decision tree by rooting a subtree containing the decision criteria hue of the topsoil matrix and topsoil structure at the Unknown branch for the LC high P fixation by iron Controlling complexity in decision trees A problem with decision trees is that their size measured as the number of leaves grows exponentially with the number of factors considered A practical limit is about six factors beyond this the size of a complete tree is prohibitive As a rule of thumb branches should have four or fewer factors should A detailed mathematical analysis of this process may be found in Rossiter 1988a a summary is presented in this and subsequent sections There are two appropriate measures of size for a set of decision trees namely 1 the number of leaves designated by N and 2 the number of trees designated by 7 in the set The size of a complete decision tree is inherently exponential in the number of discriminant entities considered e g LCs in a severity level decision tree ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 207 February 1997 Consider a complete decision tree of n entities each with m branches or choices this m is also called the branching factor Such a tree will have N m leaves so that as each new decision entity is added to the tree the number of leaves is multiplied by the branc
265. he lists in Menu 1 1 Reference Lists you can save reference items to disk file with F7 and restore them with F8 just as for LUTs and evaluation models File Formats The following sections describe the file formats for those who are writing their own programs to exchange data with ALES or who need to set up data tables in relational databases File format Land unit definitions This is information on the map units in the project area their identification codes descriptive names and areal extent For compound map units the component homogeneous map units and their proportions within the map ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 236 February 1997 unit must also be given This information can be read into ALES from a text file that has been output by another program or prepared by a word processor Alternately it can be entered as map unit definitions within ALES and later written out to a text file that can be read by another program or a word processor You request that land unit definitions be written to a DOS file with Option 3 Definitions To a disk file Write of Menu 1 3 Data you request that land unit definitions be read from a DOS file with Option 2 Definitions From a disk file Read of Menu 1 3 Data Information is exchanged as DOS text files in which each record or line of the file is terminated by a line feed character ASCII 10 decimal and fields within a record are del
266. hem in a safe place because you may need them again in a few months or years if you have a catastrophic hard disk failure and need to re install ALES You may also want to make a backup copy of the distribution set of diskettes which will save you the trouble of having to write us for a replacement should the original set be lost or damaged Keep your PaperKey ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 32 February 1997 certificate along with the distribution disks because you will need it if you ever re install or move your ALES program to another computer or directory Keep your distribution disks and PaperKey certificate in a safe place You must first decide where you want to install ALES in your hard disk directory structure It is recommended that you install ALES in sub directory pTM on hard disk drive c as the installation procedure is designed for this special case If you do this the installation procedure will be very easy If you elect to install on a different hard disk or in a different sub directory you will have to perform some additional steps explained below not included in the standard installation procedure before starting ALES for the first time It is fairly easy to install ALES on a different drive from cC and or on any path whose last directory is DTM It is more difficult but not impossible to install ALES to a path whose last lowest level directory is not DTM Both of these cases are explained below Step 1 Installi
267. hen asked for the code Obviously a reliable source of water is necessary to keep the fishponds filled with clean water ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 111 February 1997 Enter ws Press F10 to confirm it Now you will see the three item data entry form For the descriptive name Type water source Move to the next question in the form You are now being asked to specify the number of classes for this land characteristic Discrete classified Land Characteristics without units Not all land characteristics have underlying continuous scales of measurement In fact the LC we are defining now is a good example Water to be used in the fish ponds can come from three sources rain river or springs So there are three classes but no underlying scale or intrinsic ordering there is no way to order them other than arbitrarily So at the second question Type 3 Leave the last question blank i e don t answer it This tells ALES that there are no units of measurement associated with this LC Press F10 to confirm the form V A classified Land Characteristic without any units of measurement is called discrete without units It is a nominal land characteristic Menu 1 1 4b Specification options for discrete LC no units appears containing only six options Since there are no units of measurement it doesn t make sense to enter any class limits also there are no commensurate LC s
268. hest numbered physical suitability class is always reserved for physically unsuited land an economic evaluation will not be carried out for any land areas rated in this class Discount rate Each Land Utilization Type has a separate discount rate i e the rate at which future cash flows are discounted in order to determine present value This rate is used to discount a cash amount as follows 1 0 0 YearsFromPresent PresentValue CashAmounte 100 DiscountRate where the DiscountRate is the rate at which money may be borrowed expressed as a percent and YearsFromPresent is the number of years from the present when the CashAmount will be spent or received Example The present value of 1 000 to be received ten years hence at various discount rates is H U H 00 ojo ole o oe O sO IO NO Be ee ed o oX W m MN M Mm Jn m in MIR JRF INo s Jo OIF IABlOTAIN INH AJo eiIioajlojej ujejN AJo Alw i Aalojejeoee Oyo EFInaITBIDI OlA TE oOflo fo e OS Note that at 27 discount the present value is less than 10 of the actual cash amount From this we can see that the discount rate can have a very large effect on the present value of a project especially if a significant portion of the benefits of the LUT are incurred or received in the future For example a forestry project may incur many of its costs in the first year but not receive any benefits for 30 years The discount rate can b
269. hing factor of the new entity Trees can get very large very quickly In ALES the decision entities have branching factors number of classes of at most 9 LURs or 16 LCs with 4 being a typical value So if we consider only six entities we would already expect a complete tree of 4 4096 leaves Fortunately there are ways to control this inherent complexity the following sections explain these methods Constants vs variables As in mathematics also in land evaluation we can talk about constants i e data values that do not vary over the entire area to be evaluated and variables which do vary A model that incorporates only a narrow range of Land Utilization Types and is meant for application in a small area will not need to consider many variables because over the range of applicability of the model they are constants Conversely a wide ranging model will have many variables A good example of the effect of the number of variables on model size is erosion hazard see for example Hudson 1981 or 1995 The Universal Soil Loss Equation considers rainfall erosivity soil erodibility crop management and conservation practices So it would seem that all these would have to be considered when constructing a severity level decision tree for erosion hazard However within the context of a single LUT the crop management and conservation practices are constant since they are part of the LUT definition Hence the decision tree need only con
270. howing the incorrect answer The cursor is already at the end of the entry so to correct the entry lThe term pop up comes from the fact that this list just appears out of nowhere at the position of the highlight ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 72 February 1997 Type k that is the missing letter at the end of the answer and Press to confirm this entry and move to the next question Now you can see why the F3 method of data entry is preferable you only need to type a unique prefix of the answer not the entire answer and it s impossible to make a typing mistake Also you don t have to remember the class codes Now the highlight and answer box are on the last question pptMS which stands for May September precipitation Answer lt 400 using either method F3 or typing the answer as you wish Press F10 to confirm all the answers in the form and return to the list of map units This completes data entry for the climate data for this map unit Now we will enter the soil survey data These data are entered with a different template To change templates first Press F10 to leave the map unit list and return to the template list Move the highlight to template ss Cayuga County soil survey Press Enter to select template ss Now ALES displays the list of map units again Move the highlight to map unit SeB Pr
271. ht to branch 3 d deep Now we will make decisions for deep soils Recall that as we made decisions for moderately deep soils the depth never was a factor in our decision making Thus there is no difference from the point of view of construction potential between moderately deep branch 2 and deep branch 3 soils We could re enter the same subtree as is presently rooted at branch 2 but we can also take advantage of another feature of the editor equating or joining branches Notice in the annunciator line that and F7 are both marked join V is a shorthand for joined or equated V F7 or may be used to join branches Press to join this branch to another one A selection box will pop up asking to which other branch we want to join branch 3 The highlight is on branch 2 i e the one immediately above it In this case that s what we want so Press Enter to select this answer Now the at branch 3 is replaced with an 2 signifying a join and the branch number to which it is joined i e a 2 We have saved some work using the join since otherwise the subtree would have had to be duplicated Furthermore there is a logical difference between a join and a separate decision or subtree in the former case we are stating that from the point of view of the current decision tree there is no difference between the two branches In the prese
272. iamond next to all five map unit codes Press F10 to confirm this set and display the data entry matrix Fill in the matrix according to the following table using the arrow keys to move around the matrix the Enter key to edit a highlighted cell and the F3 key in the entry box to pop up a list of the choices Map Unit Land Characteristics LMU code wt pH rain long river medium spring short rain medium rain short Return to Menu 1 3 Data Return to Menu 1 Main options Computing evaluation results Now that the model is complete all the map units have been defined and all the data has been entered ALES can compute physical and economic land suitability Select Menu 1 Main options Option 4 Evaluations Select Menu 1 4 Evaluations Option 1 Compute an evaluation Press F6 to select all the Land Mapping Units You will see a diamond next to all five map unit codes Press F10 to confirm this set and compute the evaluation ALES will show its progress in the lower left corner of the screen The computation should be very fast since the model is so simple and there are only five map units When the computation finishes ALES returns to Menu 1 4 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 137 February 1997 Select Menu 1 4 Evaluations Option 2 View evaluation results ALES asks which kind of evaluation results you want to view Select
273. ice this is Option 1 Select Menu 1a 1 Option 1 Input prices ALES displays the selection list of the inputs Select input N nitrogen fertilizer A one item data entry form now appears for the price of nitrogen with the value we edited 0 25 per pound as the default The cursor is at the end of the answer so Press BkSp backspace to remove the final 5 from the answer and then Press F10 to confirm the form and again Press F10 to return to economic parameters menu Discount rate Let s get a feel for just how important the discount rate can be in determining the cost effectiveness of a LUT over time The LUT ccc d has the major capital improvement of land drainage we would expect that any measure of economic suitability such as the NPV which is based on discounted cash flow analysis would be sensitive to discount rates Select Menu 1a 1 Option 3 Discount rates Select Land Utilization Type ccc d Change the discount rate to 2 Press F10 to confirm the new discount rate This very low discount rate might represent a government backed low interest loan to encourage land improvement Press F10 to return to the list of LUTs and again Press F10 to return to the economic parameters menu and finally Press F10 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 92 February 1997 to return to the evaluation matrix Now we want to re compute so Press
274. idea is that the two databases should be consistent and the one from which you are transferring should be the most current e If the ALES LC value or code is too wide to fit in the corresponding xBase field it will be ignored and any value that was already in the xBase field will be left unchanged e If the xBase key field is not unique i e there are more than one record with the same value of the key field the same ALES LC value will be written to every record with the same LMU code e On export to numeric xBase fields non numeric ALES fields will be ignored If the length of the integer part of a continuous ALES value is wider than the xBase field the value will be ignored If the combined width of the integer and decimal parts of a continuous ALES value is wider than the xBase field the decimals will be truncated as necessary to fit e On export to logical xBase fields any numeric value other than zero will be written as True Numeric zero and any character value other than T or t will be written as False Exporting evaluation results from ALES The most important use of this option is to augment PC Arc Info polygon coverages of Land Mapping Units with land evaluation results These Polygon Attribute Tables PAT are named PAT DBF and are located in the coverage directory For example for coverage soils the PAT is file soils pat dbf in the workspace You can also export to other tables that are link
275. ific guidelines for evaluating land in sloping areas based on the FAO framework U S Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation 1951 Irrigated land use Part 2 Land classification Washington U S Government Printing Office The source document for the USBR land suitability classification for irrigation Land evaluation theory van Diepen C A Van Keulen H Wolf J amp Berkhout J A A 1991 Land evaluation from intuition to quantification In B A Stewart Eds Advances In Soil Science pp 139 204 New York Springer A critical review of land evaluation concepts Rossiter D G 1996 A theoretical framework for land evaluation with Discussion Geoderma 72 165 202 An attempt to classify land evaluation techniques Includes an interesting discussion on the status and future of land evaluation Rossiter D G 1995 Economic land evaluation why and how Soil Use amp Management 11 132 140 Similar to the discussion of economic land evaluation in this manual but in a wider context i e not specific to ALES Quantified Land Evaluation Three international symposiums have been held on these theme The proceedings have been published Beek K J Burrough P A and McCormack D E Eds 1987 Quantified land evaluation procedures Proceedings of the international workshop on quantified land evaluation procedures held in Washington DC 27 April 2 May 1986 International Inst
276. ification options for LUT Output tdp ti Option 1 Optimum yield years when produced how yield is affected A data entry form will appear asking for four items 1 the Optimum yield in kg per are 2 the years in the plan when the crop is harvested 3 whether yield can be reduced in this LUT and 4 whether yield can be delayed in this LUT Inputs are the other side ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 128 February 1997 The terminology optimum yield is a bit misleading Really we are talking about the expected yield under optimum conditions See the next Chapter for a fuller discussion Answer question 1 Optimum yield with 35 I e under optimum conditions we expect 35 kg of fresh Tilapia per are 10 meter by 10 meter pond per crop The level at which this figure is set is determined by 1 the ecological context of the model s area of applicability 2 the socio economic context 3 the management level we assume and 4 whether we deal with uncertainties as optimists pessimists risk averse or by considering the average This issue is covered fully in the next Chapter Recall that we defined a five year planning horizon in the basic information for the Land Utilization Type Under optimum conditions there are three crops of fish per year However if there is a water shortage there may be two one or even no crops of fish per year We will take this into account when
277. igure 3 1 A decision tree to determine whether there is a likelihood of high P fixation by iron after Sanchez et al 1982 ratio of free Fe2O3 to clay in the topsoil lt 0 15 LOW P FIXATION L 0 15 percentage of clay in the topsoil lt 35 LOW P FIXATION _35 HIGH P FIXATION Unknown hue of the topsoil matrix R 2 5YR SYR 7 5YR topsoil structure granular HIGH P FIXATION other LOW P FIXATION 10YR Y G B Low P FIXATION Unknown hue of the topsoil matrix R 2 5YR SYR 7 5YR topsoil structure granular HIGH P FIXATION other LOW P FIXATION 10YR Y G B LOW P FIXATION Discriminant entities are introduced by and underlined Values of the entities are boxed The level in the tree is indicated by the leader characters Result values are introduced by and written in SMALL CAPITALS 4 Values of classified Land Characteristics from a set of other classified Land Characteristics Menu 1 1 4 Option 4 Decision trees have several advantages as a method of expressing inferences First the model builder and user both have an explicit representation of the process used to reach a decision Trees may be traced by hand or with the aid of ALES Why screens so that the model user can see exactly how ALES reached a decision which of course is based on the model builder s logic If many factors must be considered decision
278. ility classes Here the numeric equivalents s s2 2 s3 3 nl 4 n2 5 are used so again the lower VI is best Defining Land Utilization Types By far the most significant decision in constructing a model is the selection and definition of Land Utilization Types i e the land use alternatives This is covered in detail in FAO Soils Bulletins 52 55 and 58 and in Forestry Paper 48 see the References Suffice it here to say that all aspects of the Land Utilization Type especially including the socio economic and technical context must be completely specified Level of mechanization access to credit tenancy system and many more factors greatly influence the variables that must be considered when constructing ALES models ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 188 February 1997 The following sections explain design considerations for each aspect of the Land Utilization Type specification Number of physical suitability classes See above for a discussion of the meaning of physical suitability In practical terms 1 Use the default 4 classes S1 S2 S3 N1 and N2 if you want to conform to the FAO Framework 2 Use 2 classes S N if you only need to distinguish physically suitable from physically unsuitable and are going to distinguish various degrees of suitability in economic terms 3 Use any number of classes 2 to 9 if you can determine that number of physical classes or if you wish to follow an existing system Remember that the hig
279. imited by almost any ASCII character selected by the user On output from ALES the user specifies the delimiter just before the file is written on input it is specified just before the file is read The following characters are not acceptable delimiters double quote ASCII 34 this is already used to enclose text fields AV SYN ASCII 22 this is used in the ALES data structures J LF line feed ASCII 10 this is already used to delimit records period ASCII 46 this can appear in numbers A file can have any name and extension the ALES user specifies these when the file is about to be read or written Files have the following format LMU 1 LMU 2 LMU n where each LMU 7 is one line or record with the Land Mapping Unit specification Each line has the following format Lmuld d Name d Type d Extent where d is the user selected delimiter character LmuId is the map unit code Name is the descriptive name Type is either h homogeneous or c compound and Extent is the extent of this map unit in terms of the unit of measurement used in the evaluation in the project area The fields LmulId Name and Type are enclosed in double quotes on output from ALES on input the quotes are optional If type is c in other words the map unit is compound these four fields are followed on the same line by a series of fields two for each constituent with the for
280. in value zQ max value 6 This information is taken directly from the new documentation file cccgme doc Now let s see what the new map looks like Exit from ALES by pressing F10 seven times Run IDRISI command LIST notice that the image cccgme is now in the list with a descriptive title that was written by ALIDRIS Run IDRISI command COLOR to display image cccgme The map should show the same area as the base map TutorS but instead of a legend of soil map units the new map has a legend of drainage classes 1 ewd excessively well drained 2 wd well drained etc Find the location in this image of the delineation of an ErA map unit that you investigated at the beginning of this tutorial Using the example above use option C of COLOR at Column 56 Row 112 or use option X of COLOR at X 393 620 East Y 4 708 240 North This is in a large map unit near the center bottom of the image What is its legend category and economic suitability class This agrees with what we saw in the evaluation results matrix map unit ErA is rated s3 marginally suitable for LUT ccc ALIDRIS merely made a map which shows the spatial distribution of the economic suitability class IDRISI exercise What proportion of the total study area is highly suitable for conventional maize production Hint Use HISTO with a class width of 1 tabular output and note the proportion in legend c
281. in the annunciator line is marked Copy So Press F6 to start the copy ALES asks for a new code for the copied model Enter Tutor4 After you confirm your entry the Working message appears on the screen while ALES copies the entire model and data base for Tutor to the new model and data base Tutor4 Since there is a lot of information to copy this will take a while from 2 seconds on a P100 to about one minute on a 12MHz PC AT When the message disappears the copy is complete and ALES presents the basic information for this new model Notice that this 3 item data entry form is exactly the same form you had to fill in when defining a new model as oppose to a copy but in the case of a copy the answers are already filled in based on the evaluation you copied from Clearly the answer to the first question Description is wrong Answer Question 1 with Tutorial 4 Advanced ALES techniques Confirm the form and return to the list of evaluations The newly copied model appears in the list and the highlight is on it Notice that it is marked with a indicating that there is already a note for this new model This is because the note was copied along with the rest of the model Let s see if the note is still accurate Press Alt F9 to bring up the note editor The first two lines are now incorrect we need to change the references to tutorial 2 to number 4 The
282. in this set Also there is an extra item in the list is marked don t infer this LC which you select if you want to remove an inference Select pptMS c You have now set up the inference link Menu 1 1 4a is again active Notice that Option 5 in Menu 1 1 4a is titled Lc gt Lc decision tree If you should choose this you would invoke the decision tree editor to build a decision tree that ALES would use to determine values of this LC here ppt MS from any number of other LCs The tree looks like a severity level decision tree except that the decision values are LC classes instead of severity levels of a LQ This is explained in more detail in Chapter 8 we won t go through an example in this tutorial ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 159 February 1997 We re done editing LC ppt MS so Press F10 to return to the list of Land Characteristics Press F10 again to return to Menu 1 1 Press F10 yet again to return to Menu 1 Main Options Now we must provide a way to enter data for the newly defined LC into ALES Recall that data can only be entered for LCs that appear in one or more data entry templates To add this LC to a template Select Menu 1 Main options Option 3 Data Select Menu 1 3 Data Option 7 Templates Move the highlight to template cl climatological LCs Press F5 to edit this template Select Menu 1 3 7 Option 2
283. in to insert the next field Notice that the characteristic that we ve already used for the first field i e pH is no longer in the selection list Select ws water source Notice that ws is now field 2 in the list The highlight should be on the dummy item now field 3 named lt add to end of list gt Suppose that we intended that a different characteristic water temperature be the first field instead of pH We can insert this land characteristic before the fields we ve already defined Move the highlight to field 1 Press F3 _ to insert a new field before field 1 Select wt water temperature Notice that wt is the first field and pH and ws have been pushed down to fields 2 and 3 respectively The highlight is on field 2 pH We will enter the rest of the characteristics at the end of the list So Move the highlight to the end of the list Insert the remaining Land Characteristics in the list in the order rs sl sd text cfc cfs and pe The list of fields should now look like this ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 135 February 1997 Data Fields for All all land characteristics wt water temperature pH pH of water ws source of water rs length of rainy season sl slope sd soil depth text texture of fine earth cfc coarse fragment content cfs coarse fragmen
284. including cfv A and fpsc which are already on the path Select pptMS May September precipitation ALES expands the tree at the I sk branch The cursor should be on the first branch lt 400 Press F3 and then select severity level 3 severe stress The cursor should move to the second branch 400 450 Press F3 and then select severity level 3 moderate stress The cursor should move to the third branch 450 500 Press F3 and then select severity level 2 moderate stress ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 153 February 1997 The cursor should move to the fourth branch gt 500 Press F3 and then select severity level 1 adequate Now this subtree is complete so Presse to go back to the next highest level fpsc The subtree we just entered applies to soils with moderate water holding capacities either because of reduced rooting volume or because of unfavorable textures The following family particle size classes can reasonably be equated with this subtree col branch 6 cosi branch 8 fisi branch 9 f branch 10 and vf branch 11 So Move the cursor to the sixth branch col coarse loamy Press and then select branch 3 Move the cursor to the eighth branch cosi coarse silty Press and then select branch 3 The cursor should move to the ninth branch fisi fine silty Pr
285. ing alternatives e g van Lanen et al 1992 A third current in land evaluation practice unfortunately not yet a tradition is economic land evaluation Johnson Cramb et al 1994 Rossiter 1995 Johnson and Cramb 1996 sometimes leading to attempts at optimal land allocation Keyzer 1992 ALES is designed since V2 to provide various indicators of micro economic land suitability ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 12 February 1997 Outline of the land evaluation process The land evaluation process is not only concerned with building ALES models One overall structure can be seen in the following diagram ALES is only involved in steps 7 through 11 1 Identify Decision Makers Objectives amp Means of Implementation y v 2 3 Define the spatial entities to be lt gt Define the Land Utilization lt evaluated Types to be evaluated y 4 Define the LUTs in terms of their Land Use Requirements y 6 5 Identify data sources amp survey if _ Define the LURs in terms of their possible necessary diagnostic Land Characteristics y v 7 8 Enter tabular data and maps for Build computer models for lt the LCs land evaluation v 9 Compute the evaluation y 10 Calibrate the results y 11 Present the results to the users y
286. inity sodicity H ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 20 February 1997 In this model as in the original FAO Framework each LUR of each LUT is measured in four severity levels no limitation slight limitation moderate limitation and severe limitation ALES is quite a bit more flexible in this regard The database schema consists of the following diagnostic Land Characteristics Land characteristics ltitude altitude mean maximum and minimum temperature nionfix anion fixation availp available phosphorus 2 3 0 25cm 1 3 25 100cm awcl available water holding capacity 0 25 cm awc2 available water holding capacity 0 50 cm awc3 available water holding capacity 0 100 cm bs base saturation 2 3 0 25 cm 1 3 25 100 cm cec cation exchange capacity 0 25 cm deficit rainfall deficit depth effective soil depth drainage soil drainage erodibil soil erodibility a a i i l i l i l i l i exchk exchangeable potassium i landform landform minres mineral reserv 25 100 cm nitrogen total nitrogen 0 25 cm j ph soil reaction 2 3 0 25 cm 1 3 25 100 cm irainfall mean annual rainfall l relief relief l i l i l i l i l l l i l i i salinity salinity seasonal seasonal variability of monthly rainfall slopel dominant slope slope2 sub dominant slope soils soil classification great group Soil Taxonomy stoni surface stonin
287. intent of the agencies is to plan or recommend the uses of land in a rational and equitable way using the techniques of land use planning primarily for rural and semi urban development FAO 1994 Recommendations and plans must usually be made quickly in response to actual needs and current conditions Land use planning has as its basic purpose to ensure that each area of land will be used so as to provide maximum social benefits especially including food production and human health without excessive degradation of the land resource Planning has two aspects the political and the rational The political process is necessary to initiate and carry out land use planning to set its objectives and to arbitrate among competing interests The rational or technical part of planning ensures that plans are feasible that cost and return estimates are accurate and that sufficient data have been collected and collated to ensure these While the political aspect of land use planning is outside the scope of the land evaluator clearly the expert knowledge of the agronomist the production agriculture specialist and other rural land use specialists must form the basis of correct land use planning in its technical aspect There are many sources of knowledge about land and land use Even in less developed countries there is often adequate information such as soil surveys about land resources and much of this information is of high quality Also there is of
288. ion tree Menu 1 2 6 Option 2 The advantage of this method is that it allows all interactions to be taken into account The model builder can specify a proportional yield on the interval 0 to 1 for each combination of severity levels of the Land Qualities that are in this proportional yield decision tree The disadvantage of this method is that if many factors are to be considered the tree may become excessively large and unwieldy If some Land Qualities affect yield in essentially a strictly multiplicative or limiting manner the model builder can leave them out of the proportional yield decision tree and account for them in one of the following two methods Multiplicative yield factors Some Land Qualities affect yield in a multiplicative fashion More precisely we may say that if a land unit has a certain severity level assigned to one of these Land Qualities the optimum yield must be multiplied by a factor between 0 and to arrive at the predicted yield If there is more than one of these qualities in an evaluation all such factors are multiplied together For these Land Qualities there is a shortcut to using them in proportional yield decision trees i e assigning multiplicative yield factors The disadvantage of this method is that it assumes that several yield limiting factors multiply to predict final yield usually this prediction is too pessimistic As a simple example suppose that all the n LQs in a model have the same number
289. is line in the Why screen This means that the farmer will have to use a short season corn hybrid with a yield potential of 80 of a full season hybrid Hence the predicted proportion of 100 must be limited to 80 proportional yield Return to the evaluation results matrix Now let s see the synergistic interaction we defined in the proportional yield decision tree Display the first Why screen for map unit test1 As you can see the predicted yield is 54 bushels per acre because the proportional yield is 40 This 40 comes from the decision tree because of the medium planting date and severe moisture stress There is one limiting yield factor namely 95 because of a medium season on this land You will have to scroll down to see this line in the Why screen However this does not further reduce yield since it is a limiting yield factor and the proportional yield predicted by the decision tree is already lower than 95 Return to the evaluation results matrix Press F10 three times to return to Menu 1 Main options ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 170 February 1997 More about physical suitability In this section we ll explore several advanced features of ALES for evaluating the physical suitability of land Physical suitability subclass decision tree In Tutorial 3 we used the maximum limitation method to determine physical suitability This is a simple method but it has the di
290. is on the various machines where the LUTs will be developed Then all machines have the same reference lists and LUTs can freely be passed around among them The post hoc solution is to examine the error report and define the missing reference items in the target system ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 235 February 1997 Here is a sketch of a multi site model building process Base Model LUR codes LC definitions 1 0 codes re 1 Or export import Options base model from J F7 F8 Menu 1 2 F7 F8 LUT Group A Agriculture LUT Group B Forestry LUT Group C Pasture Combined ALES Model Transferring Reference Lists between ALES evaluation models Reference lists of Land Characteristics LUR codes input code and output codes may be shared between ALES models either on the same or different ALES systems This is useful for maintaining standard sets of reference lists within an organization For example consider a national soil survey organization with several regional centers It makes sense for each region to develop its own land evaluation models for the LUTs that are relevant to that region But it is also desirable to integrate all the LUTs into one national system The LUTs can be saved to disk and restored as explained in the previous section but for this to work the reference lists must be compatible So at all t
291. iscovering them The evaluation matrix may be recomputed directly from the matrix display any changed results will be highlighted so that the model builder can see which results were affected by the changes to the model Typically this step will be repeated many times until the model builder is satisfied that the model successfully predicts suitabilities to the desired accuracy If the results of an ALES evaluation are to be sent to a GIS or an economic optimization procedure for further analysis these step should also be part of the iterative analysis of the results Often looking at a map of suitability or a Land Quality will help the experts visualize the results of the preliminary evaluation For example if a preliminary suitability map for an existing LUT shows that an area where the use is known to be successful is not included in the suitable zone the expert can easily see that something is wrong Once a satisfactory preliminary model is completed the evaluator can then extend it to a wider set of Land Utilization Types The program allows the copying of entire Land Utilization Type definitions The copies can be modified to reflect differences in for example management method or economic assumptions resulting in side by side comparisons of related alternatives in the evaluation matrix Then the model will typically be turned over to model users who will enter descriptions and data for all the map units in the survey a
292. istics So a major design objective of ALES is to allow the use of land data in almost any format as well as easy interchange of computer readable data with national soils databases and similar repositories of land data This work is especially intended for application in less developed countries since the opportunities for planning are greater there than in the developed countries Planning implies a willingness to change and in countries with developed agriculture change is usually at the farm level not involving larger scale planning Further the need for change in agriculture is greater in those countries that can not feed themselves provide meaningful occupations to their rural populations or generate sufficient exports to stimulate their economic development However ALES is certainly applicable to many problems in developed countries Examples are defining prime farmland for agricultural land preservation laws or other rural zoning arriving at assessments of agricultural potential for taxation or land valuation and performing soil survey interpretations These countries usually have well established soils databases from which data can easily be imported into ALES conversely results from ALES can easily be exported to programs that perform further computations such as land valuation History of ALES The ALES project was the outgrowth of the interests of Professor Armand Van Wambeke of the International Soils Group at Cornell to make
293. itability delete evaluation models Before working on this tutorial you should have completed Tutorials 1 2 and 3 This tutorial is fast paced as we expect you to be comfortable with ALES by now This tutorial should take between three and six hours to complete You should read the relevant sections of the next Chapter as you work on the tutorial Copying an evaluation model The model to be used in this tutorial will be a refinement the model used in Tutorial 2 We don t want to edit model Tutor2 since others may want to use it in its original state for their own tutorial exercise Instead we ll make a copy of it and work on the copy This is a very useful procedure for experimenting with someone else s model or basing one evaluation model on another ALES keeps all evaluation models completely separate so if you work on the copy of a model you can t inadvertently delete or modify the original V ALES keeps all evaluation models reference lists databases land utilization types completely separate Start ALES in model building mode with DOS command ALES Select Main Menu Option 1 Build Models and evaluate Move the highlight to evaluation model Tutor2 If Tutor does not appear in the list of evaluation models you must first load it into your list of ALES models as explained at the beginning of Tutorial 2 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 143 February 1997 Notice that F6
294. ith ALES Menu 1 2 Land Utilization Type Option 6 Outputs sub option 5 Production dependent inputs ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 89 February 1997 Press PgDn to scroll the Why screen down The last LQ listed is nr nutrient requirement and here we see that map unit CeB is rated in severity level 2 Honeoye group out of 6 possible severity levels and that this LQ has an associated list of annual additional inputs namely the major fertilizer nutrients N P and K These are additional inputs because the amount of fertilizer needed depends on the nutrient requirements of the map unit In the present case i e on map unit CeB these are 1201b N 401b P205 and 401b K20 Let s see why this map unit was rated in severity level for the nutrient requirement LQ Notice that in the annunciator line F2 is marked Why severity level so Press F2 to find out why the severity level ALES displays a selection list asking which LQ to display Select Land Quality nr nutrient requirement ALES displays the fourth Why screen in the chain showing the map unit LUT LUR computed severity level here 2 and the decision tree path Here the decision is very simple the nutrient requirement is directly related to the New York State soil management subgroup which is a grouping of New York soils for purposes of fertilizer recommendations Notice th
295. ith only the dummy item in the list Press F3 to enter the first item Now you can see a difference between this choice box and the ones we ve seen before We are not being asked to type in a new code instead we are being asked to select a code out of a pre defined lists In this case the codes we can choose are those that were defined in the reference list of inputs see above There are five possible annual inputs we are going to use two of them at this time labor and manure Select item labor A one item data entry form appears asking how many units in this case days per are per year will be required to implement the fish farm Labor is required for fertilizing maintaining the pond banks harvesting each crop of fish and replenishing the water after each harvest None of these is very labor intensive a reasonable estimate of the total time required is six days per 10x10m area are per year Enter 6 Press F10 to confirm the form Now we are back on the choice box with one item labor in the list Using the same technique that you just used to add the first input Add a second input manure using 0 2 tons per are Manure is required to promote algal growth in the ponds the fish then eat the algae Press F10 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 116 February 1997 to confirm the list of annual inputs and return to Menu 1 2 Now we will enter the by year inputs i e
296. ith the note sign and the annunciator line indicates that if we press F9 we can read the note So Press F9 to read the explanation of the Land Use Requirement and its severity levels when you are done Press F10 to remove the note and return to the results screen We re done with this Land Quality so Press Enter to confirm the result and continue on to the next Land Quality Land Quality m Moisture availability The window for LQ e is replaced with a similar one for Land Quality m moisture availability as you can see from the new title at the top of the window The first land characteristic to be considered when evaluating for this quality namely dbr depth to bedrock or root impenetrable layer is displayed along with its three classes This land characteristic helps determine the potential rooting volume which directly affects moisture holding capacity Suppose the land to be evaluated has a dense fragipan Bx horizon at 40cm As you can see from the class names this is considered shallow So Move the highlight to branch 1 corresponding to class s shallow Press Enter to confirm this value i e to tell ALES that the land area we are evaluating is shallow to a root impenetrable layer ALES now displays a result value namely severe stress of the Land Quality moisture availability After considering only one facto
297. itute for Aerospace Survey and Earth Sciences ITC Publication No 6 Enschede the Netherlands ITC This contains van Wambeke s paper Thinking small is beautiful in land evaluation which was the original philisophical basis of ALES Bouma J and Bregt A K Eds 1989 Land qualities in space and time Proceedings of a symposium organized by the International Society of Soil Science ISSS Wageningen the Netherlands 22 26 August 1988 Wageningen Pudoc Highly recommended Wagenet R J and Bouma J Eds 1993 Operational methods to characterize soil behavior in space and time Geoderma Vol 60 Nos 1 4 Amsterdam Elsevier ALES applications Delsert E 1993 Quelles possibilites pour l utilisation du logiciel ALES dans le contexte de l agriculture fran aise Application a l valuation des potentialit s du bl en Lorraine Ing Agr Institut Sup rieur d Agriculture Universit Catholique de Lille Application of ALES to wheat growing in the Lorraine region of France ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 28 February 1997 Johnson A K L amp Cramb R A 1991 Development of a simulation based land evaluation system using crop modeling expert systems and risk analysis Soil Use amp Management 7 4 239 245 They use ALES along with a linear program and the RISK Monte Carlo simulation driver to assess land suitability for sugar cane in Queensland van Lanen H A J Hack t
298. keep at least two previous backups so that if you are inadvertently saving a model that has been corrupted or altered for the worse you have a few days to discover this and go back to a previous backup To do this prepare two backup diskettes and alternate them You will see a Working message while the model is being saved When the save is complete the list of evaluations will be re displayed The highlight should still be on the model you just saved Press Enter to select your model and move to Menu 1 Main Options As you work in ALES you should back up your models whenever you have made a significant number of changes For example if you have to interrupt this tutorial it would be a good idea to back up your model before taking a break Remember you back up your model from the list of evaluation models Defining reference lists of Land Use Requirements inputs and outputs The main menu is organized in the order in which we might perform a land evaluation 1 define reference lists to be used in all LUTs 2 define Land Utilization Types 3 enter the data 4 evaluate 5 print reports of evaluation results or model contents You can also access the consultation mode covered in the first tutorial from this menu with Option 6 create maps in the IDRISI Geographic Information System with Option 7 and exchange data with xBase formatted databases with Option 8 ALES Version 4 65 User
299. ksellers Agronomy Monograph 21 is available from American Society of Agronomy 677 S Segoe Rd Madison WI 53711 USA ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 29 February 1997 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 30 February 1997 Installing Configuring and Running ALES This chapter explains how to install configure and run the ALES program on your computer system It has been updated for the newest version DTM PC 4 3M of DataTree MUMPS which requires a special PaperKey Certificate for installation as explained below The first section explains what kind of computer hardware and software you need in order to be able to install and run ALES The second section explains how to install ALES We assume that you understand the basics of your operating system e g MS DOS and how to switch between disk drives move in the directory structure and use the keyboard For some installation options you must know how to use a plain text editor such as the MS DOS Editor or the MS Windows Notepad The third section explains how to run ALES under a single tasking operating system DOS The fourth section explains how to run ALES under the multi tasking operating systems DesqView Microsoft Windows 3 1 and Windows 95 and OS 2 The fifth section explains how to install and run ALES on a Novell network The sixth section explains how to customize ALES language screen colors additional serial or parallel devices and multiple groups of
300. l physical suitability of each map unit from the individual Land Quality severity levels Determining economic suitability classes Economic suitability classes are divisions of the whole range of economic metrics such as Net Present Values or Gross Margins to allow ALES to assign land to one of the four FAO economic suitability classes S1 highly suitable S2 suitable S3 marginally suitable N1 economically unsuitable Note that FAO class N2 physically unsuitable we took care of this case in the previous section You can not change the number or names of the FAO classes but you can determine which land falls in each class by entering economic class limits as explained in this section If the FAO economic suitability classes are not required as outputs of the evaluation this step can be omitted ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 132 February 1997 Economic class limits can be set for all four kinds of analysis NPV IRR Benefit Cost ratio and Gross Margin The Gross Margin is the best measure of year to year farm income without taking into account the time value of money Select Menu 1 2 Option 3 Economic parameters Select Menu 1 2 3 Option 2 Economic class limits Gross Margin A data entry form appears asking for the lower limits of classes S1 S2 and S3 expressed as are yr There is no lower limit of class N1 class N2 is reserved for land that is physicall
301. l Page 52 February 1997 Tutorial 1 Consulting a model The objectives of this tutorial are 1 to teach you how to interact with ALES including the use of the letter function and cursor control keys and 2 to teach you how to consult an existing ALES model to determine the suitability of a particular land area for a single land use In addition some of the model builder s reasoning will be explained in notes like this This tutorial should take about one hour to complete In this tutorial you will learn to y start ALES in consultation mode interact with ALES using the keyboard follow decision trees to obtain Land Quality values y view the results of a consultation on the screen V end the consultation Before working on this tutorial you must know how to 1 interact with the microcomputer s operating system usually PC DOS or MS DOS 2 how to name files and specify disk drives and directories 3 how to use the keyboard If you can use any other program that runs under DOS such as a word processor or spreadsheet you already know everything necessary to start with ALES Otherwise you should complete a tutorial or workshop on DOS fundamentals before attempting the ALES tutorials Starting ALES in consultation mode If your ALES system is not installed on drive C in directory DTM change the following two DOS commands accordingly To start ALES in consultation mode from DOS l
302. l copies of it may not be sold without the express written consent of the Department of Soil Crop amp Atmospheric Sciences Cornell University IBM and OS 2 are registered trademarks of International Business Machines MS DOS PC DOS and Microsoft Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corp DataTree is a trademark of InterSystems Corp MUMPS s a trademark of the Massachusetts General Hospital M is a trademark of M Technology Association IDRISI is a trademark of Clark University Other trademarks mentioned in the text are trademarks of their respective owners Portions of this manual have previously been published in these references Rossiter D G 1994 Lecture notes Land evaluation SCAS Teaching Series T94 1 Department of Soil Crop amp Atmospheric Sciences Cornell University Ithaca NY Rossiter D G amp A R Van Wambeke 1991 Automated Land Evaluation System Version 3 User s Manual Department of Soil Crop amp Atmospheric Sciences Cornell University Ithaca NY Rossiter D G 1990 ALES A framework for land evaluation using a microcomputer Soil Use amp Management 6 1 7 20 Rossiter D G amp A R Van Wambeke 1989 Automated Land Evaluation System Version 2 User s Manual Department of Agronomy Cornell University Ithaca NY Rossiter D G M Tolomeo amp A R Van Wambeke 1988 Automated Land Evaluation System Version 1 User s Manual Department of Agronomy Cornell U
303. ld be your initials to keep it separate from the tutorials that other users may be working on and some indication that it s a tutorial So if your name is Ralph Stanley you might use the code rs Tut3 Or you could use a phrase that summarizes the model e g fishfarm Note that codes are short no more than 8 characters Enter the code rs Tut 3 or another code that you choose and Confirm it Now ALES will ask you for the basic information that applies to the entire evaluation 1 a descriptive name 2 a currency symbol and 3 the areal unit in which land is measured The descriptive name should be a short phrase that explains the evaluation code e g Tutorial 3 R Stanley s exercise The currency symbol defaults to dollars and the areal unit to ha hectares for this exercise leave the currency symbol as is but since the size of a typical group of fish ponds is considerably less than a hectare and Apologies to Pirelli of Venezuela S A 2Thanks to Ms Christine DeRoller for the original version of the model on which this tutorial is based ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 101 February 1997 cost figures are only available at the smaller scale change the unit area to are 1ha 100 ares so 1 are 0 01ha 10m x 10m Or you could convert existing cost figures to hectares if you wanted the evaluation results reported on a per hectare basis Fill in the data e
304. le Menu 1 3 Option 3 1 4 from ALES to an ASCII text file Menu 1 5 Option 4 2 Land Mapping Unit data Land Characteristic values 2 1 from a delimited ASCII file to ALES Menu 1 3 Option 5 2 2 from ALES to a delimited ASCH file Menu 1 3 Option 6 2 3 from ALES to a delimited ASCII file in spreadsheet format Menu 1 3 Option A F7 2 4 from a delimited ASCII file in spreadsheet format to ALES Menu 1 3 Option A F8 2 5 from ALES to an ASCII text file Menu 1 5 Option 5 2 6 from an xBase format database to ALES Menu 1 8 Option 3 2 7 from ALES to an xBase format database Menu 1 8 Option 4 2 8 from ALES to an IDRISI raster image Menu 1 7 Option 1 2 9 from ALES to an IDRISI values file Menu 1 7 Option 3 3 Evaluation results Physical amp economic suitability classes financial indicators yields Land Qualities input amounts 3 1 from ALES to an ASCII text file Menu 1 5 Option 1 Menu 1 4 Option 3 3 2 from ALES to a delimited ASCII file in database format Menu 1 4 4 Options 4 3 3 from ALES to a delimited ASCII file in spreadsheet format Menu 1 4 4 Option 5 3 4 from ALES to an xBase format database Menu 1 8 Option 5 3 5 from ALES to an IDRISI raster image Menu 1 7 Option 2 3 6 from ALES to an IDRISI values file Menu 1 7 Option 4 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 212 February 1997 4 Model components LUTs LCs LURs Inputs Outputs Decision Trees Notes I O templates 4 1
305. ll ALES that the LC is continuous Enter 0 the number zero V A Land Characteristic with 0 zero classes is continuous The final question Units of measurement is also critical The units must exactly match those of the commensurate LC ppt MS you ll see why in the next subsection so to this question Enter mm Confirm the form ALES displays Menu 1 1 4c Specification options for Continuous LC with three Options The first menu Option allows us to edit the basic information we just entered except of course for the number of classes since the LC is continuous that number must remain 0 Select Menu 1 1 4c Specification options for Continuous LC Option 2 Data validation limits ALES displays data entry form in which you can enter the Jowest and highest allowable values for the LC These values are used as validity checks during data entry In this region the summer precipitation is never less than 100mm and never more than 1000mm so for the lowest allowable value Enter 100 Then for the highest allowable value Enter 1000 Confirm the form ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 158 February 1997 ALES re displays Menu 1 1 4c We re done defining this LC so Press F10 to leave return to the list of LCs The newly defined LC pptMS c now appears in the list Inferring a discrete LC from a commensurate continuous LC Commensurate Land Characteris
306. ll the Why screens at once and return to the evaluation matrix Press F10 to remove the matrix and return to the selection list of report types Select report type Gross margin Select Gross Margin report type Gross margin Select Yes display the gross margin on a per area basis ALES now displays the evaluation results matrix for Gross Margin acre year Notice that the predicted gross margins for testl are not multi valued What happened to the two values for LQ m The cursor should already be on LUT ccc map unit test1 so Press F2 three times ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 165 February 1997 to arrive at the Why screen for the predicted return for corn grain Notice in the display of the proportional yield decision tree that both LQ values adequate and moderate stress were taken into account both paths were taken in the decision tree to arrive at a predicted yield of 100 assuming adequate moisture severity level 1 p 6 and 80 assuming moderate stress severity level 2 p 4 ALES multiplied the proportions of yield and land in each LQ class to arrive at a predicted proportional yield of 92 The calculation is 100 0 6 80 0 4 60 32 92 yield This method of linear proportions assumes that 1 there is a proportionate amount of land with each of the LC values and 2 that the land use is applied to all the land Or looking at this fr
307. lly want to delete this map unit Note that deleting the map unit definition also deletes any data values stored for the map unit and its evaluation results Select Yes really delete the map unit ALES deletes the map unit and re displays the list of map units notice that A13 is no longer in the list Now let s delete its constituents Move the highlight to Lc Lakemont silty clay loam Press F4 Select Yes really delete the map unit In the same way Delete map unit OdA Delete map unit SeB Now the list of map units is the way it was before we started this tutorial We re done with the tutorial so Press F10 to return to Menu 1 3 Press F10 to return to Menu la Press F10 to return to the list of evaluation models Press F10 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 97 February 1997 to return to the opening menu of evaluate mode Finally Press F10 to leave ALES and return to the operating system Congratulations you ve finished Tutorial 2 Review the objectives at the beginning of the tutorial to make sure that you have mastered them ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 98 February 1997 Tutorial 3 Building a Model The objective of this tutorial is to teach you how to build a simple ALES model for physical and economic land evaluation In this tutorial you will learn to y start ALES in model building mode create a new eval
308. lood protection 21 drainage ld 22 levelling topograph 23 18c physical chemical amp organic ammendnja __v 24 leaching x 25 recuperation period 26 irrigation works construction j Group E Conservation and environmental risks 27 prevention of salinity and sodicit 28 long term water quality and control 29 24 C1lerosion hazard le e 25 land degradation hazard od C2 streamflow response C3 vegetation degradation hazard OOO C4 preservation of species biodiversity 30 environmental risks Group F Sociological and political aspects political entity land tenure farmer attitudes 31 E ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 198 February 1997 Use of this worksheet Enter 1 2 or 3 in each of the four columns under How significant according to the following key For each LUR selected enter the number of levels that can be distinguished for each of the three reasons under How many levels Key Importance i Large effect on the use 2 Affects the use 3 Little or no effect on the use Existence of critical values 1 frequent gt 5 of the area 2 infrequent lt 5 of the area 3 rarely or never Availability of data with which to evaluate the LQ 1 available 2 obtainable by survey 3 not available Availability of knowledge with which to evaluate the LQ 1 available 2 obtainable by research 3 not available For further information on the Land Qualities
309. lowed to determine a branch s grouping For example for sic silty clay first the 8 is followed to reach cl clay loam and at this branch we see 1 which is followed to reach s sand Now we have to alter the final decisions for the remaining subtree at this level to reflect the increased moisture stress Move the cursor to the fourth branch T loam Press gt to expand the subtree rooted at branch 4 1 to the fifth level As you can see as the summer rainfall increases the moisture stress decreases But since we re now considering soils with lower water holding capacity due to the coarse fragments the final decisions must be downgraded one class Branch 1 lt 400 is already in the worst class so it can t be downgraded further Move the cursor to the second branch 400 450 Press F3 and then select severity level 3 severe stress Move the cursor to the third branch 450 500 Press F3 and then select severity level 2 moderate stress Move the cursor to the fourth branch gt 500 Press F3 and then select severity level 1 adequate The entire group of decisions has been downgraded by one class ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 151 February 1997 This is a typical use of cutting and pasting The pasted tree now is placed under a more limiting value of a LC so that some of the final decisions in the pasted tree
310. lt loam 2 6 slopes So in the entry box Type SeB Press F10 to confirm this code Since there isn t already a map unit with this code ALES will add it to the list If you make a mistake while typing the code erase the incorrect characters from the end of your entry with the Backspace key often marked with a left pointing arrow not to be confused with the left arrow key First however ALES needs some information about the map unit ALES now displays a three item data entry form asking for 1 the map unit name 2 whether it is homogeneous or compound and 3 the number of hectares it occupies in the survey area Name H omogeneous or C ompound Area acre Name The first question in the form is the descriptive name of the map unit Notice that this question is marked with an asterisk which means that it is mandatory i e you must answer it and can not leave it blank lBut ALES map units can represent individual delineations either of natural resources or of management units See the Chapter Building ALES models for details ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 68 February 1997 Type Schoharie loam 2 6 Press 4 PPS to confirm this answer and move to the next question ALES is now asking for the type of map unit homogeneous or compound Homogeneous map unit This soil map unit is homogeneous i e ALES will assume that it has the s
311. lting in a predicted yield here 112 bushels of grain per acre this in turn is multiplied by the selling price of the crop per unit yield here 2 50 per bushel resulting in the predicted return here 280 00 per acre The optimum or S1 yield was set by the model builder and can not be edited in evaluation mode The selling price was also set by the model builder but you can edit it to reflect changing conditions We ll do that in the next section Right now we will continue the backward chain some more because one part of the computation is not yet explained namely how the proportional yield was obtained This is really the heart of an ALES economic evaluation determining how a particular land unit will perform relative to the optimum in the evaluation context To examine this Press PgDn to move to the bottom of the current Why box ALES will scroll until the last line is visible You will notice three groups of lines in the display relating to proportional yield 1 the proportional yield decision tree 2 multiplicative yield factors and 3 limiting yield factors We ll discuss these in order In the present case we can see that the proportional yield decision tree wasn t defined by the model builder because in this case there were no interactions between Land Qualities that couldn t be accounted for by one of the other two methods There are two kinds of independent effects that can be accounted
312. luation consider the model built by the Papua New Guinea Department of Agriculture in consultation with the FAO Venema amp Daink 1992 Its purpose was to evaluate the physical suitability of a wide variety of annual and semi perennial species for smallholder rainfed agriculture for a large part of the country at semi detailed scale Before looking at a specific ALES model you must be very clear on this fact Each ALES model is built independently The lists of Land Utilization Types their Land Use Requirements the database and diagnostic Land Characteristics the map units and the decision procedures were designed by the land evaluator to meet the objectives of a specific client in a specific planning exercise and may well have nothing to do with the objectives client planning exercise knowledge sources databases etc in another exercise The land evaluators defined the following 23 Land Utilization Types as a species plus a technology level which is an appropriate level of generalization for an evaluation at this scale H Land Utilization Types cardamom lo Elettaria cardamum low capital input H cashew lo Anacardium occidentale low capital input chilli lo Capsicum frutescens low capital input citrus lo Citrus spp low capital input i i i i cocoa hi Theobroma cacao medium to high capital input cocoa lo Theobroma cacao low capital input
313. lude Geographic Information Systems natural resources databases word processors spreadsheets optimization and decision support software as well as ALES Please refer to the table of contents for the organization of this manual How to use this manual We suggest that you use the manual as follows V Read the Chapters Introduction to ALES and Introduction to Land Evaluation to understand the basic principles of land evaluation where ALES fits in the land evaluation process and the different categories of ALES users y Install the ALES software on your computer according to the instructions of the Chapter Installing Configuring and Running ALES This Chapter also explains how to interact with ALES and how to run ALES from either a single tasking or multi tasking Operating System V Complete Tutorials 1 through 4 At the same time that you are working on the third and fourth tutorials which cover model building consult relevant sections of the Chapter Building ALES models which explains the principles of model design y If you plan to integrate ALES with other software read the Chapter ALES and other computer systems y If want to interface ALES with the IDRISI Geographical Information System follow Tutorial 5 and refer to the relevant sections of the Chapter ALES and other computer systems V The system administrator at your location should read the Chapter Maintaining an ALES system as w
314. map units it s easier to reclassify the raster image directly with ALIDRIS Interfaces with word processors Menu 1 5 Reports of ALES allows you to print evaluation results as well as components of the model such as decision trees Instead of sending these reports to the printer you can send them to a DOS text file which can be imported to any word processor for alteration formatting and printing The procedure to do this is straightforward After you request a particular report you will be asked where you want the report sent Selecting V will print the report on the video screen allowing you to preview it Selecting P will of course send the report to the printer Selecting C will send the file out a communications port e g a modem connection or serial transfer cable to another computer Selecting F will send the report to a DOS text file If you select F you will be asked to enter a file name for the text file You may encounter problems when you read the text file into your favorite word processor ALES writes the file in a straightforward manner namely each line is terminated by a Return character ASCII code 13 There are no other formatting characters However if you have included characters whose codes are not in the 7 bit ASCII range 33 126 decimal in class names Land Characteristic names or values etc the word processor may interpret these as its own hidden
315. mat d Lmuld d Percentage where Lmuld is the code of the homogeneous constituent and Percentage is the percentage of the compound map unit from 0 through 100 made up by this constituent The field LmulId is enclosed in double quotes on output from ALES on input the quotes are optional The percentages on a line must sum to 100 On input a Lmuld named as a constituent of a compound map unit must already be known to ALES at the time it is encountered in the input file this will be the case if it is defined as a homogeneous map unit earlier in the same file On output all homogeneous LMUs are written before the compound ones so that a LMU definition file written by ALES can always be read back ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 237 February 1997 Here is an example file showing three map units the field delimiter in this example is the comma ASCII 44 decimal Aa Alpha silt loam 3 8 slopes shallow phase h 1000 Bb Beta fine sandy loam 8 15 slopes h 2000 AB Alpha Beta association c 1500 AaA 60 BbB 40 In this example the Alpha Beta association has two components Alpha with 60 of the area and Beta with 40 Notice that it must follow the definitions of its constituents File format Land unit data This is information on the Land Characteristics for map units in the project area in other words all the information about the map unit except its definition This information can be rea
316. me LUT This is appropriate if there is a difference of opinion between model builders or if we would like to incorporate some more factors in the evaluation model but aren t sure of their effect In this example the LUT does not change only our way of modeling it Let s create the related LUT now Select evaluation model Tutor2 Select Menu 1 Main options Option 2 Land Utilization Types ALES displays a list of the three LUTs already defined ccc ccc d and ttpp _ We want to copy the continuous corn LUT to another LUT So Move the highlight to Land Utilization Type ccc Press F6 to start the copy ALES now asks for a new LUT code for the copied LUT Enter ccc m the m stands for modified model After you confirm your entry the Working message appears on the screen while ALES copies the entire LUT including all the decision trees This will take about 15 seconds on a PC AT When the message disappears the copy is complete and Menu 1 2 Specification options for LUT ccc m appears Now we can edit any information for the LUT The first thing to change about this LUT is its descriptive name so Select Menu 1 2 Option 1 descriptive Name Answer Question 1 with corn grain modified decision procedures Confirm the data entry form and return to Menu 1 2 In fact ccc and ccc d were set up as related LUTs whe
317. mple in the FAO framework there are four physical suitability classes s1 s2 s3 n1 and n2 The boundary between s3 and n1 is defined only in economic terms hence in a physical evaluation these two are grouped The default of four classes is not arbitrary It seems to correspond well to our psychological tendency to value things in everyday life as excellent good fair to poor and terrible or in land evaluation terms highly suitable suitable marginal and not suitable With fewer classes we are not satisfied and always seem to want to split a class with more classes we have trouble deciding between classes ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 184 February 1997 ALES allows the evaluator more flexibility the FAO recommended four classes can be used but if a lower or higher number seems appropriate the model builder can define the LUT with that number For example if it is only necessary to separate unsuitable and suitable i e FAO orders s and n a two class LUT may be defined This is especially recommended if an economic analysis is to be performed On the other hand if the evaluator feels that more classes can be reliably distinguished more than four classes may be specified A physical evaluation is often used for risk assessment e g of environmental degradation even if an economic evaluation is also to be performed to determine o
318. mpress and Copy Dataset which makes a copy of the original dataset and compresses the copy This avoids any possible problems with the computer while the compression is taking place and also allows you to repair the dataset as it is The dataset ALES5 GB which is used for temporary storage could be compressed but will re expand the next time ALES starts ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 251 February 1997 compressed Once the compressed version of the dataset has been made delete the original version and then copy the compressed version to the correct location For example you could compress dataset EVAL GBL to a temporary location e g another location in the directory hierarchy not in C DTM EVAL by specifying a full path when asked for the file specification by the compression utility Then these compressed files eval gbl dat and eval gbl ind could be copied to C DTM EVAL over writing the old uncompressed versions Dataset verification In certain circumstances MUMPS may not shut down correctly or the database may otherwise be corrupted You can check for this by running the dsverify utility on all datasets although we have never seen errors except in datasets EVAL GBL and ALES5 GB because the others are not modified by ALES This utility is invoked from the util batch file in the same manner as dsbackup see the previous section Backup except that this is
319. n t have any land data because the land data is all defined for the homogeneous constituents In this example you would specify ALES LMU field LMU_ID and ALES descriptive name field LMU_NAMBP The third table lists the constituents and their percentages Field CLMU_ID in this table may be related to LMU_ID of the compound map unit table whereas field HLMU_ID in this table may be related to LMU_ID of the homogeneous map unit table These two fields together make up a compound key i 0 OvA 100 Notice that this table can not be understood without the first two tables because it has no map unit names or areas nor any land data In this example you would specify ALES LMU field CLMU_ID ALES secondary key homogeneous constituent field HLMU_ID and ALES percentage field PCT xBase field definitions for map unit transfers e The field containing map unit codes is usually type C However ALES will read from field type N and store the number as the map unit identifier e The field containing the map unit descriptive name is always type C e The field containing the map unit area is usually type N but may be of type C in which case ALES will attempt to interpret the character string as a number ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 220 February 1997 The field containing the percentage or proportion of a constituent is usually type
320. n MLD of a map the minimum legible size of a polygon on a map at a given scale conventionally taken to be 0 4cm on the map Nominal value a classified value whose scale of measurement is not ordered cf ordinal value i e the order of the classes is arbitrary and therefore not meaningful Optimum legible delineation OLD of a map the minimum easily legible size of a polygon on a map at a given scale conventionally taken to be 4 times the minimum legible delineation MLD of 0 4cm i e 1 6cm on the map Ordinal value a classified value whose scale of measurement is ordered cf nominal value i e the order of the classes is meaningful Physical land evaluation an evaluation based only on physical factors that determine whether a LUT can be implemented on a land area and the nature and severity of physical limitations or hazards Scale factor of a map ratio of distance on the ground to distance on the map The denominator of the conventional representation of map scale For example on a 1 50 000 map the scale factor is 50 000 so that 1cm on the map represents 50 000cm on the ground i e 500m Severity level of a Land Quality a classification of the LQ indicating the degree of limitation or hazard associated with the LQ on a particular land area from Level 1 no limitation upwards to some maximum Stakeholders all parties who will be affected by the results of the planning decisions taken on the basis of the land
321. n any number not just in pairs Grouping more LCs into each intermediate LC results in more total leaves but fewer trees For example in a set of trees with n 16 decision entities each with m 4 classes dividing into groups of 4 entities as opposed to pairwise would result in a third as many trees and about 76 times the number of leaves This is a substantial difference but not as dramatic as the difference from introducing intermediate LCs in the first place This abstract discussion has up to now avoided the most important point to be considered by the model builder for this divide and conquer strategy to be valid Land Characteristics to be combined into intermediate LCs must not interact differently from each other with the remaining entities in reaching the final decision The combinations to use as well as the degree of splitting should be suggested by the nature of the entities In practical terms each tree should not have a path length greater than four and a length of three is more easily manageable Also for the understanding of the model user a series of smaller trees breaks down the reasoning into more easily comprehended steps Continuing with the previous example from Sys 1985 a model builder might decide to combine the two characteristics length of dry season and length of dormancy into a derived characteristic named lengths combine the two characteristics mean annual temperature and mean minimum
322. n program running under your PC s operating system PC DOS or a functional equivalent You do not need to know anything about MUMPS to run ALES This section is included just in case you want to learn a little bit about the MUMPS environment Along with each ALES license you have purchased from Cornell you have also purchased a single user license from the DataTree Division of InterSystems Corp of Cambridge Massachusetts USA to use their MUMPS system However you do not have the access to DataTree technical support all inquiries must be directed to the ALES project lIn 1993 the ANSI language MUMPS officially changed its name to M and the trade association changed its name from the MUMPS User s Group MUG to the M Technology Association MTA However the name MUMPS is still more common than M ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 253 February 1997 Namespaces The MUMPS environment is divided into compartments called namespaces You can see the namespaces defined for your system in the configuration file MUMPS DBD Each namespace refers to several DOS files one or more for routines programs and one or more for globals permanent data ALES stores all your evaluation models in namespace EVAL which refers to files EVAL GBL IND and EVAL GBL DAT The MUMPS interpreter When you run ALES MUMPS is started in program execution mode You can see the syntax for this in the batch file ales bat the
323. n the original Tutorial 2 was built ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 146 February 1997 More on decision trees One of the purposes of this exercise is to teach you advanced techniques for editing decision trees We ll alter the decision tree for one of the land use requirements and then see how these changes affect the suitability ratings Select Menu 1 2 Option 7 Land Use Requirements Select Land Use Requirement m moisture availability Select Menu 1 2 7 Option 4 severity level Decision Tree ALES displays the decision tree editor with the top level LC dbr depth to bedrock expanded Cutting and pasting It is sometimes necessary to restructure a decision tree Imagine that we were writing the tree out as a large tree shaped diagram on a piece of paper We could cut whole subtrees and then either discard them or paste them back at some other point We could add a new top level decision entity above all the ones we d already considered conversely we could discard the present top level entity All these things can also be accomplished in the ALES decision tree editor In this section you ll learn these techniques The decision tree for moisture availability as it stands takes into account four land characteristics depth to bedrock previous erosion USDA texture of the subsoil and May to September precipitation There are certainly many other factors that can affect m
324. nce list must be assigned a unit of measure and a monetary value The unit of measure for an input must be expressible in a per unit area basis Some units of measure are kilograms liters days or units Units of concentration e g parts per million are not usable since they already include the area as part of their denominator Outputs The outputs of a Land Utilization Type are the things of value that are produced by it Commonly these are the usable parts of crops e g grain straw tubers etc However there are other kinds of outputs such as pollutants soil that is lost to erosion recreational value and so forth As long as a unit of measures can be devised for an output and a monetary value positive or negative can be assigned to each unit of measure ALES can include the output in its analyses Output values can also be negative this is appropriate for pollutants The unit of measure for yields must be expressible in a per unit area basis Some units of measure are kilograms quintals pasture days total digestible nutrients tons of soil liters of pollutant Units of concentration are not usable e g parts per million since they already have the area as part of their denominator Outputs along with their units of measure are first defined in the reference list of outputs for the entire evaluation Then they are available for inclusion as outputs of any or all Land Utilization Types in the evaluation Each LUT can h
325. nd characteristics During the computation of an evaluation ALES attempts to place each map unit into one of the four severity levels In other words it determines whether the map unit 1 has no limitations for pond construction 2 will require extra tile drainage 3 will require extra earth moving or 4 has so many problems that construction is impractical To do this ALES follows decision trees built by the model builder which relate land characteristics to land qualities The tree used in this example has purposely been kept small by only considering a few factors Select Menu 1 2 7 Option 4 severity level Decision Tree The main screen we have been looking at for quite a while now with its overlapping windows disappears and is temporarily replaced with the decision tree editor This is a completely different interaction As you build models you will spend much of your time building and altering trees with this editor At first it looks a bit mysterious but ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 120 February 1997 you will soon become used to it It follows the structure of the decision trees so that editing the trees is as efficient as possible As always on screen help is available If you wish press F1 now and take a moment to skim the help screen We will cover most of this information in the exercise but now you know how to find it on line Return to the editor now As you can see on the screen at present there is
326. nd 6 respectively When using option 6 you can save all the Land Characteristics in one relational table by defining a template that contains fields for every Land Characteristic Or you can split the database into multiple files each with its own template For example you might decide to put soils data in one relational table and climate data in another In any case it is important to make a note of which template you used to write the data as you will have to tell ALES which template to use when you reload the same data The Chapter Maintaining an ALES system gives additional information about these disk files Once you have saved a dataset both the map unit definitions and their data outside of ALES you can select Option 8 of Menu 1 3 Data to erase the entire dataset from ALES Now you can create a new dataset for analysis You can do this from the keyboard within ALES using Options 1 and 4 for the map unit definitions and data respectively or you can read a prepared dataset in from a relational table using Options 2 and 5 for the map unit definitions and data respectively If you read from a file you will have to specify the template that lists the Land Characteristics for each field The prepared dataset may have been created by some other program e g a database manager or it could be the result of saving an ALES dataset as described above ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 211 February 1997 ALES and other computer sys
327. nd Use Requirements whose corresponding LQs are to be considered limiting During computation of physical suitability ALES examines the severity levels of the specified LQs and assigns the physical suitability class from the highest numbered severity level It then appends to the suitability class the Land Use Requirement codes for the Land Qualities that were most limiting resulting in a subclass For example consider a map unit with the following ratings LQ a 1 3 i e 1 on a scale of 1 to 3 LQ b 3 5 LQ c 3 3 LQ d 2 2 Suppose in addition that physical suitability is measured in four classes Then the physical suitability subclass by the maximum limitation method would be 3b c For this method to be meaningful the degree of limitation of a particular severity level number must be equivalent or commensurate over all the Land Qualities and the number of physical suitability classes must be the same as the maximum number of severity levels For example severity level 3 for erosion hazard must be in some sense equally as bad as severity level 3 for nutrient availability and severity level 3 for flood hazard It is not required that the highest severity level be the same since some Land Qualities may never be as limiting as others Combining the two methods If the evaluator defines both a physical suitability subclass decision tree and a set of maximally limiting Land Use Requirements ALES will fir
328. nd objectives ALES is not by itself an expert system and does not include by itself any knowledge about land and land use ALES is a framework within which evaluators can express their own local knowledge ALES has seven components 1 a framework for a knowledge base describing proposed land uses in both physical and economic terms 2 a framework for a database describing the land areas to be evaluated 3 an inference mechanism to relate these two thereby computing the physical and economic suitability of a set of map units for a set of proposed land uses 4 an explanation facility that allows model builders to understand and fine tune their models 5 a consultation mode that allows a casual user to query the system about one land use at a time 6 a report generator on screen to a printer or to disk files and 7 a import export modules that allow data to be exchanged with external databases geographic information systems and spreadsheets This includes the ALIDRIS interface to the IDRISI geographic information system ALES is not a GIS and does not itself display maps It can however analyze geographic land characteristics if map units are appropriate defined and it can directly reclassify IDRISI or Arc Info maps with the same mapping unit legend as the ALES database ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 4 February 1997 The following diagram provides an overview of the ALES program flow See the Appendix for a detaile
329. nd years when harvested thinnings for wood chips 5 10 15 trees for lumber 30 Perennials and annuals can be mixed in a LUT e g for agroforestry the length of the planning horizon should be set by the life of the perennial stand ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 191 February 1997 ST or Optimum yield For each output of a Land Utilization Type the S or optimum yield must be specified This is the yield per unit area per crop as defined in the previous section that would be expected in the context of the Land Utilization Type which includes management input levels socio economic conditions etc assuming no limitations i e all Land Qualities that affect yield with the lowest level of limitation so that the land area would be rated in physical suitability class S1 The optimum yield is not meant to be a biological maximum but rather a realistically attainable yield in the context of the LUT The lowest level of limitation of each Land Quality and hence the optimum yield depends on the context of the evaluation For example if an evaluation model has a radiation regime Land Use Requirement the lowest level of limitation for this is generally set to correspond with the optimum radiation regime expected within the area of applicability of the evaluation This is reflected in the severity level decision tree for this Land Quality severity level 1 is obtained with a certain combination of values of Land Ch
330. ng ALES under OS 2 ALES runs well under the OS 2 operating system Version 2 0 or higher including OS 2 V3 0 and V4 0 Warp either as a full screen or windowed DOS session using OS 2 s Virtual Dos Machine VDM Although you can start ALES directly from the command line in a OS 2 DOS window or OS 2 DOS full screen session you will probably want to create a Presentation Manager object to automatically launch ALES with optimum settings First tear off a program template found in the OS 2 system templates folder to create a new program object in the Presentation Manager You can drag it to the desktop or into any folder on the desktop V Right click the new object to open its Settings Notebook V On the Program page enter the path and program for the batch file that starts ALES typically C DTM ALES BAT V On the General page enter a name for the object e g ALES V4 65 and if you wish select an icon V On the Window page make sure to check the radio button Open existing object this is very important to ensure that you don t accidentally open more than one copy of ALES although the second copy of ALES would probably refuse to run V On the Session page click the radio button for DOS Window and check the box for Close on exit V On this same page select the DOS settings button This is where the real adjustment to DOS programs is done and although it is a bit intimi
331. ng DataTree MUMPS Before you can install ALES you must install DataTree MUMPS as follows 1 Insert the DataTree distribution disk in a diskette drive 2 At the DOS prompt change to that drive usually A or B so that it is the active drive by typing the drive letter followed by a colon for example A and pressing the Enter key 3 At the DOS prompt for the diskette drive typically A gt or B gt depending on which diskette you selected type the command install and press the Enter key a gt install 4 Follow the instructions on the screen answering the questions as follows V In the first screen press Enter to continue In the second screen accept the default checked option to install DTM PC standalone i e not on a network by pressing Enter In the third screen answer N when you are asked if you wish to load some DataTree source code files In the fourth screen answer Y to continue with the installation y In the fifth screen select the hard disk drive where MUMPS and later ALES should be installed This should have about 3Mb 3 145 728 free space as a minimum Zf possible use drive C In the sixth screen specify the path If possible accept the suggested path C DTM without changes If you must change the path if possible make sure that the final directory name in the path is DTM for example MODELS LECS DTM ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 3
332. nge affects the evaluation results Press Esc to remove the stacked Why screens and return to the evaluation matrix Notice in the annunciator 25th line of the screen F3 is marked Compute Press F3 to ask ALES to recompute the results ALES will first ask Really re compute this evaluation matrix because in large matrices the re computation might take a long time and F3 could have been pressed by mistake Select Yes ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 141 February 1997 ALES will show its progress in the lower left corner of the screen as it re computes with the changed model After a few seconds the matrix is updated with new results are displayed Any changes to the suitability are highlighted in the matrix cells There is one change map unit E is now in physical suitability subclass 4pfc i e unsuitable because construction is impossible Thus the change to the decision tree had the desired effect at least for map unit E Press F10 to remove the matrix and return to the list of report types At this point you should experiment with several of the report types such as Physical suitability subclass Net Present Value Benefit Cost ratio Internal Rate of Return Gross margin Land quality values and Yield Find out what kind of information is presented in each one and follow the chains of Why screens noting on each one how the information was derived
333. niversity Ithaca NY Rossiter D G 1988 ALES a microcomputer program to assist in land evaluation Proc International Workshop on Land Qualities in Space and Time Wageningen the Netherlands 22 26 August 1988 Pudoc Wageningen Contents Introduction to the Manual 1 Objectives of this manual sisinio rierada e i bie heeding 1 How to tse thismanual sts eeina esere i deene rets eteeriseen eeaeee 1 Acknowledgments icrnl 2 Introduction to ALES 4 The ALES programms wesiisidentiiiccsaisisdessdsvacess ishecasdesacospiusacess ak vag sobs SKEE SEPE ROSTE a KaSS hhe 4 Background of the ALES project isnsssiiiirestontiinsnieei rasei ra skie 6 Whouses ALES cheia a ie aaa EE AEE AAE NCEE EE AEE AAS EEEE 8 Introduction to Land Evaluation 11 What is land evaluation eee esecesecsscecesccescecesseeesaeecsseecsscecseessseecsseesesaeecsatesseeesaeers 11 Outline of the land evaluation Process eeeeseeessseessneeceseesssecseesseeseseeeesaeessaeerseeesaeers 13 Stakeholder client evaluator CXPerts cscccecesssceeseecceeeeeeceeeeeeeeeeaeeeeeseaecseneeeesseaeeeess 14 The structure of an ALES evaluation ecceesceessecsseeseeeesseecsseecsseeceseeseeseseeessseeesaeers 14 Highlights of the ALES approach to land evaluation eeeeeeeceseeceneeseseeeeeeeeeeeeesaes 17 Example Papua New Guinea Land Evaluation System escesesesecesceseseeeeseeeeeeeesaee 20 Glossary of Land Evaluation cii naan eE a a
334. no decision tree The annunciator line shows what keys are active what we want to do now is insert the first level Notice that F4 as well as is marked ins gt which stands for insert subtree Vy gt is a shorthand for subtree V F4 is used to enter a subtree Press F4 to insert the top level subtree A selection list of the discrete classified land characteristics will appear You are being asked to pick out of this list the land characteristic that you want to consider first when determining the severity level of the land quality potential for construction Looking at the list we see some land characteristics that are irrelevant for pond construction such as the pH of water but several that are relevant The idea is to build the simplest model possible so we pick the land characteristic that will most quickly narrow the choices and reach a decision as to whether a given area of land is suitable for construction of diversion ponds Assuming that the most important factor is soil depth we will see why in a moment Select land characteristic sd soil depth The selection list will disappear and the editor now shows the first level of the decision tree At the top is the first decision entity i e sd and below it are four branches one for each land characteristic class shallow moderately deep and deep and one marked For the remainder of
335. not fit in the character field it will be ignored For example if the gross margin is 1 234 56 it will just fit into a xBase field of type C7 the currency unit and comma are not transferred but not in C6 Recommended field types for evaluation results When you set up fields in a xBase format file to receive ALES evaluation results follow these guidelines Use the single values column if your evaluation 1 has no compound map units and 2 has no multi valued land data otherwise use the multiple values column In the cases where no width is given in the table indicated with a see the notes following Report Type xBase field type xBase field type for single values for multiple values Physical Suitability Class N1 0 or Cl 2 C2 i C Land Quality values N1 0 or C1 i N Input amounts N N Notes Economic Suitability Class io The maximum widths of xBase format fields are C254 and N20 In numeric fields any number of decimal places up to the width of the field less 2 e g N20 18 may be used ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 223 February 1997 e To determine the width of numeric N fields where none are given in the table you must examine your evaluation results matrix or printed report to see how wide a field you will need This depends on 1 the normalized value per unit land area expressed in the monetary unit of the evaluation and 2 if a non normalized result th
336. ns two ways either that say 60 of the land area has rating 1 or that it is 60 certain that all the land has rating 1 For soil or other space series characteristics the first interpretation is usually preferable For climate or other time series characteristics the second interpretation is usually correct Working with multiple datasets Option 8 Erase the Database of Menu 1 3 Data allows the evaluator to delete all map unit definitions and data leaving an empty ALES data base you will be asked for confirmation before ALES actually deletes the data The effect is the same as if you deleted each map unit in turn with the F4 key when viewing the list of map units when selecting a map unit description for editing Menu 1 3 choice 1 The pop up feature of selecting among a set of classified data values can t be used when entering a multi value as this method can only select a single data value ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 210 February 1997 Why would anyone want to erase the database Mainly to allow the testing or use of a model knowledge base with more than one dataset Along with several other options in Menu 1 3 Data multiple datasets can easily be evaluated with the same model The basic idea is that you maintain datasets in relational tables i e disk files with one line per map unit for example by writing first the definitions and then the data to disk with Data menu options 3 a
337. nsfer 1 Edit Import Export Templates Choose ALES xBase Import Export template code Menu 1 8 1 ALES xBase Import Export Templates 1 xBase file information For a New template only Select What kind of ALES lt gt xBase transfer 1 Import LMU definitions from xBase 2 Import constituents of compound LMUs 3 Import or Export LC values to or from xBase 4 Export evaluation results to xBase Form descriptive name xBase file name xBase key field 2 Field list Choose xBase field name Case transfer type 3 Select equivalent LC Case transfer type 4 Select LUT for which to export results Select Type of evaluation result to export same as Menu 1 4 Option 2 2 Import Land Mapping Unit definitions from xBase to ALES ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 267 February 1997 Menu 1 8 2 Import Land Mapping Unit Definitions to ALES 1 Import definitions of homogeneous map units Select ALES xBase Import Export template code Only type 1 templates will be presented for selection 2 Import definitions of compound map units Select ALES xBase Import Export template code Only type 1 templates will be presented for selection 3 Import lists of constituents of compound map units Select ALES xBase Import Export template code Only type 2 templates will be presented for selection 3 Import LC values from xBase to ALES Select ALES xBase Import Export template code Only type 3 templates will be presented for selection 4 Export
338. nt and the one from which you are transferring should be the most current If the value in the xBase field for a record is not valid according to the ALES database s verification rules set for each Land Characteristic in Menu 1 1 4 the value will not be stored in the ALES database and any existing value in the ALES database will remain If the xBase key field is not unique i e there are more than one record with the same value of the key field the last valid value i e from the highest numbered record with a valid value will be saved in the ALES database ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 221 February 1997 e On import from a logical xBase field the legal values T and F will be used as ALES class codes If there are no such codes the values will be ignored e On import from a character xBase field all trailing spaces will be removed from the string prior to attempting to match the ALES class code This is because the xBase field is always padded with spaces This implies that the interface will not work for ALES Land Characteristic codes that contain trailing spaces e g mwd it will however work for codes with embedded spaces e g m w d Some other facts about LC export from ALES to xBase e If the ALES data value for a LMU is null blank any value in the xBase field for the record corresponding to that LMU will be deleted presuming that a null value representing unknown is correct The
339. nt case we are saying that moderately deep and deep soils are the same from the point of view of this Land Use Requirement and so the additional critical limit of 200 cm between the moderately deep and deep soils is irrelevant of course this limit may prove important for other land qualities You have now completed the tree The first level is displayed ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 124 February 1997 sd soil depth 1 s shallow 0 75 cm 4 impossible 2 m moderately deep 75 200 cm gt sl 3 d deep 200 1000 cm 2 292 Decision trees can be annotated exactly in the same manner as was done for the evaluation It is a good idea to make a note that explains your reasoning to anyone who uses the model Important things to explain are 1 why you chose the decision factors 2 assumptions about factors not in the tree 3 an outline of the decision procedure in words Let s enter a note now Press Alt F9 to begin editing a note An editing box appears titled Note Editor DT 1 Enter a note similar to the following or if you wish you can add some comments of your own Potential for construction is based on 1 soil depth can t excavate into bedrock by hand 2 slope xcessive slopes can t be stabilized steep slopes require mor arthmoving nearly level slopes require extra drainage When you re done entering the note Press F10 to file the
340. nted reports Installing and running ALES on a Novell Local Area Network This section is for experienced Novell network administrators who wish to install ALES on their local area network Many of the specific tasks will have to be modified according to the actual organization of each network Also modifications will probably be needed for Netware 4 x Basic idea amp legal considerations ALES runs as an application program under the DataTree MUMPS database amp runtime system DTM PC V4 3 provided by InterSystems of Cambridge MA DTM PC is sold and installed along with the ALES program itself Cornell University packages DTM PC with ALES as a re seller It is possible to use the stand alone single user version of DTM PC on a local area network however it is not possible to share data each network user gets his or her own copy of the evaluation models DTM PC dataset EVAL GBL In effect there are as many single user copies of ALES installed as there are users logged in to ALES The advantage of installing ALES on the network is that a user can log in from any workstation and access their own models It is ideal for classroom instruction and practical laboratories where each student works on their own exercise Models can be exchanged among users exactly as in the case of single user non networked ALES by saving to diskette or shared network disk with F7 and loading with F8 Legally the network administrator must assure that no mo
341. ntry form 1 Tutorial 3 R Stanley exercis 2 3 are Confirm the form ALES returns to the list of evaluations Notice that your newly defined evaluation is in the list and in fact the highlight is on it Now we will practice entering an annotation It is very important for the model builder to explain the reasoning behind the design choices to the model user and annotations are useful for this purpose You know from the previous tutorial that F9 is used to read notes Pressing F9 while holding down the Alt key usually located to the left of the space bar is how you enter the note editor to enter or edit notes The way to remember this is that the usual thing to do is view the note whereas the alternate things to do is edit it V Alt F9 is used to create and edit annotations Press Alt F9 A large window appears in the leftmost two thirds of the screen The title of the window gives the name of the entity for which you are entering a note in this case the evaluation code Notice that the cursor is blinking in the upper left hand corner of the window You are being invited to type your note This is a simple word processor you can press F to see a list of the editing keys In general you just type your note and the text automatically wraps to the next line as you reach the right margin You can use the Return key to force a new line The Ins key toggles between insert
342. o a form which ALES can use e g decision trees The model builder should be meeting with the eventual evaluation consumers from the very beginning of the project to set objectives and priorities Model builders enter ALES with the DOS batch command file ALEs Entering the program in this mode they are able to change the model as well as the database During validation of the model they spend a great deal of time working in the Why screens They will probably print reports showing the structure of the evaluation models Land use experts These are the specialists in different land uses who are interviewed by the model builder to determine the land utilization types to be included in the model the land use requirements of these and the set of land characteristics that are needed to evaluate land qualities They may be agronomists foresters soil scientists hydrologists economists sociologists climatologists etc Tutorials 3 and 4 explain how to use ALES in this mode ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 8 February 1997 Land use experts are not expected to use ALES directly but they should review the models on line with the aid of the model builder Model user Once a model is completed the model builder can turn it over to the model user who enters land unit definitions and data for all the land units in the study area using the data entry templates designed by the model builder The model user then asks ALES to
343. o run full screen or in a window in which case you might experiment with the Fonts setting on the window s control menu ALES can run in the background under Windows enhanced mode which requires a 80386 or later processor this is a nice feature for long computations data import export or printed reports You can cut and paste between ALES screens and Windows or other DOS programs as long as ALES is running in a window not full screen in enhanced mode This is especially useful for exchanging text between a Windows or DOS word processor e g Notepad and the ALES note editor Running ALES under Windows 95 Windows 95 is a lot like Windows 3 1x running in enhanced mode Instead of making a PIF file with the PIF editor you create a shortcut to the ALES BAT etc files The ALES BAT etc files require an important modification before they will work in Windows 95 Put the following switch at the end of the second line in the batch files ALES BAT EVALUATE BAT CONSULT BAT and UTIL BAT FM 1 So that the ALES BAT file for example would look like rem Start ALES in model building mode mumps eval L par 50k 12k 16k fm 1 This tells MUMPS to use DOS mode file access The reason why ALES is not distributed with this switch already as the default is that ALES runs considerably more slowly under DOS and Windows pre 95 and most ALES customers are not running Windows 95 Running ALES under DesqView ALES can
344. o the list of evaluations by using F8 when that list is displayed lThis runs the DOS batch file EVALUATE BAT which in turn starts the MUMPS run time system which loads ALES in evaluate mode and runs it ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 66 February 1997 Move the highlight to the line in the choice box for Tutor Press F9 to view the explanatory note When you are done reading the note Press F10 to go back to the list of evaluation models Now Press Enter to select evaluation model Tutor2 You will now see the main menu for evaluation mode la Main Options Evaluate Economic Parameters Data Evaluations Reports Consult Option 3 Evaluations is highlighted i e is the default choice since the most common use is to compute and view evaluations We will start out by entering land unit definitions and data so Move the highlight to Option 2 Data Press Enter to select it Menu 1 3 Data with ten Options will now appear Defining a homogeneous land unit Before we can enter land data we must first define the map units we want to evaluate We will work from the keyboard so we ll use Option 1 to define land units and then Option 4 to enter data for these land units Move the highlight to Menu 1 3 Option 1 Definitions From keyboard Enter or edit Press Enter to select it A list of the map units that have been defin
345. of LURs for LUT tdp Number of severity levels 4 Severity level names l no limitation 2 lime 3 lime 4 impossible Additional annual inputs lime level 2 0 25 tons level 3 0 5 tons Enter the following Decision Tree for water quality wt water temperature 1 c cold 0 16 _C 4 impossible 2 t temperate 16 23 _C gt pH pH of water 1 vacid very acid 0 4 pH 4 impossible 2 acid acid 4 6 pH gt pe permeability 1 s slow 2 lime 2 m moderate 3 r rapid 3 lime 3 n neutral to alkaline 6 9 pH 1 no limitation 4 valk very alkaline 9 14 pH 4 impossible 3 warm 23 35 _C 4 hot 35 100 _C ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 126 February 1997 Of course as you enter the tree you will not be able to see it all at once on the screen only the current path will be visible If you wish enter a note for the decision tree explaining that excessively acid alkaline warm or hot waters are unsuitable for Tilapia and that acid water can be corrected with lime more lime is needed if water leaks out of the pond due to rapid subsoil permeability Water availability The third Land Use Requirement will be water availability i e how easy it is to obtain fresh water to fill the fish ponds As you will see when we enter the Decision Tree in this model water availability is determined by water source rain river or springs months of rainfall and sub
346. of severity levels m each with the same multiplicative yield factors f fo fn For a map unit with all LQs rated in level Z the predicted yield is f i e the factor raised to a power Since f lt 1 in general this product will be small For example with 2 f 9 n 6 the predicted yield is 9 0 53 In words six factors each reducing yield by 10 when multiplied predict a 53 yield This may or may not be realistic The model builder may use multiplicative yield factors Menu 1 2 6 Option 3 to partially or completely replace proportional yield decision trees In preliminary stages of model building it may be useful to define only yield factors and no tree The model builder can then examine the predicted yields to see which interactions need to be taken into account by means of a proportional yield decision tree In the actual calculation if a particular Land Quality has been encountered in the decision tree path any proportional yield factor that it may have is ignored Since the tree has precedence over the yield factors there is no harm in leaving the factors in the model even for LQs which are included in the tree Limiting yield factors Some Land Qualities affect yield according to the agricultural law of the minimum namely that the most limiting factor determines yield More precisely we may say that if a land unit has a certain severity level assigned to one ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 20
347. of the Universidad Nacional Pedro Henr quez Ure a Dominican Republic and Dr Juan Rouanet of Chile carefully reviewed Version 4 of the Spanish language User s Manual Mr Marwan Hendrisman of the Centre for Soil amp Agroclimate Research Bogor W Java Indonesia was responsible for the translation of ALES into the Indonesian language His work was supported in part by the ALES project and in part by the Second Land Resource Evaluation and Planning Project Part C Strengthening Soil Resources Mapping LREP II C Project Leader Erik R Jordens The first version of the Indonesian texts was prepared by Dipl Ing Ulrike Wood of LREP II C ALES users Anthony Young ICRAF Andrew Johnson Queensland Division of Primary Industries Stephen Paris and Ulrike Wood FAO Henny van Lanen and Miriam Hack ten Broeke Staring Centre Wageningen Patrick van Laake FAO Costa Rica provided detailed comments about various versions of ALES their comments were as much as possible incorporated into subsequent versions Professor Norman Scott formerly Director of Research for the New York State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences encouraged the project and provided the legal support of the College as well as start up funds ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 2 February 1997 The Cornell Institute for International Food and Agricultural Development CIIFAD supported the development of Version 4 by David Rossiter as well as the translati
348. ogram and the IDRISI Geographical Information System is referred to as ALIDRIS ALIDRIS is an interface from ALES to the IDRISI GIS Versions 3 and 4 and also to IDRISI for Windows ALIDRIS automatically detects which version of IDRISI is installed on your system when it reads the IDRISI environment file IDRISI ENV ALIDRIS is an integral part of the ALES program and appears as item 7 ALIDRIS on the Menu 1 Main Options Build Models 2 For more information on IDRISI please contact The IDRISI Project Graduate School of Geography Clark University 950 Main Street Worcester MA 01610 1477 USA Phone USA 508 793 7526 FAX USA 508 793 8842 Internet idrisi vax clarku edu WWW http www idrisi clarku edu Cornell University does not endorse the IDRISI software instead of similar programs The ALIDRIS interface is offered in response to requests by ALES users who also use IDRISI as their GIS The two programs are similar in philosophy i e computing power is to be placed in the hands of the analyst at the local level hardware requirements and price The basic idea of ALIDRIS is that the ALES database or evaluation results are used to reclassify an existing IDRISI grid image that represents the map units in the ALES database From one IDRISI base map which shows the ALES map units ALIDRIS can make single factor maps of any Land Characteristic in the ALES database any Land Quality of any Land Utilization Type LUT
349. oisture availability For example the tree as it is now makes no allowance for rooting volume other than the depth dimension In particular if there is a significant volume of coarse fragments in the rooting zone the effecting rooting volume will be reduced and moisture stress will be increased Let s modify this tree now to take coarse fragment content into account The volume of coarse fragments could be incorporated at several levels in the tree but it makes the most sense to consider it as the top level land characteristic Then the first two levels i e coarse fragments and depth to bedrock will together define the potential rooting volume and the lower levels of the tree i e texture of the fines previous erosion and summer precipitation will determine how much water this volume will hold So we want to add a new top level characteristic To do this we will have to 1 cut the entire tree to the paste buffer 2 add the new LC at the top level 3 paste the cut tree back as a subtree of the new top level LC Notice in the annunciator line that F8 is marked cutT which is a shorthand for Cut the entire Tree This key is only active at the top level of the editor V F8 is used from the top level of the decision tree editor to cut the entire tree Press F8 You can t see all four LCs right now because the editor is on the top level ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 147 February 1997
350. ollege Park MD Purnell M 1987 Quantitative land evaluation in some FAO programs pp 7 15 in Beek K J P A Burrough and D E McCormack ed 1987 Quantified land evaluation procedures proceedings of the international workshop on quantified land evaluation procedures held in Washington DC 27 April 2 May 1986 International Institute for Aerospace Survey and Earth Sciences ITC publication No 6 Enschede The Netherlands Riquier J 1974 A summary of parametric methods of soil and land evaluation p 47 53 In Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Soils Bulletin 22 FAO Rome Italy Rossiter D G 1988a The Automated Land Evaluation System a microcomputer program to assist in land evaluation 1988 Ph D dissertation Cornell University University Microfilms Ann Arbor MI Rossiter D G 1988b ALES a microcomputer program to assist in land evaluation Proc International Workshop on Land Qualities in Space and Time Wageningen the Netherlands 22 26 August 1988 Pudoc Wageningen Rossiter DG 1990 ALES A framework for land evaluation using a microcomputer Soil Use amp Management 6 1 7 20 Rossiter D G 1995 Economic land evaluation why and how Soil Use amp Management 11 132 140 Rossiter D G 1996 A theoretical framework for land evaluation with Discussion Geoderma 72 165 202 Rossiter D G M Tolomeo amp A R Van Wambeke 1988 Automated Land Evaluation System
351. om the point of view of time series data such as the rainfall data this method assumes that 1 there are a proportionate number of years with each of the LC values and 2 the land use is carried out every year Under these assumptions ALES can combine the individual values of yield to obtain a weighted average Now we re done exploring multi valued land data and continuous to discrete inferences Press F10 six times to return to Menu 1 Main options More about proportional yield In Tutorial 3 we used a simple multiplicative yield factor to compute proportional yields This method has the major drawback that it assumes that several yield limiting factors multiply to predict final yield usually this prediction is too pessimistic The most general method of computing proportional yields is the proportional yield decision tree This method can account for any kind of interaction between land qualities Select Menu 1 Main options Option 2 Land Utilization Types Select LUT ccc m Le the LUT we ve been modifying 999 Select Menu 1 2 Specification options for LUT ccc m Option 6 Outputs Select output cg See the next Chapter for more on this ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 166 February 1997 Now ALES displays Menu 1 2 6 Specification options for LUT Output ccc m cg Notice that Options 2 3 and 4 can all be used to specify how
352. on into Spanish of the V3 manual and the development of the Spanish language tutorials by Jim nez They supported ALES training workshops in the Philippines and Indonesia Mr Michael Tolomeo formerly of the International Soils Group developed the tutorial evaluation that accompanied Version and a substantial part of the version 1 ALES User s Manual Ms Christine DeRoller formerly of the International Soils Group developed several sample evaluations in the course of her MSc work on land evaluation in Guatemala Tutorial example 3 is based on her work She also served as a particularly keen critic of ALES Version 2 s functionality and user interface She helped with the initial Spanish translation of the menus Mr Tom Fredricks John Godfrey and John Lewkowicz from Veterinary Computer Services of the New York State College of Veterinary Medicine served as occasional consultants on programming questions Tom Fredricks also served as the technical backstop for ALES from April 1991 through August 1992 Professor Larry Geohring of the Department of Agricultural Engineering at Cornell provided cost figures for land drainage that were used in Tutorial 2 Mr Tom Bowditch wrote the original version of the data entry matrix Menu 1 3 Option A Project Ezra a cooperative project between Cornell University and the International Business Machines Corporation s Advanced Education Projects program provided the IBM PC AT system on which ALES
353. on systems for land resources assessment Oxford Science Publishers Monographs on Soil and Resources Survey No 12 Clarendon Press Oxford An introduction to GIS for natural resources scientists with some land evaluation examples Dense but worthwhile Davidson Donald A 1992 The evaluation of land resources Longman Scientific London An advanced British undergraduate text on applications of soils information to planning Excellent introduction to the literature Update of the 1980 text Soils and land use planning Mentions ALES in passing Dent David and Anthony Young 1981 Soil survey and land evaluation George Allen amp Unwin An advanced British undergraduate text probably the best introduction to the subjects named in the title Hudson Norman 1995 Soil conservation 3rd edition Ames IA Iowa State University Press This practical text on soil conservation has a good chapter on the land capability approach to land evaluation Many examples are from Africa McRae S G amp Burnham C P 1981 Land evaluation Monographs on soil survey Oxford Clarendon Press viii 239 pp A comprehensive survey of physical land evaluation methods including parametric systems and land capability classifications in a wide variety of countries Rossiter D G 1994 Lecture notes Land evaluation SCAS Teaching Series T94 1 Department of Soil Crop amp Atmospheric Sciences Cornell University
354. on tree path In the present example there were two multiplicative yield factors defined by the model builder namely e erosion hazard and m moisture availability Since the severity level of e erosion hazard was determined to be 1 none during the computation and this Land Quality did not appear in the decision tree path since there wasn t a decision tree the yield factor is 1 i e no reduction from the optimum Similarly the severity level of m moisture availability was determined to be 2 moderate stress and the corresponding yield factor is 0 8 i e a reduction to 80 of the optimum Now we know how the proportional yield was determined but this leads to another question how were the severity levels of the three Land Qualities which figured in the proportional yield determined Notice that F in the annunciator line is marked Why a severity level So Press F2 to display the fourth Why screen in the backward chain ALES displays a selection box asking which Land Quality of the three you want to examine Let s find out why there was moderate moisture stress So Select Land Quality m moisture availability ALES now displays a Why box explaining why land unit CeB has the severity level 2 of Land Quality m of Land Utilization Type ccc d The explanation consists of displaying the path taken in the severity level decision t
355. onds per LMU LUT combination on a 12MHz IBM PC AT about 6 seconds and on an IBM PC XT about 15 seconds So this computation which has 3 LUT x 5 LMU 15 combinations should take about one minute on a medium speed 386 You will notice the progress report changing as the evaluation proceeds When ALES finishes computing the annunciator line reappears and we return to Menu 1 4 Now we can view the evaluation results Viewing evaluation results as a matrix on the screen To view the evaluation results Select Menu 1 4 Option 2 View evaluation results ALES now asks which kind of report you would like to see Let s start by looking at the predicted net present value NPV which considers the time value of money and the sequence of costs and benefits across the entire planning horizon of a LUT lf you get bored waiting for the computation to finish you might try to compute the physical and economic suitability of five map units times three Land Utilization Types 15 combinations by hand ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 81 February 1997 Select Report type N Net Present Value ALES now asks which kind of NPV report you would like to see the default is Net Present Value Again Select NPV Report type N Net Present Value ALES now asks you if you want the results to be normalized i e expressed on a per area basis or not i e summed over all the area of the map unit The default is to normalize
356. only discrete land characteristics i e those which are measured in classes However in some situations you may want to allow the model user to enter values on a continuous scale Or there may be an existing database with some or all data values reported on a continuous scale which you want to use as the basis of the ALES database In this section we ll see how a continuous LC can be used within ALES Continuous Land Characteristics As an example we ll suppose that single values on a continuous scale of May to September precipitation are available for the land units to be evaluated We will see how to define these in ALES and use them in an evaluation ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 157 February 1997 Setting up a continuous land characteristic The first step is to define the continuous LC Select Menu 1 Main options Option 1 Reference Lists Select Menu 1 1 Reference lists Option 4 Land Characteristic descriptions Press F3 to define a new LC ALES now asks for the LC code We want to enter something that reminds us of its connection to the existing discrete LC pptMS so Enter and confirm the code pptMS c the c standing for continuous ALES displays the information form for this new LC For the first question Name Enter May September precipitation continuous The second question Number of classes is critical Here is where we te
357. op should be listed several times in the reference list of outputs and each of these included in the LUT specification Then each can get a separate number of crops and optimum yield In the forage example we could define three outputs alfalfa e alfalfa m and alfalfa l there would be one crop per year of each having a different optimum yield depending on the time of cutting Another application of this same technique can be used for increasing or decreasing yields of a crop during the course of the plan For example a conservation farming technique might provide yield increases only after it has been applied for two or three years In this case the same crop is listed several times in the reference list of outputs and each of these included in the LUT specification Then each can get a separate list of harvests and optimum yields In the conservation farming example we might have two outputs maize years and 2 and maize i years 3 and following the yield of maize i might be 30 higher than maize due to the accumulation of organic matter establishment of leguminous trees in alleys etc This same technique can be used for increasing or decreasing series of yields due to effects of the LUT on the physical resource base in this case you must define the output in the reference list as many times as you can distinguish yield levels Production dependent inputs Some production costs are directly relate
358. oportional yield will be applied to each harvest will delay each harvest or both The default is to reduce each harvest but not delay i e to duplicate the ALES V4 and earlier behavior This same form is available from the relevant Why screens Here is a sample form faite Sere foresti treet Gree species 1 cfast growing os s5 o Soo a 1 1 I i i E Optimum yield m3 ha 5000 Nar Years output is produced 15 3 Reduce yield No 4 Delay production Yes i PEO RPaSe SSeS ate Sara Se SSeS Sets Sa Seas Se Oe See Pe Sa SS SS See SSeS e i HoF Optimum yield m3 ha 5000 How ALES computes the harvest delay If the delay option is selected ALES will delay each harvest listed in Years crop is harvested by the reciprocal inverse of the proportional yield as determined from the proportional yield decision tree multiplicative yield factors and limiting yield factors For example if the final proportional yield is 0 75 each harvest will be delayed by 4 3 1 33 time periods e g years Consider a tree species with the year when harvested of 15 and a map unit with a proportional yield of 0 75 the actual harvest year would be 15 4 3 year 20 If the result of the multiplication is not a whole number it is rounded to the nearest year For example suppose the yield factor is 0 8 4 5 i e the delay factors is 1 4 5 5 4 1 25 Then the optimum har
359. optimization model are obtained from the ALES economic evaluation of each LUT for each evaluation unit ALES has three interfaces specifically for spreadsheets V From ALES evaluation results to a delimited ASCII file in spreadsheet format Menu 1 4 4 Option 5 This duplicates the structure of the ALES evaluation results matrix in the spreadsheet From the ALES database LMUs and their Land Characteristic values to a delimited ASCII file in spreadsheet format Menu 1 3 Option A then F7 This duplicates the structure of the ALES data entry matrix in the spreadsheet From a delimited ASCII file in spreadsheet format to the ALES database LMUs and their Land Characteristic values Menu 1 3 Option A then F8 This allows you to prepare data in a spreadsheet Interfaces between ALES systems We certainly hope that ALES users will exchange models and data Also within one organization there may be several ALES systems This section explains how to exchange models and data among ALES systems Transferring models between ALES systems Models including both the knowledge base and data base can easily be exchanged between ALES systems First on the source system the model is saved to disk file F7 as described under user by user backup in the Chapter Maintaining an ALES system If this file is on diskette the diskette is mailed or taken to the target ALES system The file may also be transferred electronicall
360. or n2 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 240 February 1997 10 BCR is the benefit cost ratio of the present value of cash in vs out 11 ELSCb is the economic suitability class based on the B C Ratio one of the standard FAO classes s1 s2 s3 nl or n2 12 IRR is the internal rate of return in percent 13 ELSCi is the economic suitability class based on the IRR one of the standard FAO classes s1 s2 s3 nl or n2 The numeric fields PSSC ELSCg ELSCn ELSCb and ELSCi are integer recodings of the text strings given in the PSSC ELSCg ELSCn ELSCb and ELSCi fields respectively These are included because some programs or database systems into which this data may be read can t deal with string information The integers given in ELSCx are a standard translation integer FAO class amp meaning 1 sl suitable 2 s2 moderately suitable 3 s3 marginally suitable 4 nl economically unsuitable 5 n2 physically unsuitable However the integers given in PSSC are not standard These are different for each evaluation matrix The correspondence between PSSC and PSSC is shown in an alert box on the screen after ALES finishes writing the output file Also this correspondence can be determined by inspecting the output file itself Here is some sample output A3 ccc 1 1 amp 4e amp 4e me 1 97 21 s1 1 637 09 s1
361. or each of these it shows the map units ranked in order of their predicted NPV for the LUT For example on the first page for LUT ccc we see that CeB is the most profitable type of land with SeB A13 Lc and OdA following The latter two have an identical NPV when used for this LUT The sum of the areas with each predicted NPV is printed below the group this gives the planner a measure of how much land of each type is available Notice at the bottom of the first page is the notation VI 162 69 The by column LUT report also has a versatility index in this case a composite measure of goodness of the LUT as a whole In the case of economic metrics it is just the weighted by land area average of the metric over the map units After the report has finished printing the Working message will disappear from the screen and you will again be asked for the kind of information to be printed Press F10 Press F10 to return to Menu 1 4 Evaluations Press F10 to return to Menu 1a Main options Deleting land units optional Note This section is optional you should follow it only if you want to return the ALES database for this model to its status before we started i e before we defined map units Lc OdA SeB and A13 Now that you re all done with this tutorial you may want to return the ALES database for this model to its
362. or region At these scales the individual constituents can t be mapped separately but since they are present in regular and predictable patterns on the landscape a compound unit which contains the homogeneous soils ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 77 February 1997 can be defined and mapped They can also be used to evaluate an economic unit such as farm that consists of several land types In this case you will define a drainage association of heavy textured soils on recent lacustrine sediments the imperfectly drained Schoharie silt loam the somewhat poorly drained Odessa silt loam and the poorly drained Lakemont silty clay loam Also included in this association are some topographically higher areas of fine textured glacial till that were not covered by lacustrine sediments these are the Cazenovia silt loams To define this compound map unit Select Menu 1 3 Option 1 Definitions From keyboard Enter or edit ALES will display the list of map units To define the new map unit Press F3 to begin the entry of a new map unit An entry box should appear asking for the code for the map unit Enter and confirm the new map unit code A13 A13 stands for association number 13 this is the number used in the Cayuga County soil survey ALES now displays a data entry form for the map unit definition Fill in the form as follows 1 Schoharie Odessa association 22 3 45000 Make sure to answer the se
363. ormation System GIS a computer system for the entry editing storage transformation analysis and presentation of geographic data Guidelines directives what factors land qualities to consider when evaluating for certain general kinds of land uses how to evaluate these qualities Land an area of the earth s surface the characteristics of which embrace all reasonably stable or predictably cyclic attributes of the biosphere vertically above and below this area including those of the atmosphere the soil and underlying geology the hydrology the plant and animal populations and the results of past and present human activity to the extent that these attributes exert a significant influence on present and future uses of the land by humans Land Characteristic LC a simple attribute of the land that can be directly measured or estimated in routine survey in any operational sense including by remote sensing and census as well as by natural resource inventory Cf land quality Land Quality LQ a complex attribute of land which acts in a manner distinct from the actions of other land qualities in its influence on the suitability of land for a specified kind of use the ability of the land to fulfill specific requirements for a LUT Cf land characteristic Land Quality class see severity level Land resource expert a person who has information on the land resource Land Suitability the fitness of a given type of land fo
364. orun Version 4 3 of DataTree MUMPS is supplied with ALES licenses after October 1992 With your ALES license you have also purchased a license from InterSystems Corp who purchased DataTree in 1993 for the use of their MUMPS system The Paper Key certificate explains this license Since you purchased DataTree MUMPS through Cornell University any questions about MUMPS or DataTree should be directed to the ALES project not to InterSystems Corp Installation procedure There are two main steps to the distribution 1 install the DTM PC language and database system and then 2 install the ALES program In addition if you are going to run ALES under the multi tasking operating systems Windows 3 1x Windows 95 OS 2 or DesqView there is a third step 3 adjust ALES for your multi tasking operating system ALES is distributed on two diskettes 3 5 or 5 25 according to customer preference and comes with a special hPaperKey Certificate which is necessary to install MUMPS V The first diskette is supplied by InterSystems and contains DataTree MUMPS DTM PC and the MUMPS installation program which you use to install MUMPS on your computer system V The second diskette is supplied by Cornell and contains the ALES program as well as the ALES installation script a batch file which you use to install ALES once the MUMPS system has been installed The installation diskettes are write protected after installation you should keep t
365. ose is to inform the process of allocation of land uses to land areas by individuals collectives or governments As such it is a tool for strategic decision making A complementary purpose of land evaluation is to describe the limitations to land use and based on these appropriate management methods Land evaluation can be an important method in support of rural development and planning worldwide The success of the FAO framework FAO 1976 and subsequent guidelines for application in diverse types of land uses and land areas FAO 1983 FAO 1984 FAO 1985 FAO 1991 Siderius 1986 is an encouraging development The following paragraph provides a brief review of the specialized terminology of land evaluation For more information the reader is encouraged to read the lecture notes of Rossiter 1994 the textbook of Dent amp Young 1981 the review article of van Diepen et al 1991 or one of the cited FAO bulletins V Land evaluation may be defined as the process of assessment of land performance when used for specified y P P P purposes FAO 1984 As such it attempts to predict the behavior of each land unit for each actual and proposed land use In a land evaluation exercise the land use planner matches land areas called Land Mapping Units LMU with land uses called Land Utilization Types LUT to determine the relative suitability of each land area for each land use V Land Utilization Types are specified by a set of Land Us
366. ou must ensure that the field types match Numeric data type N xBase fields usually correspond to continuous ALES LCs On import ALES will check whether a number is within the data validation limits for the ALES LC entered with Menu 1 14c Option 2 if not it will be discarded However numeric data type N xBase fields may correspond to discrete classified ALES LCs if the ALES LC class abbreviations are numeric or if there are no class abbreviations in which case the ALES class number is used as its abbreviation Character data type C xBase fields must correspond to discrete classified ALES LCs The contents of the xBase field must be the ALES LC class abbreviations entered with Menu 1 1 4a or 1 1 4b Option 2 On import ALES will check whether a code is one of the permitted class abbreviations if not it will be discarded On export ALES will refuse to write a code that is wider than the xBase field For example the code sicl would not be written to the xBase field with type C3 Multi values will not be written if their total length including codes and proportions is wider than the field Some other facts about LC import from xBase to ALES If the xBase field for a record is null blank any value in the ALES database for the LMU corresponding to that record will be deleted presuming that a null value representing unknown is correct The idea is that the two databases should be consiste
367. p Units data type integer ile type binary 80 50 system plane units m dist a 130 X 0 50 X 400 Y 0 0 Y 250 pos n error resolution min value max value value units classes value error unknown flag value none flag def n none legend cats 4 category category category category ALIDRIS reclassifies the image with either 1 Land Characteristic values from the database or 2 evaluation results In the latter case the evaluation must already have been computed for the land utilization types and map units of interest ALES Menu 1 4 Option 1 ALIDRIS writes a new recoded map and a documentation file and if the reclassification is to classified values a legend Integer valued results i e maps of LC values and of ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 232 February 1997 classified evaluation results such as suitability classes are written as integer binary images Real valued results including output yields predicted monetary values the internal rate of return input amounts and the benefit cost ratio have no legend and are written as real ascii images Reclassification with ALIDRIS produces raster maps that can be directly displayed with COLOR or used as a drape image in ORTHO without the need to manually enter a legend Thus IDRISI acts as a graphics back end to ALES Also the full power of IDRISI is also available to for example calculate areas or overlay with oth
368. pe of user All three commands are DOS batch files which you run by typing the command name in the sub directory in which ALES is installed The three commands are ALES all ALES functions are available including model building data entry computation of evaluations reports and interchange with other programs This command is intended for the model builder EVALUATE all ALES functions except model building the ability to delete models and restore them from a backup and the interfaces to IDRISI and xBase Land data can be entered or imported evaluations can be computed the evaluation matrix and why screens can be displayed and reports printed Economic parameters including prices and interest rates can also be edited This command is intended for the model user who should not be able to change the model itself only data and economic parameters CONSULT enters consultation mode directly to consult one or more ALES models about the suitability of a single tract for a single use Models can not be modified Land data from a consultation can be recorded in the database This command is intended as an easy way to consult an ALES model for the occasional model user It provides a simple way to determine the suitability of one land area at a time for one land use at a time The same consultation mode may be accessed from the ALES command Menu 1 Option 6 or from the EVALUATE command Menu 1 Option 5 In addition there is a
369. ple erosion hazard risk of salinization chemical contamination in runoff or drainage water 5 Geographical These are requirements of location For example accessibility to or within the farm distance from protected areas or to markets 6 Socio economic These are requirements that the land user must meet For example attitudes towards a certain type of land use Although these lists are useful starting points they are not exhaustive nor exclusive In fact a more direct way of deciding on a set of LUR s is often quite successful soliciting answers from the land use experts to the question What qualities of the land are important for the successful implementation of this LUT A related question is What qualities of the land differentiate lands that are very suitable suitable marginal or not suitable for this land use ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 194 February 1997 It is not expected that every evaluation will use every requirement in fact in order to keep models to a reasonable size it is important to limit the set of Land Use Requirements A Land Use Requirement should be included in the model if 1 it is important for the land use 2 there exist critical values of the corresponding Land Quality in the study area i e values which cause differences in the performance of the set of land units being considered Even factors that are very important to a land use should be omitted from a model s se
370. pound units from the menu option you selected Import information on the homogeneous constituents of the compound map units from a secondary table Menu 1 8 2 Option 3 This table only gives the compound amp homogeneous map unit codes and the proportion of each homogeneous map unit in the compound unit At this point the land data can be imported with Menu 1 8 Option 3 probably from the first table the homogeneous constituents For transfers of compound map units the key field must contain the ALES compound LMU identifier and the descriptive name field and area field are optional as before In addition you must specify a secondary table with its own primary key field that contains the ALES compound LMU code a secondary key field that contain the ALES homogeneous LMU identifier of a homogeneous constituent as well as a required percentage field that contains the percentage of the constituent in the map unit ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 219 February 1997 Here is a sample xBase database for compound map units It consists of three tables The first table is the table of the homogeneous constituents and their data see section 1 above The second table contains the definitions of the compound map units but not their composition RECNO LMU_ID LMU_NAME AREA Palmyra Cazenovia association 1250 A19 Honeoye complex 12400 Note that this table has a similar structure to that for the homogeneous map units but does
371. ptimum land use It can also be useful to group map units according to their limitations and other Land Qualities that determine management strategies Economic evaluations ALES always attempts to compute an economic evaluation following the computation of a physical evaluation If components of the economic model e g prices optimum yields proportional yield information are missing ALES will not be able to complete the computation Computation of the physical suitability precedes computation of the economic suitability so that land that is rated as physically unsuitable will not be considered for the land use no matter what the economics ALES will not perform an economic analysis on land in the highest numbered physical suitability class which is always assumed to correspond to the FAO class n2 i e physically unsuitable for the use If an economic model is constructed degrees of suitability will be revealed in the economic analysis It then may suffice to define two physical suitability classes ALES classes 1 and 2 corresponding to FAO orders s and n and build a simple physical model whose only purpose is to place physically unsuitable land in order n i e ALES physical suitability class 2 ALES performs two kinds of economic evaluations 1 gross margin analysis and 2 discounted cash flow analysis The gross margin is defined as variable costs and returns in units of currency per hectare year over the li
372. puts the annual recurrent inputs and the by year inputs for year 1 Here the annual inputs are various agricultural chemicals such as herbicides and pesticides as well as labor fuel and other machine charges These are the costs of planting growing and harvesting corn on optimum land You may notice there is no fertilizer listed here in this LUT these vary according to a Land Quality and so are included in the additional costs which we ll see a bit later Press PgDn to scroll the Why screen down and see the by year inputs that are specific to year 1 in this LUT those due to the installation of a drainage system Again only those costs of installing the drainage system that do not vary among land units are included here the others are included in the additional costs Costs are the sum of individual inputs each of which requires a certain number of units and each of which has a certain purchase price For example looking at this display we see that 23 feet of 8 drainage tile for main drains are required per acre and that each foot of tile costs 2 35 installed resulting in this one time expenditure of 54 05 per acre Press F10 to return to the explanation of overall costs Now that we ve seen the S1 costs for the Land Utilization Type let s see the additional costs for this Land Utilization Type amp land unit combination Notice that F3 in the annunciator line is marked Why addi
373. r ALES has concluded that maize will suffer severe moisture stress on these soils This ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 59 February 1997 illustrates how decision tree paths can be of different lengths depending on which branch is taken Here the shallow depth is enough by itself to allow the model builder to conclude that moisture stress is severe Suppose that we made a mistake and that in fact the fragipan is deeper at 75 cm Fortunately we can still revise our original choice Notice that the annunciator line says that the left arrow can be used to go back to the last choice So Press amp to erase the result and re display the list of choices for dbr Move the highlight to branch 2 corresponding to the correct value m moderately deep 50 100cm Then Press Enter to confirm this value i e to tell ALES that the land area we are evaluating is moderately deep to a root impenetrable layer Now we see that ALES can t make a decision yet on moderately deep soils It is asking for the USDA texture of the subsoils Subsoil texture is an indicator of water holding capacity because of the correlation between particle size and pore size Small pores retain water against drainage but very small pores retain water against the efforts of plant roots to extract it Medium textures are a good compromise Note that this correlation must be calibrated in each general kind of soil
374. r LC in current column amp LMU in current row F3 Infer land characteristic LC values F4 Edit data for LMU in current row Option 4 of Menu 1 3 F5 Edit definition of LC in current column Menu 1 1 4 F6 Edit definition of LMU in current row Option 1 of Menu 1 3 F7 Write matrix in spreadsheet readable format F8 Read data from spreadsheet export format 4 Evaluations Menu 1 4 1 Compute an evaluation Set Which land utilization types Set Which land mapping units 2 View evaluation results Select What kind of report Case one Land Quality Select Land Quality to report Case Yield Select output to report Select normalized Yes No Case NPV Gross Margin Select normalized Yes No Case Input amount Select input to report Select year to report or sum over all years Select normalized Yes No Display evaluation matrix F2 Why evaluation results for LUT in current column amp LMU in current row F3 Recompute F4 Edit data for LMU in current row Option 4 of Menu 1 3 F5 Edit specification of LUT in current column Menu 1 1 5 F6 Edit definition of map unit in current row Option 1 of Menu 1 3 F7 Write matrix in spreadsheet readable format 3 Print evaluation results Select Which kind of output device Select What kind of report Case summary report report is printed with no further questions Case not a summary report Case one Land Quality Select Land Quality to report Case Yield Selec
375. r a specified kind of land use ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 24 February 1997 Land use expert a person who has information about a land use or land quality in relation to the land Land Use Requirement LUR a condition of the land necessary for successful and sustained implementation of a specific Land Utilization Type Land Utilization Type LUT A kind of land use described or defined in a degree of detail greater than that of a major kind of land use In the context of irrigated agriculture a land utilization type refers to a crop crop combination or cropping system with specified irrigation and management methods in a defined technical and socio economic setting In the context of rainfed agriculture a land utilization type refers to a crop crop combination or cropping system with a specified technical and socio economic setting A land utilization type in forestry consists of a technical specifications in a given physical economic and social setting Major Kind of Land Use A major subdivision of rural land use such as rainfed agriculture irrigated agriculture grassland forestry recreation annual crops perennial crops swamp rice cultivation forest plantation or natural forests Map unit a set of map delineations designated by a single name and representing a single legend category Minimum decision area the size of the individual land areas for which decisions are to be made Minimum legible delineatio
376. rate LC pptMS c following the inference link we defined above As it computes evaluations ALES always uses a directly entered i e non inferred data value as entered and does not infer it even if there is an inference link set up for the derived characteristic The idea here is that the model user must have had more specific information about a map unit if a value was entered V ALES will not infer a LC value if there is a directly entered value in the database Press F4 to delete the data value Confirm the form and return to the data entry matrix Using the same techniques For LC pptMS c and map unit test2 Enter and confirm 200 However if ALES is asked to infer a data value with Option 9 Infer Land Characteristic values of Menu 1 3 Data it will infer all values and over write any directly entered values The idea here is that the model user is directly asking ALES to infer values See the next Chapter for details ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 162 February 1997 Erase the data value for LC pptMS and map unit test2 For LC pptMS c and map unit test3 Enter and confirm 425 Erase the data value for LC pptMS and map unit test3 Return to Menu 1 3 Data Return to Menu 1 Main options Now we will compute an evaluation for the test map units Select Menu 1 Main options Option 4 Evaluate Select Menu 1
377. rately deep this is displayed to the right of the LC name The other branches of soil depth have been temporarily removed from the display and the next LC to be considered slope is displayed as a secondary heading indented by one space The four possible values of slope along with are the new branch headings The highlight is on branch 1 which corresponds to nearly level slopes Don t worry the hidden parts of the decision tree are still there they are just hidden behind the currently visible parts of the tree The PC display screen is too small to show the entire decision tree so we can only show the active branch If you are ever confused about where you are in the tree you can navigate up and down levels with the arrow keys Also you can print the entire tree using Menu 1 5 Reports Option 9 Decision Trees Suppose that on moderately deep soils any slope over 30 is impractical for constructing fish ponds because there is just too much earthmoving it is very hard to stabilize the pond banks on such steep slopes etc Let s record that fact now Move the highlight to branch 4 D very steep Press F3 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 122 February 1997 to enter a decision A pop up list appears asking you which severity level should be assigned to this combination of land characteristic values namely very steep slopes with moderately deep soils Select severity level
378. re capital investment is involved it is still preferable to conduct the land evaluation initially in terms of repayment capacity as gross margin and net income on an annual basis This relatively firm figure can later be subjected to the less objective process of discounting Another way to use the gross margin is to divide it by the discount rate thereby obtaining the capitalized value of the LUT This metric is often used as a first approximation for the land s intrinsic value for land uses with a steady state cash flow i e no capital improvements 2 The Net Present Value is the present value of all the cash flows predicted over the life of the LUT i e each year s cash flow discounted to the present The NPV is in theory equivalent to the selling price of a unit area of land that is used for the proposed LUT since the land user would in theory be indifferent to realizing the LUT or receiving the NPV now and investing it An important caution about the NPV is that it is only valid to INot taking into account social values regarding the desireability of owning land nor any speculation about the future value of the land ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 15 February 1997 compare NPV s for LUT s with the same planning horizon given equal NPV s but different planning horizons the LUT with the shorter planning horizon would be preferred because the value of the land is realized sooner 3 The Benefit cost ratio
379. re users are using ALES at any one time than the number of single user licenses purchased by the licensee the network s owner Several network utilities exist that monitor usage and can control this Otherwise you are in violation of your license with Cornell and with InterSystems You must be in a position to justify your usage to Cornell or InterSystems if asked There are two keys to successful network installation the network file system itself and the file MUMPS DBD This is the Database Description file for the DTM PC system When DTM PC starts it looks in MUMPS DBD to locate its files and how it should open them You can edit it with a text editor such as MS DOS EDIT or Epsilon Step 1 Install DTM PC and ALES on the server as a single user program Follow the installation instructions in this Chapter above You will almost certainly install DTM PC and ALES to a drive other than C and possibly to a different path as well Follow the instructions for editing the configuration file MUMPS DBD so that it points to the drive and directory where you installed DTM PC The path should always end in DTM with the final Start ALES for the first time and enter your PaperKey according to the instructions above This is the only time that you will have to enter the PaperKey unless you move the program At this point you have a single user DTM PC installed on the server Now you must make it shareable and give each user their own data
380. rea and compute evaluations for use by the output consumers Physical and economic evaluations A major choice which must be made by the model builder is whether to evaluate the land in physical terms only or in both physical and economic terms A physical evaluation results in relative suitabilities of each land area for the set of Land Utilization Types in the evaluation based on the evaluator s judgment Within a single Land Utilization Type this may be very useful However when comparing Land Utilization Types a physical evaluation has no common basis If we are trying to determine the best use for a land area we need some way to compare suitabilities of different uses It may well be that land that is rated highly suitable in physical terms for a given Land Utilization Type but only marginally ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 183 February 1997 suitable for another may preferentially be used for the second LUT by farmers This is because the farmer is in some sense trying to optimize land use according to some criterion other than crop suitability Typically the optimization criterion is largely based on economics although social and cultural factors may certainly play a large role As in many other decision making processes money or something of value that could in principle be converted to money is the common denominator The common saying that one cannot compare apples and oranges is not true they can
381. ready working on disk c you can omit this command 2 Change to the directory where ALES is installed Typically this will be directory dtm Supposing this to be the case at the DOS prompt Type cd dtm and Press Enter If you are already connected to directory dtm you can omit this command 3 Then start ALES in model building mode At the DOS prompt Type ales and Press Enter At this point you should see the initial welcome screen which includes the program name your organization s name and the serial number Press any key for example Enter to continue beyond this screen An initial menu will now appear with Option already highlighted ALES Build Models Build Models and Evaluate System Options About ALES Select Option 1 The list of evaluation models will now appear Notice that the annunciator bottom line now includes several new options including F7 to save make a backup copy of an evaluation to a disk file F8 to restore a saved evaluation F3 to create a new evaluation model F4 to delete an evaluation model F5 to edit basic information This key is variously called Return or Enter It may be marked with a square arrow 2This runs the DOS batch file ALES BAT which in turn starts the MUMPS run time system which loads ALES in model building mode and runs it ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 100 February 1
382. ree This is our first encounter with a decision tree so let s take some time to understand it Severity level decision tree In ALES the model builder expresses inferences by constructing decision trees At each level in the decision tree a different factor in the present case Land Characteristics which is necessary to reach a final decision is considered Each factor divides the tree in branches depending on how many classes there are for the factor At the lowest level of the tree the leaves is a decision i e the result in the present case a severity level of Land Quality A severity level decision tree is constructed by the model builder so that ALES may determine the severity level of a Land Quality from one or more values of Land Characteristics ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 86 February 1997 In the present example since map unit CeB was deep to bedrock first level of the tree had no previous erosion second level of the tree has a silty clay loam subsoil third level of the tree and has less than 400mm summer precipitation fourth level of the tree it is predicted to have a moderate moisture stress in the context of this LUT Notice that two lines begin with the degree sign 7 indicating that there are notes that apply to these lines Let s look at the one for the decision tree this is where the model builder has explained the structure of the tree Press F9 to read a note Since there are
383. rial 1 This tutorial should take about three hours to complete Starting ALES in evaluation mode If your ALES system is not installed on drive C in directory DTM change the following two DOS commands accordingly To start ALES in evaluation mode from DOS 1 Change to the disk where ALES is installed Typically this will be disk drive c Supposing this to be the case at the DOS prompt Type c and Press the Enter key If you are already working on disk c you can omit this command 2 Change to the directory where ALES is installed Typically this will be directory dtm Supposing this to be the case at the DOS prompt Type cd dtm and Press Enter You will build your own evaluation model in the following tutorial 2This key is variously called Return or Enter It may be marked with a square arrow 1 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 65 February 1997 If you are already connected to directory dtm you can omit this command 3 Then start ALES in evaluation mode At the DOS prompt Type evaluate and Press Enter When you start ALES with the evaluate command you will be able to enter and edit land unit descriptions and data but you won t be able to alter the models except for economic parameters such as prices and discount rates At this point you should see the initial welcome screen which includes the program name your org
384. rs integer or decimal e g 13 4 N Variables i e the Land Characteristics whose values should be substituted into the formula If the LC code contains punctuation that could be confused with mathematical operators you must write the code between quotes e g LC code c N could be confused with LC code c minus LC code N LC code abs could be confused with the function for absolute value 3 Arithmetic binary operators integer division modulus exponentiation 4 Logical binary operators EQ NEQ gt GT gt GE lt LT lt LE amp AND amp NAND OR NOR The prefix means NOT e g amp stands for NAND The written forms e g AND are alternate ways to enter the operator e g amp Nn Unary mathematical functions ABS LN LOG EXP SQR square root SIN COS TAN CSC SEC COT argument in radians 6 The ternary conditional operator IF syntax IF truth_condition value_if_true value_if_false where truth_condition uses logical operators AND OR etc and value_if_ is any legal formula Formulas are entered with standard algebraic notation operators have the usual precedence exponentiation multiplication and division addition and subtraction Examples of valid formulas la SQR dbr clay 1 5 In standard math notation this is dbr clay Note that this is different from 1b SQR dbr clay 1
385. rsion 4 65 Users Manual Page 176 February 1997 Select item 7 ALIDRIS from the main menu An entry box should appear asking for the location of the IDRISI program on your system Where is the IDRISI environment file ALES needs to know where the IDRISI environment is located so that it can determine where IDRISI stores its images and what file extensions IDRISI uses for these images Answer with the path to the IDRISI program for example C IDRISI or wherever you have IDRISI installed on your system If ALES can t find the IDRISI environment file in the directory that you specify you will see the error message such as Couldn t open file c idrisi idrisi env Check the path and try again When ALES finds the IDRISI environment a new menu appears 1 7 ALES gt IDRISI interface V4 Reclassify an IDRISI raster image with LC values Reclassify an IDRISI raster image with evaluation results Reclassify an IDRISI values file with LC values Reclassify an IDRISI values file with evaluation results The first two options are used to make new raster images the last two to make new values files that are then usually used to make legends for vector maps In this tutorial we will only experiment with the first two options Select item 1 Reclassify an IDRISI raster image with LC values An entry box should appear asking for the name of the IDRISI image to reclassify What is the file name of the source ima
386. rst if a particular data value is not required during the computation the evaluation can proceed without problems For example on land that is very rocky we may not have chemical analyses If the rockiness is used to place the land in the unsuitable physical suitability class i e the rockiness is a criterion in the physical suitability class decision tree ALES will never need to determine the fertility so will never need the missing chemical analyses Sometimes a value of one data item can be inferred from another this is covered above under Land Characteristics The model builder can specify alternate criteria to be used in a decision tree when a data value is missing This is the purpose of the unknown branch marked with a in each decision tree A subtree can be placed at this branch which will be followed in the case of missing data for the entity at the current level This allows the model builder to express the idea of using one type of data or another For example in the Fertility Capability Classification Sanchez et al 1982 most fertility limitations which in ALES correspond to Land Qualities can be determined by several methods which are ranked in order of preference Section 3 2 3 of this User s Manual gives an example for the LQ high P fixation by iron The preferred diagnostic criterion is the LC ratio of free Fe203 to clay in the topsoil however if this is not available t
387. run under the DesqView multitasking system Version 2 x which is a reasonable multi tasking alternative for the MS DOS user who wants to run several programs at once and who has a computer with several megabytes of expanded or extended memory note that the companion product QEMM is required on 386 or later processor to make best use of extended memory DesqView does not require a 386 or later processor as does OS 2 The following explanation is intended for the experienced Desq View user You must set up a DesqView menu item for ALES as follows The program to run is the batch file ALES in directory C DTM or wherever you installed ALES and the data directory is the same ALES requires a 384Kb partition and can use up to 640Kb It writes text directly to the screen but does not display graphics It may use serial ports it does not need diskettes It does not require or use any extended or expanded memory and it uses its own color schemes not DesqView s On a 80386 processor or better you can elect to virtualize text so that you can work on ALES in a small window Otherwise when the ALES window is made small you can only scroll its DesqView and QEMM are registered trademarks of Quarterdeck Office Systems ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 44 February 1997 contents but not type or receive output ALES can run in the background on a 80386 or better this is a nice feature for long computations data import export or pri
388. s There are two kinds of ALES map units that may be transferred 1 homogeneous and 2 compound with different methods of importing 1 Importing homogeneous map units Homogeneous map units for ALES are LMU codes which can have associated data i e values of Land Characteristics They may be mapped themselves and or they may be constituents of compound map units see section 2 The import of homogeneous map units to ALES is a one step process since only one xBase table is involved 1 Import the map unit definitions from a single xBase table Menu 1 8 2 Option 1 This table should contain the Land Characteristics for each constituent At this point the land data can be imported with Menu 1 8 Option 3 from the same table For transfers of homogeneous map units you only need to specify which xBase fields contains the descriptive name and the area and both of these are optional The key field must contain the ALES homogeneous LMU identifier code ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 218 February 1997 Here is a sample xBase file of homogeneous map units with one sample Land Characteristic dc USDA soil drainage class RECNO LMU_ID LMU_NAME AREA Alden mucky silt loam 12300 vpd AvE Arnot soils 25 45 250 mwd CeB Cazenovia silt loam 3 8 9400 mwd HsD Honeoye amp Lima gravely silt loam 14 20 1220 Note that this can be from a PAT with non unique records but it is preferable to have a normalize
389. s DataTree MUMPS and therefore ALES as delivered is configured to be able to output to two parallel printers DOS device PRN and DOS device LPT2 the PC video screen and DOS files If you have additional peripheral hardware or want to change the default communications parameters of the pre configured ports you must edit the device description file MUMPS DEV Look at this file which is extensively commented for information on how to add devices In particular if you have a serial printer or other device connected to the serial port you will need to edit mumps dev so that MUMPS recognizes the serial ports COM1 etc For example to configure COM1 for 8 bit characters no parity one stop bit and flow control enabled running at 9600 baud add the following line to mumps dev s Serial printer specification 100 PCTERM P COMM speed 9600 parity none charbits 8 stopbits 1 xon 1 plen 65 pwid 82 flen 63 fwid 80 lmar 2 tmar 2 wrcr 1 wrap 1 Make sure to comment out any existing definition of device 100 The key part of the entry is P COMM this tells MUMPS that the device is in class P i e is a printer Now device COMM will appear on the list of printers whenever you try to print from within ALES Adding model groups One way to exchange information with another organization is to save each model as ALS files using F7 from the list of evaluation models Each file must be sa
390. s units of measurement purchase cost 2 Outputs units of measurement selling price 2 Land Characteristics Case discrete land characteristic number of classes units of measurement tclass limits LC to LC decision tree commensurate LC from which to infer Case continuous land characteristic units of measurement upper and lower limits formulas from a group of continuous LCs to this LC 2 Land Utilization Types length of planning horizon discount rate number of physical suitability classes subclass names physical suitability subclass decision tree economic suitability class limits 3 recurrent annual Inputs annual amount of input 3 Year in planning horizon 4 by year Inputs amount of input this year 3 Land Use Requirements severity level decision tree use this LQ in maximum limitation method 4 Severity Levels severity level names 5 Inputs additional annual amount 6 Year in planning horizon additional by year amount 3 Outputs harvest years S1 yield reduce and or delay if less than optimum proportional yield decision tree limiting yield factors 4 Land Use Requirements 5 Severity Level limiting yield factor multiplicative yield factors 4 Land Use Requirements 5 Severity Level multiplicative yield factor 4 production related Inputs units of input per unit of output Underlined entities are their primary definition Numbered entries may be repeated ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 270 February 1997 ALES Version 4
391. s Manual Page 104 February 1997 The first order of business is to define the reference lists so Select Option 1 Reference Lists Now you will see Menu 1 1 Reference lists with four options 1 Land Use Requirement codes 2 Outputs products 3 Inputs 4 Land characteristics A reference list is a list of entities that can be used when defining the various Land Utilization Types of the evaluation These are data tables that are independent of a particular LUT i e they apply equally to all LUTs The first reference list is for Land Use Requirements LUR In this list we define LUR codes a short descriptive phrase a default number of severity levels and default severity level names The rest of the definition of a Land Use Requirement depends on the context of the Land Utilization Type For example what constitutes a severe erosion hazard on inter tilled row crops is quite different than in tea plantations Even the number of severity levels may be different The reference list provides a basis to be used in any of the LUT s Select Menu 1 1 Option 1 Land Use Requirements You will now see a choice box headed Land Use Requirement code There are no entities yet only a dummy item lt add a new item gt Let s define the LURs now Notice in the annunciator line that F3 is to be used to add a new item that is what we want to do so Press F3 to begin defining a new LUR No
392. s cleared and replaced with a The cursor is still on this same branch 3 Press F3 to enter a decision for branch 3 and Select severity level 3 severe stress Now branch 3 is marked 3 severe stress Note that branch 4 severely eroded is already equated with branch 3 so that changing the decision for branch 3 also changes it for branch 4 We must now consider the non eroded soils at branch 1 Move the cursor to the first branch n not eroded Press gt to expand the subtree rooted at branch 1 n to the fourth level We see that the fourth level in this decision tree path is the USDA texture of the subsoil Let s suppose that some of the textures with less water holding capacity now become severely limiting without even considering the summer ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 149 February 1997 precipitation So we will clear but not save in the paste buffer the gt pptMS subtrees for branches 3 sandy loam 6 silt 8 clay loam and 12 clay and equate them with the decision for branch 1 sand i e 3 severe stress Move the cursor to the third branch sl sandy loam Press Alt F5 and then answer Yes Press and then select branch 1 Move the cursor to the sixth branch si silt Press Alt F5 and then answer Yes Press and then select branch 1 Move the cursor to the eighth branch cl clay loam Pr
393. s erosion and drainage class so you need only change the answers to questions 3 4 and 6 The Odessa soils occupy slightly lower and flatter landscape positions than Schoharie soils They are not eroded and are somewhat poorly drained because of their low landscape position When the data entry form first appears question is the active question Move to question 3 slope slope of land The answer box contains the value B copied from map unit SeB this must be changed to the correct value for this map unit OdA Change the answer for question 3 to A Move to question 4 erode previous erosion Change the answer for question 4 to n Move to question 6 dc drainage class Change the answer for question 6 to spd The rest of the data values copied from SeB are correct so Press F10 to confirm the entire form and return to the list of map units Now we have to edit some data values for the second copied map unit Lc Select map unit Le Lakemont silty clay loam ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 76 February 1997 Using the same techniques as explained in the previous paragraphs Edit the data values for map unit Lc Lakemont silty clay loam 3 slope A 4 previous erosion n 6 drainage class pd Lakemont soils have a slightly heavier topsoil than the better drained members of the drainage sequence so we must change the answer to ques
394. s reserved for land that is physically unsuitable In ALES this means land that is in the highest numbered physical suitability class Land in this class is not even analyzed in economic terms because it has already been assigned to suitability class N2 Highlights of the ALES approach to land evaluation This section explains some of the more important features and limitations of the ALES implementation of the FAO Framework ALES usually evaluates map units An important limitation of ALES is that is does not have any georeferencing capability and does not itself produce maps so that analyses can not easily take into account proximity or adjacency requirements ALES usually makes statements about map units i e sets of delineations on a map and assumes that the properties of all delineations with the same name are identical within the precision of the map unit description Since the delineations of a map unit have diverse locations it is rarely possible to assign a value to a geographic Land Characteristic Map units in ALES are typically natural units defined by a soil climate geomorphic or physiographic natural resources inventory Geographical Information Systems Burrough 1986 are ideal tools for spatial analysis and the results of ALES analyses may easily be used as data layers in these systems see the Chapter ALES and other computer systems for more information However it is possible to use ALES to evaluate individual
395. s will be sufficient cold lt 16 C temperate 16 23 C warm 23 35 C and hot gt 35 C So at the second question Type 4 Move to the next question in the form The number of classes of Land Characteristics with units can be edited at a later time using Menu 1 1 4a Options 7 Add a class and 8 Delete a class At the last question units of measurement Type C Water temperature is critical in fish farming each species of fish has a well defined and usually narrow range of temperatures at which they can grow 2In tutorial 4 we ll see why and how to use continuous LC s ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 109 February 1997 To enter the degree sign on most PC keyboards hold down the Alt key while pressing the numbers 2 then 4 and then 8 on the numeric keypad the number keys on the main keyboard won t work then release the Alt key note this is a feature of MS DOS not MUMPS or ALES If for some reason you can t enter the degree sign from your keyboard answer this question with deg C Press F10 to confirm the form V A classified Land Characteristic with units of measurement is called discrete with units It is an ordinal land characteristic Menu 1 1 4a Specification options for discrete LC with units appears containing eight options The first option name and units can be used to edit the descriptive names and th
396. s you to preview the results before printing V The option to write to a disk file allows you to edit the results with a word processor prior to printing them For example you might want to add explanatory notes or change the formatting V The option to write through a communications port e g COM1 allows you to send the output to a printer that was not configured in the MUMPS system or to another computer system connected through the port And of course V The option to print allows you to get a printed report on paper If you have a printer connected and want to see a printed report Select P Printer If you have more than one printer configured in your MUMPS system you will now have to choose one of them Otherwise ALES will assume you want to use the parallel printer You will now be presented with a data entry form with the form parameters i e options for the placement of the report on the page the width in characters and length in lines of the printed form etc These will be The same reports can be requested with Menu 1 5 Reports Option 1 Evaluation Results ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 94 February 1997 probably be correct as they stand If not edit the form as appropriate remember F2 at any question will give you more information about the required answers When the form is correct Press F10 to confirm the form parameters If you don t have a printer or
397. sadvantages that 1 the severity levels of all the LURs used in this method must be commensurate i e represent the same degree of limitation and 2 there is no way to account for interactions between Land Qualities A more flexible way to assign physical suitability subclasses is by means of a physical suitability subclass decision tree Let s examine how LUT ccc m uses this method Select Menu 1 Option 2 Land Utilization Types Select LUT ccc m Le the LUT we ve been modifying Select Menu 1 2 Option 8 Physical suitability subclasses Select Menu 1 2 8 Option 1 Enter edit Physical suitability decision tree ALES displays the top level of a decision tree This tree is at a higher level of abstraction than the Severity Level decision trees we constructed in Tutorial 3 In fact this tree uses as its decision entities the severity levels that are the result of the Severity Level decision trees The result of this decision tree is the physical suitability subclass code which consists of a class number and optional modifiers that indicate the kind of limitation As you can see the first LQ is f flood hazard This LQ is measured in two classes only no risk and risk This is appropriate for maize because any flooding after planting kills the plant so there is no need to make finer distinctions of risk levels in this case You can see that if there is any risk of flooding the land is already
398. season 95 medium season 80 short season and 0 won t make grain These factors correspond to the biological fact that the maximum attainable yield for corn depends on the temperature regime According to this form a short season hybrid in the context of central New York state has an 80 yield potential relative to a full season hybrid Also implicit in this form is that there is no interaction between temperature regime and any other factor that may limit yield If there is an interaction the LQ would have been included in a proportional yield tree by the builder of Tutor2 We won t change these factors so Press F10 twice to return to Menu 1 2 6 Let s see how these changes affect predicted yields for our set of map units Because as the number of heat units increases a longer season corn hybrid can be grown and the longer season hybrids have higher yield potentials ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 168 February 1997 Press F10 four times to return to Menu 1 Main options To see the effect of yield factors we ll change the data for two of the test map units Select Menu 1 Option 3 Data Select Menu 1 3 Option A Edit Data in a matrix Select data entry template cl Select the set of map units test1 test2 and test3 In the data entry form matrix Make the following changes to the displayed values LMU test3 LC gdd50
399. servation farming practices must be observed and conditions for mechanization also determines the type and nature of field operations Land Quality e Erosion hazard The way in which ALES asks you for data in consultation mode is to lead you through each severity level decision tree in turn one for each Land Use Requirement On the screen now is a large window with the title LQ e erosion hazard ALES is now going to determine the severity of the erosion hazard on a scale of 1 to 42 for your particular land area In consultation mode you only see as much of the decision tree as necessary to make the next decision Right now you are looking at the top level of the tree i e the land characteristic that the model builder thought was most important to determine the severity level of the Land Quality erosion hazard This first land characteristic is the slope of the land and as you can see it is measured in five classes A B C D and EF3 the highlight is by default on the unknown choice in the tree the branch marked since you haven t yet selected a slope class Once you have selected a slope class other factors may be considered Slope affects erosion hazard because the kinetic of energy of runoff is greater on steeper slopes The model builder constructed the tree considering local conditions and the availability of data while trying to keep the tree as simple as possible When we consider how many factors
400. set Step 2 Make the program read only Every file in DTM and in DTM ALES5 should be marked Read only and Shareable using a network utility such as FLAGS Step 3 Copy the user dataset to each user s private partition ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 45 February 1997 Copy EVAL GBL IND and EVAL GBL DAT from DTM EVAL where you installed ALES to each user s area possibly to a sub directory This could be their mail directory or their private area on the server This might even work on a high capacity diskette 1 44Mb for student exercises but the dataset could not be expanded for more serious work These files must be marked Read write and not shareable with a network utility such as FLAGS Step 4 Change each user s configuration to include ALES Decide on a mapped drive letter e g Z for the user dataset Then in each user s configuration file enter a line like MAP Z SYS USERS USER2 EVAL replacing SYS etc with the actual location of the user dataset In the same file map the directory where ALES is installed e g MAP Y SYS DTM again replacing SYS etc with the actual location of the program Now the user has two mapped drives one pointing to the program and one to their own dataset Step 5 Change the DTM PC configuration Change the reference in MUMPS DBD to dataset EVAL GBL so that it points to the user s mapped drive For example DATASET Z E
401. sider the first two factors with the others held constant and used in determining the final values Continuing with the same example in a limited geographical area with a single rainfall regime e g intensity of severe storms total rainfall average rainfall intensities the rainfall erosivity could be considered a constant and hence omitted from the decision tree There is a trade off here if your model is only of limited applicability you can treat many things as constants so that your decision trees are small On the other hand if you want your model to be of wide applicability you must consider more variables resulting in larger decision trees Make decisions early The easiest way to control complexity is to first consider the factors that will allow you to reach a decision as early as possible In this way the tree need not have the same path length to all decisions For example if flooding absolutely prohibits a certain use it would make sense to put a Land Quality of flood hazard first in a physical suitability decision tree with the decision for the classes other than no flood hazard being already the highest class i e not suitable Include only the most significant factors In general the severity levels of Land Qualities depend on many Land Characteristics The model builder s first instinct is to try to include all of these in the decision tree In most cases however a subset of all the relevant LCs can
402. soil permeability None of these can be altered so that there will not be any additional costs Lower water availability will be reflected in lower yields see below i e there will be periods when there is not enough water to fill the ponds hence no fish can be raised This land quality will have four severity levels 1 high 2 moderate 3 low and 4 very low 1 There are no additional annual or by year costs Add LUR wa water availability to the list of LURs for LUT tdp Number of severity levels 4 Severity level names 1 high 2 moderate 3 low 4 very low Enter the following Decision Tree for water availability ws source of water l rain gt rs length of rainy season 1 short 0 6 months gt pe permeability 1 s slow 2 moderate 2 m moderate 3 r rapid 4 very low 2 medium 6 10 months gt pe permeability 1 s slow high 2 m moderate 2 moderate 3 r rapid 3 long 10 12 months 1 s slow 2 m moderate 3 r rapid 2 river 1 3 spring 4 very low Note that all these adjectives modify the noun water quality which is the LQ name for example severity level 4 is very low water quality ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 127 February 1997 If you wish enter a note for the decision tree explaining that springs are not a reliable water source that both rainwater and river water depend on the length of
403. ssels Belgium ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 259 February 1997 Wagenet R J and J Bouma Eds 1993 Operational methods to characterize soil behavior in space and time Geoderma Vol 60 Nos 1 4 Amsterdam Elsevier Wood S R amp F J Dent 1983 LECS a land evaluation computer system Ministry of Agriculture Government of Indonesia publications AGOF INS 78 006 Manual 5 Methodology and 6 User s Manual Bogor Indonesia ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 260 February 1997 Appendix 1 ALES program structure This appendix shows the structure of the ALES program from the model builder s point of view DOS command ales bat by means of a nested key The various types of interactions are Menu choose one of the numbered action items Choose add to delete from edit in or copy in a list new items typed in List add to delete from edit in a list new items selected from another list Ordered list a list where the items are numbered Select pick exactly one item from a list Set pick any number of items from a list Form type in answers to one or more questions all pertaining to the same thing Enter type in an answer to one question Decision tree editor Opening screen Copyright licensee name and serial number Main Menu ALES Build models 1 Build models amp evaluate Choose evaluation model may also save to F7 restore from F8 disk file F3 F5 Form Descriptive name currency
404. sses Select Menu 1 1 4a Option 4 class limits The first question of the form class limits asks for the lowest possible value in the units of measurement which are C for any value of the LC the other questions ask for the upper limits for the four classes The default lower limit is always zero but it can be reset to any value In the present case we know that flowing water will always be above freezing so the default value of 0 C is OK Moving on to the next question recall that for this LC that cold water is by definition 16 C or below So enter 16 as the upper limit for class 1 and move to the next question Similarly classes 2 and 3 have upper limits of 23 C and 35 C respectively enter these Class 4 hot water was defined as any water above 35 C certainly it can not be more than 100 C and still be flowing so enter an upper limit of 100 for the final class With these considerations in mind Fill in the data entry form 1 Confirm the form 0 16 23 35 100 We re all done this menu so Press F10 to leave Menu 1 1 4a You have now completed the entry of information for this LC Notice that the choice box now has one land characteristic listed namely wt which we just defined Defining a discrete land characteristic without units The next land characteristic we ll enter will be source of water Press F3 to begin defining this land characteristic W
405. sses ALES requires that these values be converted into analogous classified data values by defining so called commensurate land characteristics i e with the same underlying scale of measurement before land qualities can be determined The ALES model builder must reason with classified data when building decision trees There are several reasons for using classified data as the basis for models Most important is that ALES is evaluating land areas not single points so that a single value on a continuous scale is not as meaningful as a class Ordinal classes represent a range in which most of the variability in a map unit is presumed to fall Nominal data of course has no continuous analog If the ALES model builder wants to combine continuous land characteristic values into a composite value with some well established formula e g a soil loss equation or a regression model this is allowed in ALES a continuous land characteristic may be derived by a formula from a set of other continuous land characteristics Menu 1 1 4c Option 3 The derived characteristic can be used in other formulas or directly converted to a classified LC for use in decision trees ALES usually uses decision trees to express inferences The way in which the ALES model builder reasons with classified data is to build decision trees These are hierarchical multi way keys in which the leaves are results such as Land Quality single factor ratings severity levels and th
406. st class 5 Delete a physical suitability class Select Delete which physical suitability class not including the highest and lowest numbered classes 9 land units Not Rated List map units not to be rated 3 Data Menu 1 3 1 Definitions from keyboard enter or edit Choose land mapping unit code Form name hectares homogeneous compound If map unit is compound List constituent homogeneous map units Form proportion of each constituent 2 Definitions from a disk file Read Form field delimiter input file log file 3 Definitions to a disk file Write Form field delimiter output file 4 Data from keyboard enter or edit Select data entry template Select land mapping unit Form data for land mapping unit 5 Data from a disk file Read Form field delimiter input file log file 6 Data to a disk file Write Form field delimiter output file 7 Templates Choose data entry template Menu 1 3 7 Specification options for data entry template 1 Descriptive name Form descriptive name 2 List of data fields land characteristics Ordered list data fields 8 Erase the data base 9 Infer land characteristic values ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 264 February 1997 Set infer values of which LCs A Edit data in a matrix Select data entry template Set edit data values for which homogeneous LMUs Display evaluation matrix lt Enter gt Edit data value for LC in current column amp LMU in current row F2 Why data value fo
407. st use the tree to determine a provisional physical suitability subclass It will then examine the severity levels of the maximally limiting LQs not including any that were already taken into consideration by virtue of having been included in the decision tree and modify the provisional subclass if necessary to append any equally limiting LQs or replace the subclass with more limiting LQs ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 205 February 1997 Determining proportional yield Predicting the proportional yield i e the percentage of the optimum for an output of a Land Utilization Type involves three model components all of which are based on the actual severity levels of Land Qualities a proportional yield decision tree a set of multiplicative yield factors and a set of limiting yield factors Any combination of these three components can be used If none are defined in the model the proportional yield is assume to be 100 As a general rule 1 as a first approximation specify limiting yield factors for all LQs that can affect yield for a simple no interactions model 2 specify multiplicative yield factors for LQs that reduce land area or number of harvest independently of any other factors 3 use a proportional yield decision tree to specify known interactions between LQs Proportional yield decision trees The most general way to assign proportional yields is to use severity levels of Land Qualities as decision entities in a decis
408. symbol Areal unit1 Menu Main Options Build Models 1 Reference Lists Menu 1 1 Reference Lists 1 Land Use Requirement reference list Choose land use requirement code Form descriptive name 2 Output reference list Choose output code Form descriptive name units of measurement price per unit 3 Input reference list Choose input code Form descriptive name units of measurement cost per unit 4 Land Characteristic descriptions Choose land characteristic code If a new LC Enter land characteristic code Form descriptive name number of classes units of measurement Case LC has classes and units of measurement Menu 1 1 4a Specification options for Discrete LC with units 1 Name units Form descriptive name units of measurement 2 class Abbreviations Form abbreviations for each class 3 class Names Form descriptive names for each class 4 class Limits Form lower limit of class 1 upper limit of each class ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 261 February 1997 5 Le gt Le decision tree Decision Tree Editor 6 Infer from commensurate LC Select infer from which commensurate LC 7 Add a class Select Add before which LC class or after last class Form abbreviation descriptive name upper limit for new class Select Join new LC to which adjacent class 8 Delete a class Select Delete which LC class Select Join deleted LC to which adjacent class Case LC has classes but no units of measurement Men
409. t output to report Select normalized Yes No Case NPV Gross Margin Select normalized Yes No Case Input amount ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 265 February 1997 Select input to report Select year to report or sum over all years Select normalized Yes No Select Sort by Rows LMU or Columns LUT 4 File evaluation results Menu 1 4 4 Output to a disk file 1 Suitability Matrix Form output file name field delimiter 2 Severity Levels Form output file name field delimiter 3 Output Yields Form output file name field delimiter 4 Cash Flow Summary by year Form output file name field delimiter 5 Spreadsheet Select What kind of report Form output file name field delimiter 5 Save current evaluation results Enter Description for saved matrix 6 Delete evaluation results Set Delete which saved evaluation matrices 5 Reports Menu 1 5 1 Evaluation results same as 1 4 3 see above 2 Land Utilization Types Set Print which land utilization types 3 Land Characteristics Set Print which land characteristics 4 Land Unit Definitions Set Print definitions of which land units 5 Land Unit Data Set Print data for which land units 6 data entry Templates Set Print which templates 7 Inputs and Outputs Set Print which inputs and outputs 8 Land Use Requirement codes Set Print which LUR codes 9 Decision Trees Set Print which decision trees A Notes Set Print which notes B ALES lt gt xBase Templ
410. t LC from the database first Continuous to discrete pigeonholing Values of continuous LCs are transformed into values of a commensurate i e having the same units of measurement discrete LC automatically if an inference link is set up by the model builder You specify this link in the definition of the discrete LC by choosing item 5 of menu 1 1 4a specification options for discrete LCs with units Tutorial 4 has an example of this procedure So the LCs are paired the discrete one used in the decision trees and the continuous one for which data is entered These must both have the same units of measurement and the inference link must be set up between them Discrete to discrete with a decision tree ALES allows you to set up a decision tree for any discrete LC either ordinal or nominal by which the values of the LC are determined from any combination of other discrete LCs This tree looks exactly like a severity level tree in that the decision entities are LCs but the decision values are LC classes of the target LC i e the one for which the tree is defined This kind of tree is appropriate when a more abstract LC i e one that is closer to a Land Quality or is difficult to determine during routine survey is to be used in severity level decision trees There may be no data values for this LC However data values may be available for a set of simpler LCs from which the value of the abstract LC can be inferred For example
411. t dataset EVAL GBL as the one to be modified up by typing the number in front of this name in the list of datasets and pressing Enter You will see a form that looks like this Dataset Name EVAL GBL Description ALES user evaluation data Maximum Data Page Count 5000 Extension Data Page Count 500 Maximum Index Page Count 240 Extension Index Page Count 24 Read Timeout 10 Write Timeout 10 Security Mask The fields that are of interest are Maximum Data Page Count and Maximum Index Page Count Each data page is 1K and each index page is 0 5K and they generally are required in an approximately 20 1 ratio As distributed ALES allows up to 5000 data pages 4 88Mb and 240 index pages 120Kb for a total size of almost exactly SMb If you want more space simply increase these numbers keeping approximately a 20 1 ratio When you are done Press ESC to indicate form is complete END to cancel form ESC once more and you are done The next time ALES tries to expand its dataset it will be successful It s a good idea also to run Option 7 Compact Dataset in place on the EVAL GBL dataset This will compact the dataset group related items and speed up operations This option is DataTree s equivalent of a DOS disk defragmenter The MUMPS environment ALES is an application program running under the DataTree MUMPS database language and run time environment DTM PC In turn DataTree MUMPS is an applicatio
412. t exponential As you continue to use ALES you may see one of these MUMPS errors when adding more Land Utilization Types or Land Mapping Units Dataset Full Index Page Full These simply mean that MUMPS has reached the limit pre assigned to it for the file EVAL GBL DAT or EVAL GBL IND which are the DOS files which contain the ALES user evaluation data and models When you see this message there are three possible actions First maybe some of your model is not needed e g LUTs you have replaced with more accurate equivalents In this case simply delete part of the model and you will have more space Second perhaps you have combined data from several sources but only use some of it at any one time You can save data with Menu 1 3 Options 3 and 6 and then delete the entire database Option 8 or just some of the map units Finally you can expand the MUMPS dataset up to the size of your hard disk if you wish To do this ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 252 February 1997 1 From DOS run the util batch file located in the same directory as the ales batch file by typing util at the DOS prompt The MUMPS system program utility appears with a menu of system maintenance options 2 Move the cursor to Option 4 Database maintenance utilities and press Enter A sub menu of nine options will appear 3 Move the cursor to Option 9 Modify dataset parameters and press Enter 4 Selec
413. t it is the first step in the database compression and repair procedure explained later System wide backup from MUMPS In the system wide approach you use the MUMPS dsbackup procedure to save the user datasets as follows 1 From DOS run the util batch file located in the same directory as the ales batch file by typing util at the DOS prompt The MUMPS system program utility appears with a menu of system maintenance options 2 Move the cursor to Option 4 Database maintenance utilities and press Enter A sub menu of nine options will appear 3 Move the cursor to Option 4 Backup dataset and press Enter This will invoke dsbackup You don t have to include any derived LCs i e computed by a formula by a LC to LC decision tree or inferred from a commensurate LC because these can always be re inferred from the primary LCs using Option 9 Infer Land Characteristic values of Menu 1 3 Data ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 249 February 1997 4 Select dataset EVAL GBL as the one to be backed up by typing the number in front of this name in the list of datasets and pressing Enter The program will ask for an additional dataset just press Enter without entering anything A list of parameters will appear and the active question will be the name of the archive file 5 If you have a diskette drive a the default archive file name A DT is fine Otherwis
414. t of Land Use Requirements if they do not vary over the set of land units under consideration In other words Land Use Requirements whose corresponding qualities are constant within the context of the survey area should be left out of the model 3 it is possible to predict values of the Land Quality i e there is sufficient expert knowledge about the relationship between this Land Quality and a set of Land Characteristics In ALES terms this means that enough is known about the requirement so that it is possible to construct a decision tree for it 4 it is possible to obtain data values for the Land Characteristics that are used in the prediction Here are some hypothetical examples of Land Use Requirements that would not be included in a LUT for each of the above reasons 1 The LUR Erosion hazard is not relevant for aquaculture LUT s 2 There are no critical values for the LUR Erosion hazard in a flat alluvial landscape A good example of important Land Use Requirements that may often be left out of models of limited geographical applicability are those LURs dealing with climatic adaptation of a crop such as daylength and radiation However if it is expected that a model will be used over a wider area where these factors are not constant these LURs would be included 3 Although soil compaction is a serious problem in a LUT of mechanized grain production in a certain zone the soil scientists in the area are
415. t of land uses of course the evaluator must build a model and database for each situation ALES s decision trees provide a more flexible inference mechanism than matching tables We attempted make the FAO method more widely applicable by making it available as a microcomputer program to individual development projects We also incorporated a definite method of economic land evaluation Consistent with the small is beautiful philosophy of the project we hope that evaluators will be able to use locally available knowledge and data in a flexible model framework Finally we tried to write a fun easy to use computer program which would make the task of developing refining and testing land evaluation models as enjoyable as possible Since Version 1 of ALES was released in summer 1988 there have been many important advances until today we have Version 4 65 released in December 1996 Some of these advances were our own ideas and some were l Also at the time ALES was being developed LECS was only available on mainframe computers and was not interactive Since then LECS has been added to the FAO s Agricultural Planning Toolkit computer program ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 7 February 1997 suggested by ALES users over the years We have attempted to keep the original philosophy of ALES while adapting to changing needs and technology Who uses ALES This section explains the roles of the different people who use ALE
416. t size 10 pe subsoil permeability 1l lt gt add to end of list gt 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Ke We ve now added all the Land Characteristics to this template so Press F10 to return to Menu 1 3 7 Press F10 to return to the list of data entry template codes Press F10 to return to Menu 1 3 Data Entering map unit definitions and data Now that the model is complete and a data entry template has been defined we can define land units enter land data and compute evaluation results exactly as in Tutorial 2 Rather than go through the mechanics of all that we ll just present a table of hypothetical land units and their data We ve designed these so that they will have different physical and economic suitabilities So Select Menu 1 3 Data Option 1 Definitions From keyboard Enter or edit Define the following list of h omogeneous Land Mapping Units LMU code LMU name alpha beta gamma delta epsilon Return to Menu 1 3 Data I These are not real land units from Guatemala ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 136 February 1997 Now we will enter data for the homogeneous map units that you just defined using the convenient format of the Data Entry Matrix Select Menu 1 3 Data Option A Edit Data in a Matrix A set box appears asking which map units you want to edit Press F6 to select all the Land Mapping Units You will see a d
417. t three fields land mapping unit code land utilization type code and output code These are followed by two data fields the first giving the proportional yield from 0 00 to 1 00 and the second the predicted yield per unit area per crop So the record format is Lmuld d LutId d OutId d pro yield d pred yield where 1 d is the field delimiter Lmuld is the map unit code Lutld is the land utilization type code Outld is the output code 2 3 4 5 pro yield is the proportional yield as a fraction from 0 00 to 1 00 6 d d d pred yield is the predicted yield The predicted yield s unit of measurement numerator and unit of area denominator are not written in this file you must determine them from the evaluation model Example are kg ha cwt acre number m2 etc Here is an example output AaA agh alfalfa 8 8 AaA agh hay 1 2000 AaA ww wheat 9 4 5 BbB agh alfalfa 0 0 BbB agh hay 8 1600 BbB ww wheat 6 3 In this example map unit AaA has a proportional yield of 8 for output alfalfa corresponding to a per unit area per crop yield of 8 output units per unit area for land utilization type agh and so forth Cash flow summary The cash flow output is one line per land unit land use year in planning horizon triple The database key is the first three fields land mapping unit code land utilization type code and year number 1 2
418. t went wrong If you have installed MUMPS and ALES in directory DTM on hard disk drive C you should skip the rest of this section If you did not install MUMPS and ALES in directory dtm on hard disk drive C you will have to make some changes to the MUMPS database description file MUMPS DBD which was installed in the main sub directory DTM of the MUMPS program before you can run ALES As distributed this file is essentially as follows ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 34 February 1997 ES V4 6 DTM V4 3 MUMPS DBD Database description file as distributed with ALES V4 6 Last update DGR 06 Dec 94 i datasets i program object code DATASET C DIM ALES5 ALES5 RT program support files except text DATASET C DIM ALES5 ALES5 GB text databases 1 per language DATASET C DIM ALES5 LTX5E GB DATASET C DIM ALES5 LTX5F GB DATASET C DIM ALES5 LTX5S GB DATASET C DIM ALES5 LTX5I GB JALI user evaluations DATASET C DTM EVAL EVAL GBL namespaces program NSE Lconfig version Lconfig mode Lstate Lvideo eee Bk aie eas WWWwWoDwwnwown wow i Zp o W Edit this file with any pure text editor one that doesn t insert hidden formatting codes such as the MS DOS editor or EDLIN or with a word processor in
419. ted for LUT ccc m If you wish you can use the Why screens to confirm this Subclass names and annotations So far we have only used physical suitability subclass codes like 4e These probably are meaningful to the model builder but you may want to give descriptive names to subclasses to make them more comprehensible to model users Also you may want to add notes to certain subclasses for example to give management recommendations In this section you will learn how to do this ALES should be displaying the matrix Let s see a convenient way to edit the LUT without leaving the matrix Move the highlight to the column for LUT ccc m Press F5 to edit LUT ccc m ALES displays Menu 1 2 exactly as if we had selected it from the main menu and then had selected LUT ccc m Select Menu 1 2 Option 8 Physical suitability subclasses Select Menu 1 2 8 Option 3 Enter edit names or notes for physical suitability subclasses ALES displays a list of the current physical suitability subclass names with the dummy item lt add a new item gt Press F3 to add a new subclass to the list ALES displays an entry box will asking for the physical suitability subclass code for which you want to enter a name and or a note Enter and confirm subclass code 4e ALES displays a one item data entry form asking for the descriptive name for class 4e The name you type here will be displ
420. tems ALES can exchange information with other computer systems including V Relational Data Bases that use or can read the xBase file format e g dBase III dBase IV V The IDRISI Geographical Information Systems GIS as well as any GIS that store their attributes in xBase format files including PC ARC INFO and PC ArcView V Word processors e g Microsoft Word and text editors e g Epsilon DOS Edit Notepad and y Spreadsheets e g Quattro Pro Microsoft Excel Lotus 1 2 3 This Chapter explains what options are provided and in what circumstances they would be used The final section gives the details of the file formats used for data exchange in case you have to read or write these files directly ALES as part of an Integrated Land Evaluation System ALES can be part of an integrated land evaluation system with other programs serving both preprocessing i e before ALES and post processing i e after ALES functions This section contains a diagram of a typical land evaluation system and also some examples of why and how you would use other systems with ALES There are four kinds of information that can be exchanged between ALES and other computer systems the ALES Menu and Option for each exchange are listed in brackets 1 Land Mapping Unit definitions 1 1 from a delimited ASCII file to ALES Menu 1 3 Option 2 1 2 from an xBase format database to ALES Menu 1 8 Option 1 1 3 from ALES to a delimited ASCH fi
421. ten a lot of information about the relation between land and land use Much of this information is local acquired over years of experience by local agriculturists as well as farmers Often there has been relevant work at local experiment stations or in other areas with similar environments Each of these sources of knowledge is expressed differently published or not in diverse locations and held by different people Why ALES The aim of ALES is to allow land evaluators to collate systematize and interpret this diverse information using the basic principles of the FAO s Framework for Land Evaluation and to present the interpreted information i e the results of the land evaluation exercise in a form that is directly useful to land use planners Our method was to write a computer program to be used by land evaluators with the results of the program to be presented to land use planners The program is designed to allow contributions from all relevant sources of knowledge ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 6 February 1997 A further objective is to use the large quantity of information that has been recorded to date in soil surveys and other land resource inventories much of which is sitting unused on office shelves There are a variety of reasons for this disuse primary of which is that the surveys are not interpreted for various land uses and secondly that surveys have widely different definitions of map units and land character
422. ter of the screen as ALIDRIS reclassifies the base map of soil map units Tutor5 to the thematic map of drainage class dc This process takes a bit of time because each cell in the source map in this case 125x125 62 500 cells must be reclassified When ALIDRIS is done the Working message disappears and in its place is an information box which reports on the new map This box looks like Done creating new IDRISI raster image dc file title ALES Tutorial 5 drainage class data type integer file type saseii columns s L29 rows 6225 ref system plane ref units m unit dist 1 0000000 min X 392500 0000000 max X 395000 0000000 min Y 4708000 0000000 max Y 4710500 0000000 pos n error unknown resolution known min value max value This information is taken directly from the new documentation file dc doc Let s check that ALIDRIS correctly classified one of the map units Go back to the main ALES menu by pressing F10 twice select item 3 Data then 4 Data from keyboard enter or edit Select template ss Cayuga County soil survey and then select map unit ErA The data entry form for this map unit should appear What is the drainage class data item 6 in this form for this map unit Now let s see what the new map looks like Exit from ALES by pressing F10 seven times Run IDRISI command LIST notice that the image dc is no
423. ternalities can be treated in the same manner Costs are of three types 1 Inherent in the implementation of the LUT called S7 costs in ALES 2 Only incurred on certain land units that have limitations i e non optimum levels of land qualities called additional costs in ALES and 3 Related to the level of production called production dependent costs in ALES Examples of these three types of costs are 1 standard cultural practices such as plowing planting fertilizing weeding etc if they are carried out on all land that is used for the LUT 2 additional lime needed to bring acid soils up to the proper reaction for a crop note that this input is not be needed on naturally neutral soils so the cost is only incurred on non optimum land 3 manual labor for harvesting which depends on the amount harvested not the land area dedicated to the crop ALES economic analysis generally does not include fixed costs of the economic unit e g the farm because these do not depend on the land area the farm However if a LUT is assumed to have a typical size the fixed costs can be divided by this size and then included as a per hectare S1 cost for the LUT In this case ALES gross margin is really a net of fixed costs margin The model builder may relate costs of production to land use requirements as follows an increasing level of limitation i e higher severity level of the corresponding land quality can result in
424. th the diamond symbol and that the highlight has moved down to the next item so that it could be selected next if we wished In this example we only want to evaluate map unit A13 so Press F10 to complete the selection Now ALES begins to compute The annunciator 25th line is replaced with a progress report showing the Land Utilization Type and map unit code that ALES is currently evaluating A message at the lower right informs us that we can press the Esc key during the computation to interrupt it This is in case we asked for a large evaluation and decide that it s taking too long The computation takes from 5 seconds to 3 minutes depending on your computer The amount of time that ALES requires to compute an evaluation depends on the product of the number of Land Utilization Types and map units selected In the present case we selected three Land Utilization Types and five map units the association and implicitly its four constituents so ALES must compute 15 pairs The computation time also depends on the complexity of the model especially the number of decision trees the path length in each tree and the length of the LUT s planning horizon and of course the processor speed Disk speed is only a minor factor due to the fact that MUMPS saves copies of recently used disk blocks in primary memory As a rough estimate an average sized physical and economic model on a 25Mhz 386SL takes about 4 sec
425. the Net Present Value and Internal Rate of Return of a LUT The planning horizon takes into account both the recurrence time of the rotation or other management cycle and the length of time over which any capital improvements are effective This is discussed fully in the next Chapter In fish culture management is based on a one year cycle however we have a significant capital investment in pond construction The Net Present Value depends on the returns over the lifetime of a project so that the longer the project life the higher the NPV For the purposes of this tutorial let s assume that the ponds have an expected life of five years Erase the default answer of 1 year Type 5 Move to the next question in the form discount rate The third item is the discount rate The meaning of this was covered in Tutorial 2 and is discussed fully in the next Chapter For this exercise assume the discount rate is 5 probably meaning that the government has subsidized the rate at which farmers can borrow money to build the ponds Erase the default answer of 0 Type 5 Move to the next question in the form of physical classes The final question of physical classes is asking for the number of levels of physical suitability that the model will determine The default is 4 which is recommended by the FAO framework corresponding to FAO suitability classes s1 s2 s3 n1 and
426. the answer for the first question and then Type Odessa silt loam 0 23 Press to confirm this answer and move to the next question For the second question Enter 250 L e the map unit OdA has an extent of 250 acres for the area Press F10 to confirm all the answers in the form and return to the list of map units with the highlight on the newly defined map unit Oda Using the same techniques as explained in the previous paragraphs Make a copy of map unit OdA as new map unit Le Change its descriptive name to Lakemont silty clay loam Change its area to 400 acres ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 75 February 1997 Return to the list of map units We ve added two copies of SeB to the list and renamed them Now we have to change a few soil related Land Characteristics for these two new map units Le and OdA Press F10 to return to the Data menu Select Menu 1 3 Option 4 Data From keyboard Enter or edit In the list of data entry templates Select template ss Cayuga County soil survey In the list of homogeneous map units Select map unit OdA Odessa silt loam 0 2 The 15 item data entry form should now be displayed and the data values we entered for SeB from which map unit OdA was copied should be displayed in the form Map unit OdA differs from SeB only in 3 respects slope previou
427. the number of classes would be the total range of possible levels e g maximum 12 tons minimum 0 tons divided into 1 ton increments e g 0 1 2 12 tons However the number of classes in ALES is limited to nine in order to keep the size of decision procedures manageable so in this example the range 0 12 tons would have to be divided into 0 1 5 1 5 3 etc Furthermore it makes no sense to define more severity levels than can be distinguished on the basis of the available Land Characteristics Put another way the precision of the Land Quality cannot be higher than the precision of at least one of the Land Characteristics that will be used in the severity level decision tree This is the bottom up approach to determining the number of severity levels Returning to the example of lime requirement if this is determined from topsoil pH there is an inherent uncertainty in the measurement as well as considerable variability within each map unit both of which are reflected by the fact that pH is typically reported in ranges in soil surveys Suppose that in a certain area pH is reported six classes e g lt 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 7 8 gt 8 it would not be possible to specify more than six severity levels of lime requirement Worksheet for selecting LURs The following worksheet may be useful for helping you select LURs and decide on the number of severity levels ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 197 February 1997 Selection of Lan
428. the original subtree making appropriate changes This process is very similar to the cut and paste capability of a word processor The cut subtree remains in a special buffer called the paste buffer until a different subtree is cut and can be pasted as many times as desired even into a different tree i e the paste key functions like a rubber stamp Only one subtree at a time can be in the paste buffer In summary V F5 is used to cut a subtree to the paste buffer replacing any subtree that was already in the buffer V F6 is used to paste a subtree from the paste buffer Let s see how this works The strategy here will be to 1 cut out the subtree now rooted at branch 2 m moderately deep 2 paste it at branch 3 d deep replacing the and then 3 edit the subtree at branch 2 m moderately deep so that it gives correct severity levels Let s go though this step by step Move the highlight to branch 2 gt m moderately deep Press F5 to cut this subtree from the decision tree Notice that the gt m is replaced with a The subtree is in the paste buffer and the highlight is still on branch 2 Press F6 to paste the cut subtree back at the same place branch 2 gt m moderately deep Now we ant to paste the same subtree at branch 3 so Move the highlight to branch 3 gt d deep Press F6 to paste the cut s
429. the printer is not connected or if you don t want to waste paper on this exercise Select V Video screen With or without a printer ALES now asks which kind of report you would like to print or view Since we ve been reviewing present values in the Why screens let s print or view these As when we viewed the evaluation results in matrix form Select Report type N Net Present Value Select NPV Report type N Net Present Value Select Yes report results on a per area basis Now ALES needs to know whether it should organize the report by rows land units or columns Land Utilization Types In the first case by row each map unit will start on its own page and each page will show the rating of a single map unit for each Land Utilization Type This shows what the best uses are for each map unit In the second case by column each Land Utilization Type will start on its own page and each page will show the rating of all the map units for that LUT This shows the best map units for each land use Select Rows land units The Working message will appear on the screen and the report should appear on the printer or screen depending on your choice of P rinter or Video above The report has one page or screen for each map unit On each page the Land Utilization Types are ranked according to predicted NPV So for example on the first page for map unit A13 w
430. the rainy season and that the permeability of the subsoil determines how well the pond retains water Now you should have a list of three Land Use Requirements for LUT tdp There are no more LURs for this LUT Go back to Menu 1 2 Specification options for LUT tdp Specifying Outputs Now we will enter information about the outputs i e the products of this Land Utilization Type This is one side of the economic evaluation the LUT produces outputs which have a cash value Notice that menu choice 6 is for Outputs select it now Select Menu 1 2 Option 6 Outputs A list box should now appear showing the outputs of Land Utilization Type tdp of course at present there are none so the list has only the dummy item Press F3 to add a new output to the list You will see a selection list of all the outputs that were defined in the reference list of outputs Menu 1 1 Option 2 in this case only one Tilapia This Land Utilization Type will only have the one output Select output ti to select new output ti Menu 1 2 6 Specification options for LUT Output tdp ti will appear Optimum yield number of crops per rotation The first thing to do is tell ALES how much yield we expect under optimum conditions within the context of the LUT and evaluation area This establishes a baseline for proportional yields which will be defined later Select Menu 1 2 6 Spec
431. this point in the Tutorials you should be familiar enough with ALES to complete actions on your own so we won t give key by key instructions If you get confused you can refer to the previous three sections or just use the help screens Remember that the annunciator line always shows which keys are active The following two sections on LURs wq and wa are parallel to section immediately above where we specified LUR pfc in detail You should now looking at the choice box for the Land Use Requirements exactly as at the start of that section except at this point you have already added one LUR namely pfc to this LUT Water quality The second Land Use Requirement for this LUT will be water quality i e how favorable is the water for Tilapia As you will see when we enter the Decision Tree in this model water quality is determined by water temperature and pH The temperature can t be altered and neither can excessive alkalinity be neutralized However excess acidity can be corrected by additional lime added to the water each year a recurrent expense So Land Quality wq will have four severity levels 1 no limitation 2 needs extra lime 3 needs even more lime and 4 impossible There will be one additional annual input lime Severity levels 2 and 3 will require 0 25 and 0 5 extra tons of lime per are per year respectively To tell ALES all this Add LUR wg water quality to the list
432. those inputs that are supplied at some specific time during the LUT and are not repeated each year Like the annual inputs that we just defined the by year inputs here are not dependent on the specific land only on the Land Utilization Type Select Option 5 Inputs by year You will see a choice box titled Years with by year inputs for LUT tdp This is a list of the years in which any by year inputs have been defined At this point there aren t any yet so the list consists of only the dummy item Press F3 to add a year to this list A selection list of the years which can be added i e 1 2 3 4 and 5 appears The highlight is already on year 1 Select year 1 Now you will see a choice box titled By year Inputs for LUT tdp Year 1 with only the dummy item in the list This is the list of by year inputs for the first year in the plan In this LUT the ponds must be built at the beginning of the LUT i e in the first year in later years they do not need to be re built only maintained Capital improvements such as this are typical of by year inputs in the first year of a multi year LUT Add the following 3 inputs to this list exactly as you did for the annual inputs input code _ number of units per are how used fish 200 each to stock the pond labor 50 days to build the ponds tile 4 meters to make a drainage system for the pond After you enter these
433. three inputs Press F10 to confirm the list of by year inputs for year and return to the list of years with by year inputs At this point we could add by year inputs for later years in the plan e g for pond maintenance but in this model we don t have any So Press F10 to confirm the list of years with by year inputs and return to Menu 1 2 Defining a Land Use Requirement The seventh option of menu 1 2 is used to specify the Land Use Requirements for this Land Utilization Type i e the conditions of the land that are necessary for successful implementation of the LUT This is the heart of the model ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 117 February 1997 Select Option 7 Land Use Requirements You will see a choice box titled Land Use Requirements for LUT tdp with only the dummy item in the list Press F3 to define the first LUR The choice box that appears on the screen is the same kind that we saw when entering inputs in the previous section i e we are not being asked to type in a new code instead we are being asked to select a new code out of a pre defined list In this case the codes we can choose are those that were defined in the reference list of Land Use Requirements We will use all three of the available LUR codes in this LUT Let s start with the potential for construction The highlight should already be on the code for this LUR namely pfc
434. tics To be able to use values of a continuous LC in ALES decision procedures i e decision trees they must be classified into values classes of a so called commensurate discrete LC V Two ALES Land Characteristics are commensurate if they have the same units of measurement Recall that we set up pptMS c so it would have the same units mm as the discrete LC pptMS now we have to tell ALES that these two are linked We do this by adding an inference link to the discrete commensurate LC so that when ALES looks for a value of the discrete LC and can t find one it infers the value from the continuous commensurate LC by classification Inference link To add the inference link in the list of LCs Move the highlight to LC pptMS Press F5 to edit its definition ALES displays Menu 1 1 4a Specification options for discrete LC with units Notice that this menu is different from the one for the continuous LC there are no data validation limits but there are options that makes sense for a discrete LC For example notice that menu Option 6 is titled infer from commensurate LC Select Menu 1 1 4a Option 6 infer from commensurate LC Select this option now ALES now displays a selection list of all the LCs discrete and continuous in the evaluation model with the same unit of measurement as pptMS i e mm In the present model there is only the one other LC
435. ticular map unit As the tree stands now ALES will not be able to compute the value of this LQ and since this LQ is used to determine proportional yield ALES will not be able to compute economic suitability for this map unit Using the branch the model builder can specify an alternate decision entity to be used if there is no value of the main decision entity at this level In the present example we can specify an alternate LC to be used if no value is found for cfv A Of course this depends on there being a useful surrogate in the list of land characteristics In the present evaluation model there is LC fpsc the family particle size class of USDA Soil Taxonomy This is a composite of the fine earth and coarse fragments used in the USDA Soil Taxonomy soil classification system at the family level of soil classification The fragmental class is roughly equivalent to very stony rocky etc textures the skeletal classes are roughly equivalent to stony rocky etc but not very textures and the other classes have no significant volume of coarse fragments The correspondence is by no means exact in addition the family particle size class refers to a particular control section of the soil profile not the subsoil as such However this is still a useful alternative criterion to the volume of coarse fragments if that data item is not known Let s add a subtree at the now
436. tion 10 texture of surface soil from silt loam to silty clay loam Let s practice another way of moving among questions in a data entry form You could press Enter or J enough times to arrive at question 10 but a quicker way is to jump directly to another question Notice in the annunciator line that F5 is marked jump So Press F5 to start the jump A small answer box will appear asking which question to which to jump Type 10 Press F10 to confirm the question number The answer box will disappear and the highlight will move to question 10 Change the answer for question 10 to sicl Press F10 to confirm the entire form You have now entered correct data for all three members of the drainage sequence Press F10 to return to the list of templates and again Press F10 to return to Menu 1 3 Data Defining a compound land unit Now we will practice entering another kind map unit a compound map unit This kind of map unit is made up of two or more homogeneous constituents You will define an association of soil units that has as constituents the three homogeneous map units Lc OdA and SeB you just defined ALES will evaluate each constituent separately and then combine the results Compound map unit Compound map units are commonly used for smaller scale maps usually at 1 50 000 and smaller scale ratios such as a general soils map of a county
437. tion of S1 Costs 1 2 4 1 2 5 1 annual S1 by year amount amount units in area yr units in area yr LUT In Yr per input S1 input 1 1 3 amount units in area year LUT In Yr Input price unit in per input S1 input cost units in area year LUT In Yr total S1 input cost units in area year ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 274 February 1997 Figure D Computation of Additional Costs 1 2 7 2 1 2 7 3 Additional SELECT Additional by annual amount according to year amount units in area yr units in area yr total additional input amount 1 1 3 its ini LUT LUR In Yr Input price unit in additional input cost area year LUT LUR In Yr 1 LUR additional input cost area year LUT LUR Yr additional input cost area year ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 275 February 1997 Figure E Computation of Cash Flow In to the LUT 1 1 2 Output price unit Per harvest return area harvest 1 2 6 1 LMU LUT Out of harvests this year LUT Qut Yr Per output return area yr LMU LUT Out Yr Cash flow IN area yr 1 2 3 1 LMU LUT Yr dal years Discoun Discount rate to year Y Present Value IN Gross Margin IN area yr area
438. tional cost so Press F3 to find out why the additional costs ALES displays the third Why screen in the chain consisting of a list of all nine Land Use Requirements defined for this Land Utilization Type along with the severity levels of the corresponding Land Quality each with a list of additional annual and by year for year 1 inputs The sum of all these is the additional cost for the land unit as a whole The first LQ listed is c temperature regime there are no additional inputs associated with this LQ both because the LQ is not limiting and because in this LUT we don t add more inputs to correct for a limiting climate The next LQ listed is dr suitability for subsurface drainage and here we see that this particular map unit is rated as severity level 4 90 foot spacing out of 6 possible severity levels of the LQ and that there is an additional year 1 one time input of 484 feet of 4 drainage tile for lateral drains each foot costing 0 85 installed for a total additional cost of 411 40 Note that the costs for lateral drains are included as an additional charge because the spacing of the drains and hence the number of linear feet needed depends on the Land Quality dr which is mainly determined from the subsoil permeability by contrast the costs for the main drains were included as an S1 cost since their spacing does not vary on different kinds of land These were entered w
439. to compare two land utilization types A physical evaluation can also be used to divide the land units into management groups In this case the physical suitability subclass designation shows the relative severity of the various limitations to use and their type For example the subclass 3e c might indicate that the rated land unit has moderate limitations 3 for the rated land use with the main limitations being due to erosion hazard e and climate c ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 14 February 1997 Measures of economic suitability ALES is intended to provide the land use planner with a realistic estimate of the economic suitability of each land unit for each proposed land use Economic suitability may be evaluated by several economic metrics measures of value including 1 the predicted gross margin GM based on predicted variable costs and returns in units of currency per hectare year over the lifetime of the project without considering the time value of money and without considering fixed costs of the economic unit e g the farm 2 the Net Present Value NPV of a LUT in units of currency per hectare over the lifetime of a project called the planning horizon 3 the Benefit Cost Ratio B CR based on the present values of cash in and out in a dimensionless ratio lt 1 costs outweigh benefits 1 costs exactly equal benefits gt 1 benefits outweigh costs 4 the Internal
440. to keep them on line taking up space on the hard disk Evaluation models can be deleted like any other entity in the choice box where they were defined i e by moving the cursor to the code for the evaluation model and pressing F4 If you do this you will be asked if you really want to delete the evaluation the default answer is No If you want to delete it press y to move the highlight to Yes and then confirm your choice The model and all its data will be irrevocably deleted from the knowledge and data bases i e there is no way you can get the model and data back after you delete it So be sure you should make a backup copy on diskette using the F7 method presented in Tutorial 3 prior to deleting a model A final word Even with the four tutorials we haven t been able to cover every detail of the ALES program Now it is up to you to experiment as much as you want with ALES Remember that you can always get on screen help by pressing the FI or F key Also remember that ALES always asks you for confirmation when you are about to perform major surgery on your model or database Finally remember that ALES keeps all models i e entities on the opening list of evaluation models completely separate so that if you create or copy a model for experimentation you can t inadvertently delete or modify someone else s work Experiment build some models and we sincerely hope that you will find ALES to b
441. to reduce the rooting volume We still must consider all the factors that were used in the cut tree but we will want to edit some decisions However the structure of the cut tree is still correct Move the cursor to the second branch s significant enough to be named Remember that the cut tree is still in the paste buffer so we can paste it in here as well as at the first branch So Press F6 to paste the cut tree under branch 2 After a few seconds the for this branch is replaced with a gt dbr this is exactly the same subtree that we pasted in for the first branch Now we must edit some decisions for this branch so Press gt to expand the subtree rooted at branch 2 s to the second level Notice in the first line that the value of cfv A is fixed at s significant enough to be named we are now describing land that has 15 50 coarse fragments The next factor to be considered namely depth to bedrock is now expanded Assume for the sake of simplicity that in deep soils branch 3 at this level there is no change in moisture supply even with significant coarse fragments because corn being a deep rooted crop can extend its roots downward to ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 148 February 1997 exploit the same effective volume compensating for the coarse fragments this certainly would not be true for shallow rooted crops So the subtree at the third branch need not b
442. to return from the evaluation matrix to the selection list of report types ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 93 February 1997 If you wish you can follow the Why screens for the other economic metrics internal rate of return benefit cost ratio and gross margin for physical suitability for crop yields or for single Land Quality values Remember the annunciator line always shows the active function keys and FI always brings up a Help screen to explain the current Why Also remember that F10 always move back one screen in the chain of Why screens When you are all done exploring the Why screens return to the selection list of report types Press F10 to return to Menu 1 4 Evaluations Printing evaluation results The results of an ALES evaluation can be printed in a format that is useful to land use planners and others who need to know about the suitability of land for land uses The same sort of conclusions that we drew while viewing the matrix can be presented in this form to planners Select Menu 1 4 Option 3 Print evaluation results Now ALES asks where you want the results printed either on the Video screen on a P rinter to a disk File or through a C ommunications port This may sound a bit redundant after all don t you want them to print on the printer Not necessarily V The option to view the results on the video screen allow
443. tues cops cave deed cuits dues cube DEEE TESS EOE IK EES EN eS Eok 246 Jer aa o E wank E E A Auh Aen as 247 Working with MUMPS d t setSicnnnna a a aaien 251 Managing large ALES models and datasets ssseeeseeeeeeeeeeeeesererererrersrersrresrrssriseresees 252 The MUMPS envitOnMents aieeao teare a aan Casali ed eroien ae ius eroaa aa a eat 253 References 257 Appendix 1 ALES program structure 261 Appendix 2 ALES knowledge base schema 270 Appendix 3 ALES program flow 272 Do you have the time to listen to me whine about NOTHING and EVERYTHING all at once Basket Case Green Day ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page ii February 1997 Introduction to the Manual Welcome to ALES the Automated Land Evaluation System Version 4 65 ALES is designed as a tool for professional land evaluators and also for those who want to learn more about land evaluation We hope that it will be useful for your land evaluation activities Objectives of this manual This manual has several objectives First we want you to understand the objectives of the ALES project in the context of land evaluation as a professional discipline V Second we want you to be able to install and maintain the ALES program on your computer V Third we want you to be able to use ALES as a tool in your land evaluation activities V Fourth we want you to be able to integrate ALES into your entire land evaluation computer system which may inc
444. u 1 1 4b Specification options for Discrete LC no units 1 Name Form descriptive name 2 class Abbreviations Form abbreviations for each class 3 class Names Form descriptive names for each class 4 Lc gt Le decision tree Decision Tree Editor 5 Add a class Select Add before which LC class or after last class Form abbreviation descriptive name for new class Select Join new LC to which other class 6 Delete a class Select Delete which LC class Select Join deleted LC to which other class Case LC has no classes Menu 1 1 4c Specification options for Continuous LC 1 Name units Form descriptive name units of measurement 2 Data validation limits Form lowest highest values 3 Infer by a formula Enter formula 2 Land Utilization Types Choose land utilization type code may also save to F7 restore from F8 disk file F3 Form initial values of descriptive name planning horizon discount rate of physical suitability classes Menu 1 2 Specification options for LUT 1 Name Form descriptive name 2 Length Case planning horizon is gt 1 year Menu 1 2 2 Length of planning horizon for LUT 1 Add a year lengthen Select add a year where 2 Delete a year shorten Enter delete which year Case planning horizon is exactly 1 year Select add a year before which year in the planning horizon or after the last year ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 262 February 1997 3 Economic parameters
445. u can see is measured in eleven classes There are more classes in Soil Taxonomy but only these eleven occur in the evaluation area The family particle size class is used here as an indication of the moisture retention of the entire soil profile We have already told ALES that this land has a silt loam topsoil over a silty clay loam subsoil so it most probably has a fine loamy particle size class So Move the highlight to branch 7 corresponding to class 7 fil fine loamy and Press Enter to confirm the selection The result for this Land Quality namely early planting class 1 on a scale of 1 to 4 should be displayed There is a note for this Land Quality read it if you wish Press Enter to confirm the result for planting conditions ALES isn t able to detect contradictions between different land characteristics for example if you stated that the soil was very fine which would be impossible given the textures ALES wouldn t detect the error ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 62 February 1997 Viewing the results of the consultation on the screen This was the last Land Quality in the model so no more LQ boxes will be displayed Instead the central part of the screen is cleared and a Working message flashes while ALES computes overall physical and economic suitabilities When the Working message disappears the screen is filled with the results of the
446. u may wish to incorporate another ALES user s LUT into your own evaluation model as opposed to simply loading their entire model into your system Or an organization may decide to share the work of developing models so that one person works on forestry models another on animal production etc and at the end it is desired that these LUTs all be loaded into a common system so that they can be compared side by side To support this kind of information exchange ALES V4 allows you to save a set of LUTs to a disk file by selecting them out of the LUT list in model building mode on the source model and pressing F7 Then they can be loaded into another evaluation model the target either on the same or another system by pressing F8 from this same list You can write several LUTs to the same file by specifying the same file name for all and then selecting A ppend to file when ALES informs you that the file already exists However for this to work the target evaluation must contain all the reference list items used in the source models including 1 LUR codes 2 input codes 3 output codes and 4 LC codes Otherwise the LUTs being loaded would have undefined components and could not be evaluated In this case ALES will not load the LUT and will provide an error report showing the missing items The simplest solution to this problem is to first develop a skeleton evaluation with only the reference lists then duplicate th
447. uary 1997 Press F10 to return to Menu 1 Main options Compute evaluation results for LUT ccc m for map units test1 test2 and test3 View evaluation results for Yield of cg corn grain normalized First let s see how a multiplicative yield factor works Display the first Why screen for map unit test2 As you can see the predicted yield is 97 2 bushels per acre because the proportional yield is 72 Notice that the proportional yield tree predicts 80 based on planting date and moisture availability However there is one multiplicative yield factor namely 90 because of a moderate erosion hazard on this land This means that the farmer will have to set aside 10 of the land for fallow strips Hence the predicted proportion of 80 must be multiplied by 90 i e the amount of land that will actually produce a crop resulting in a 72 proportional yield Return to the evaluation results matrix Now let s see how a limiting yield factor works Display the first Why screen for map unit test3 As you can see the predicted yield is 108 bushels per acre because the proportional yield is 80 Notice however that the proportional yield tree predicts 100 based on planting date and moisture availability neither of which are limiting However there is one limiting yield factor namely 80 because of a short season on this land You will have to scroll down to see th
448. uation model back up a model to a DOS file define reference lists of Land Use Requirements inputs and outputs define land characteristics define a Land Utilization Type build decision trees define data entry templates Ni Ni Ni Ni Ni Ni refine and adjust models from the evaluation matrix and Why screens This tutorial is only an introduction to model building many of the more sophisticated capabilities of ALES are presented in Tutorial 4 Before working on this tutorial you should have completed Tutorials 1 and 2 We will assume you are able to navigate within ALES and are familiar with all interaction techniques In this tutorial we won t spell out every keystroke This tutorial should take about 6 hours to complete Take your time and make sure to understand what is going on Don t rush The emphasis in this tutorial is on the mechanical aspects of model building i e how to build models using the ALES program To make the presentation go smoothly many important logical aspects of model building i e why models are built with a certain structure are not explained in detail The Chapter Building ALES models presents the logical aspects of ALES model building in more detail you may wish to consult it as you work through this tutorial This exercise is too long to be completed in one session Whenever you want to stop press F10 enough times to leave the program Then when you restart ALES select your
449. ubtree at this branch also Now we have copies of the same subtree at both branch 2 gt m moderately deep and branch 3 gt d deep ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 140 February 1997 The pasted subtree at branch 3 gt d deep is correct It is the moderately deep soils where we in fact have problems with pond construction So Move the highlight to branch 2 gt m moderately deep Press gt to expand the subtree at this branch The decision tree editor display should look like this Severity Level decision tree for LUT LUR tdp pfc sd soil depth 2 m moderately deep 75 200cm sl slope 1A nearly level 0 3 2 needs drainage 2 B sloping 3 10 1 no limitation 3 C steep 10 30 3 extra earthmoving 4D very steep 30 200 4 impossible 272 Now you can see the incorrect combination at branch 3 C steep slopes the decision tree says that extra earthmoving is required but we know from experience that pond construction is impossible So Move the highlight to branch 3 gt C steep Press F3 to edit the decision A pop up box appears asking Which severity level is the result Select choice 4 impossible This now replaces the previous choice 3 more earthmoving We re done editing this tree so Press F10 to return to the last Why screen Now let s see how this cha
450. uestion What is the best use for this land unit We can compare entire columns to see the overall relation among Land Utilization Types For example comparing the two leftmost columns for ccc continuous corn and ccc d continuous corn with land drainage we can see that land drainage increases the NPV i e is cost effective according to this economic metric for map units Le and OdA i e the somewhat poorly and poorly drained members of the drainage sequence but not for map units SeB and CeB i e the well drained and moderately well drained members of the drainage sequence If a farm was on a typical association of these i e association A13 draining the entire farm would not be cost effective Another comparison we can make is between corn in the leftmost two columns and pasture LUT ttpp in the rightmost column This model indicates that pasture is always much more profitable than corn Of course a farm must usually be made up of a balance of enterprises so this result does not mean that no corn should be grown We can compare entire rows to see the overall relative value of map units For example it is clear that CeB is superior to the other map units for all three LUTs The comparisons of Net Present Values presented in the previous paragraphs are only valid because we have specified equal length planning horizons for all three LUT s in the model Using th
451. uirements 3 determining which Land Characteristics are available to form the basis of evaluation 4 constructing decision trees to relate Land Characteristics to Land Use Requirements 5 collecting economic parameters such as prices 6 selecting some representative or well understood map units 7 collecting and entering Land Characteristic data for these map units Design of the preliminary model requires close cooperation with the many specialists whose knowledge is necessary for successful land evaluation The model builder will serve as the collator and arbitrator of contributions from agronomists soils specialists hydrologists climatologists economists etc The design must be based on the project objectives and available data sources Once a preliminary model is built and data entered on a representative set of map units an evaluation matrix may be computed This matrix shows the rating of each map unit for each Land Utilization Type either as 1 physical suitability subclasses 2 predicted present value of cash flows in out and net 3 benefit cost ratio of the discounted cash flows 4 Internal Rate of Return of the discounted cash flows 5 predicted cash flows in out and net i e the gross margin 6 economic suitability classes based either on discounted cash flows or gross ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 182 February 1997 margin 7 expected yields of crops or other outputs 8 ratings for single Lan
452. uld like to use for our Land Utilization Type This simplifies both the model and the data collection process Defining a Land Utilization Type Now that you ve completed the preliminaries it s time to get to the heart of the model the Land Utilization Types LUT These are the land use options to be considered in the model From Menu 1 Main options Build models Select Option 2 Land Utilization Types A choice box appears since there aren t any LUT s defined yet it is empty Press F3 to begin the definition of anew LUT ALES will then ask for the LUT code Enter tdp which is a mnemonic for Tilapia in diversion ponds then Press F10 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 114 February 1997 to confirm your entry A data entry form appears entitled tdp NEW Land Utilization Type in which you are to enter basic information about the LUT Entering Information about the LUT as a whole The first item descriptive name is the text that is displayed along with the LUT code Type Tilapia in diversion ponds Move to the next question in the form planning horizon The second item is the length of the planning horizon which is the time over which the model builder can enter by year inputs and outputs ALES also uses the length of the planning horizon to normalize all cost and return figures to a per year basis in gross margin analysis and to compute
453. ult The first interaction in consultation mode is selecting the evaluation model to consult The right side of the screen should now contain a selection box on the right showing several lines Each line consists of an evaluation code on the left and the descriptive name which applies to the evaluation code on the right At the bottom of the screen is the annunciator line This shows the active keys along with a brief mnemonic to show their action Notice on the annunciator bottom line of the screen is that the Fl and F keys can be used to get help This is true at almost every point in the program V FI is used to explain the mechanics of an interaction i e how to interact with ALES In ALES this is called form help F2 is used to explain what is required i e what the program is asking for In ALES this is called content help To see the form help This key is variously called Return or Enter It may be marked with a square arrow 2This runs the DOS batch file CONSULT BAT which in turn starts the MUMPS run time system which loads ALES in consult mode and runs it 31f there is only one line you will not be able to move the cursor only select the single evaluation ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 54 February 1997 Press F1 You should now be looking at an explanation of the keys that you can use Notice that the annunciator line has changed to show a new set of active
454. unable to predict what conditions of the land make it more or less susceptible to compaction so that the LUR risk of compaction can not be included in the set of LUR s 4 Suppose the local soil scientists are able to predict compaction based on an expensive and time consuming field test If this test has not been performed on the map units in the study area and it is not feasible to do so because of limited time and money the LUR can not be determined and so must be omitted from the model Land use requirements can be defined for one of three purposes which are of course not mutually exclusive to differentiate the physical suitability of land units to differentiate the yield potential of land units or to differentiate the costs of implementing the Land Utilization Type on the different land units The next three subsections give examples of each of these LURs related to physical suitability This kind of LUR is typically a hazard and influences the land use in a negative manner Examples are erosion hazard flood hazard drought hazard The idea here is that excessive severity levels of the corresponding Land Qualities makes the land unfit for the land use These LURs can also be used to classify land into management groups ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 195 February 1997 Given an unlimited amount of resources any limitation could be overcome This is fairly obvious for limitations of nutrients or water Even limit
455. up your models to a diskette Assuming you will back up to a diskette Insert a formatted diskette in drive A To specify that the backup should be made to diskette you have to add a drive letter and colon in front of the file name and extension First make sure there is no path specified You can set the default path with Menu 2 System Options Item 8 Set default path for saved evaluations 2 ALES automatically removes characters that aren t legal in DOS file names and truncates the suggested file name to eight characters as required by DOS For example the model named t h i s is suggested to be saved as this als ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 103 February 1997 Erase any default path i e the part of the entry before the file name Move the cursor to the beginning left of the entry box You will see the cursor blinking under the first character of the file name Then type the drive letter followed by a colon in front of the file name For example if you are backing up to drive A Type A Press Enter to confirm your answer If you already have a file of the same name on the diskette e g if you have done a previous backup to the same diskette you will be told this and asked what to do O verwrite A ppend B ackup or Cancel You will usually select B to back up the file already on disk with the extension BAK It is good practice to
456. uppose that the cost of nitrogen fertilizer has increased from 0 20 to 0 25 per pound since the time the model was built We want to edit the input price so ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 90 February 1997 Press F5 A list of all the inputs in the evaluation is presented Select input N nitrogen fertilizer A one item data entry form now appears for the price of nitrogen with the current value 0 20 per pound as the default The cursor is at the end of the answer so just Type 5 to specify the new value 0 25 Press F10 to confirm the form and again Press F10 to return to the breakdown of additional costs by Land Use Requirement Notice that the new value has not been reflected in either the Why screen or the evaluation matrix ALES does not recalculate until told to do so This allows you to make several changes in the model before recalculating We want to recalculate now based on this one price change so we want to return to the evaluation matrix We could press F10 enough times to return to the matrix but there is a shortcut from any Why screen Press Esc This will remove all the stacked Why screens at once and ALES will display the evaluation results matrix Check that the highlight is still on map unit CeB and LUT ccc d Now that we re back on the matrix notice that F3 is marked Compute in the annunciator line So Pr
457. ure and Livestock A comprehensive application of ALES for physical land evaluation at the country scale Availability The FAO bulletins are available from the FAO publications representatives in each country In the USA this is UNIPUB 4611 F Assembly Drive Lanham MD 20706 4391 phone 301 459 7666 Call them for stock numbers prices and availability Some stock numbers are Soils Bulletin 52 F2649 Soils Bulletin 55 F2798 FAO has publications representatives in many countries typically a bookseller in the capital For a list of the representatives in each country and a current list of the publications in print request the FAO publications catalog from Distribution and Sales section FAO Via delle Terme di Caracalla 00100 Rome Italy They also have a Web site http www fao org UNIPUB is also the US representative for the ILRI publications ILRI 23 is out of print The 3 volume Sys land evaluation text can be obtained from ABOS Marsveldplein 5 bus 57 B 1050 Brussel Belgium The Rossiter land evaluation course notes can be obtained for the costs of reproduction from the Department of Soil Crop amp Atmospheric Sciences 10th floor Bradfield Hall Cornell University Ithaca NY 14853 1901 USA and can be downloaded from the Internet at ftp ftp cit cornell edu pub special ALES notes The Oxford George Allen amp Unwin VNR Cornell Iowa State Elsevier and Longmans texts are available through commercial boo
458. value i e to tell ALES that the land area we are evaluating has 5 12 slopes Now the slope classes disappear and next to the slope name is the class we selected namely C ALES is now considering a sloping land area Under the header is the name of the next land characteristic to be considered namely perm the permeability of the upper subsoil which as you can see is measured in seven classes That is the model builder decided that on sloping lands the permeability of the upper subsoil should be the second factor to consider when determining the erosion hazard Permeability of the upper subsoil affects erosion hazard because it determines how fast water will infiltrate into the profile If infiltration is slow water will pond on the surface and run off In this area of New York State infiltration rates are usually limited by the subsoil not the surface infiltration Suppose that the land area of interest has a moderately permeable subsoil So the highlight has to be moved to branch 4 m This time we ll use another method of moving the highlight typing the branch number So Type the number 4 The highlight should move to the branch marked m moderate Press Enter to confirm this value i e to tell ALES that the land area we are evaluating has moderately permeable subsoil Now the permeability classes disappear and next to the perm name is the class we selected namely m
459. ve two related tables one for the polygons and one giving the composition of the map units First the PAT itself with the same structure as in the fully relational example for homogeneous units ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 228 February 1997 0 Notice that this tables has a two field key i e both fields CLMU_ID and HLMU_ID are necessary to specify a unique record This design places no limits on the number of homogeneous components of a compound map unit unlike the flat file design which requires that we pre define a number of fields to contain the homogeneous map unit names and their percentages Then we add a third table i e the homogeneous map unit table which gives the attributes of each homogeneous map unit RECNO HLMU_ID TEXT_A PS_LUT3 OvA sil 2dr Notice that this table has a suitability rating presumably exported from ALES for the homogeneous constituent of the map unit The three tables can be related then you can select the suitability of the dominant component or maybe the most limiting suitability depending on the task and display a map of these ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 229 February 1997 Fourth and finally we need a compound map unit attributes table which is where ALES can write the suitability of these map units This may be joined with the PAT for map display RECNO CLMU_ID PS_LUT3 IRR_LUT3 ALIDRIS The interface between the ALES land evaluation pr
460. ved in turn from the source system to a separate als file using F7 and then loaded in turn on the destination system using F8 Another approach is to copy using DOS the entire EVAL namespace i e the two files eval gb1 ind and eval gb1 dat to diskette or network and then exchange these with another organization The namespace contains all the ALES models in the list of models This section explains how to set up your ALES system to recognize more than one model group Menu 2 System Options Option C Change model group may be used to switch between two or more completely different sets of ALES models if the system manager sets up the system to allow this feature A group is a set of ALES evaluation models in a single MUMPS namespace Usually all the models in the group are made by one organization In the group method the entire namespace usually files eval gbl is re named so as not to conflict with the existing eval gbl and then exchanged via diskette or network Unfortunately it is not possible to have two files named EVAL GBL named in the same Database Description dbd file even if they are in different DOS directories This is because DTM only uses the file name not including the drive and path in the second part of the dbd file ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 49 February 1997 To be able to change model groups the model group must be listed in the
461. very fine massive 2 medium 2 medium i coarse 10 25 me 100 g soil gt anionfix anion fixation 1 high none 2 moderate 1 2 moderate acid weakly acid to neutral strongly acid pH lt 5 gt cec cation exchange capacity 0 25 cm 3 low 0 10 me 100 g s 3 low 2 moderate 10 25 me 1 2 moderate 1 high 25 100 me 100 2 moderate alkaline pH 7 8 3 strongly acid strongly alkaline pH gt 8 3 low 1 2 3 4 5 6 m 1 2 3 hi a decision a land characteristic same as another branch Once the model was set up and the database constructed ALES was asked to compute Land Quality values and then combine these into overall physical suitability The results is an evaluation matrix of which the following is only a small part Central Province smallholder rainfed farming Physical Suitability Subclass Land Utilization Types cardamon lo cashew lo chilli lo citrus lo cocoa hi 4e 4w 4c e r 3G 4c We can see from this matrix that the physical suitability varies over the landscape and for different land uses For example map unit 3 013 2 is suitable class 2 for cardamom chili and citrus but only marginally suitable for cashew and cocoa For land use citrus we have no highly suitable one suitable two marginally suitable and two unsuitable map units There are different reasons for the suitability rating For example map unit 3 007 1
462. vest year 15 would be delayed to year 15 5 4 18 75 year 19 and the optimum harvest year 17 would be delayed to year 17 5 4 20 25 year 20 Note that year x 5 is rounded to year x J Notes 1 The model builder specifies whether the proportional yield is to delay the harvest for each output separately see the above example form Thus if final tree harvest can be delayed but thinnings are not you can set up two outputs lumber and thinnings and specify how their yields are affected independently 2 If a harvest is delayed past the end of the planning horizon useful life it will not be included in the outputs under the assumption that a harvest too late is not worth the trouble Therefore the model builder must make ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 193 February 1997 sure that the planning horizon Menu 1 2 Specification options for LUT Option 2 Length is long enough to include all harvests of interest Defining Land Use Requirements for a LUT The set of Land Use Requirements LUR are the main defining factors of Land Utilization Types They are of critical importance in ALES because they are used to 1 define physical suitability 2 increase costs of production and 3 reduce yields of outputs In the FAO framework Land Utilization Types have one or more Land Use Requirements which are matched with corresponding Land Qualities LQ These are just two sides of the same coin the r
463. vium rather than have three classes i e till residuum and colluvium if these three parent materials act the same with respect to the proposed land uses Continuous Land Characteristics These LCs are measured on a continuous scale for example pH or slope Each homogeneous map unit is described by a single value The only reason to use this kind of LC is if an existing database only gives single values on a continuous scale ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 200 February 1997 A continuous LC value can not be used in ALES decision trees The model builder must set up commensurate discrete LC and then a continuous to discrete inference link as explained below Then the value of the commensurate discrete LC can be used in decision procedures Inferring a Land Characteristic from other Land Characteristics ALES provides several methods of inferring the value of a Land Characteristic from one or more other Land Characteristics This is required in the middle out approach to defining characteristics explained above The following subsections explain these methods Note that in all these methods ALES only performs the inference if it does not already have a non inferred value for the target LC in its database If a value is directly placed in the database either from the keyboard or read in from a data file it over rides any inferred value If you want to force the inference you must delete the value of the targe
464. w appears We ve already entered a descriptive name Option 1 so Select menu Option 2 List of data fields land characteristics Now an empty list box appear at the upper right of the screen with the dummy item 1 lt add to end of list gt The list will contain the codes of the land characteristics to be included in the template This is a bit different from other list boxes we ve seen since the list is not ordered by the entity code but rather the numeric position in the list This is because the order of fields is important both for the data entry form to be presented to the model user and for matching the order of fields in any automatic input Press F3 See the Chapter ALES and other computer systems for more on reading data from an external database ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 134 February 1997 to insert the first field A list of all ten land characteristics that are defined in the reference lists should now appear All of these must be added to the template Let s group them according to the kind of characteristic water characteristics first climate second and soil third Select pH pH of the water Notice that it is now the first item in the list meaning that the first field in the data entry form will be land characteristic pH of the water The highlight should be on the dummy item now field 2 named lt add to end of list gt Press F3 aga
465. w in the list with a descriptive title that was written by ALIDRIS Run IDRISI command COLOR to display image dc The map should show the same area as the base map TutorS but instead of a legend of soil map units the new map has a legend of drainage classes 1 ewd excessively well drained 2 wd well drained etc Find the location in this image of the delineation of an ErA map unit that you investigated at the beginning of this tutorial Using the example above use option C of COLOR at Column 56 Row 112 or use option X of COLOR at X 393 620 East Y 4 708 240 North This is in a large map unit near the center bottom of the image Answer spd somewhat poorly drained ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 178 February 1997 What is its legend category and drainage class This agrees with what we know the soils in map unit ErA are somewhat poorly drained according to the ALES database ALIDRIS merely made a map of this characteristic Creating a thematic map of evaluation results Once ALES has computed an evaluation for a set of land uses ALIDRIS can be used to make a thematic map of the physical or economic suitability of the study area for each land use In this exercise we will use the Tutor2 model to make a thematic map of the economic suitability class for maize both with and without land improvement The procedure is very similar to that for producing them
466. w you re being asked to enter a code for the new entity The Land Utilization Type that we intend to define requires the construction of the fish holding structures i e earth ponds fed by diversion ditches from streams or springs Hence an important Land Use Requirement is the potential for construction i e how easy it is to build the ponds A good code for this might be the abbreviation pfc Type pfc Press F10 to confirm the code A two item data entry form now appears asking for 1 a descriptive name and 2 the default number of severity levels The descriptive name appears next to the LUR code in many contexts The default number of severity levels is the number of different degrees of limitation that can be distinguished for the LUR in the FAO Framework this is 4 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 105 February 1997 Fill in the data entry form 1 potential for construction 2 4 Confirm the form A four item data entry form now appears asking for the descriptive names for the four default severity levels These names appear along with the severity level In the present case we ll enter these when we define the LUT below so for now leave them blank Press F10 to confirm the empty form The reference list of LUR s should now reappear Notice that the item in the choice box is replaced by the new code pfc Using the same technique as the previous paragr
467. with the current value 0 60 as the default answer ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 167 February 1997 Enter and confirm the value 0 4 Notice that the value in the tree changes to 4 In the same manner Change the proportional yield for branch 2 moderate stress to 0 6 Press to collapse branch 1 and return to the top level We re done editing the tree so Press F10 to return to Menu 1 2 6 Limiting yield factors There are situations where a simpler approach to predicting proportional yield may be appropriate There are two methods besides the decision tree to predict proportional yields namely multiplicative yield factors which we ve already seen in Tutorial 3 and limiting yield factors In this section we ll see how to enter limiting yield factors and how they affect the computation Select Menu 1 2 6 Option 4 Limiting yield factors to bring up a list of all the LURs defined for this LUT Notice that LUR c temperature regime is marked with an asterisk this indicates that there are already limiting yield factors associated with it These were entered by the builder of the model Tutor2 which model we copied at the beginning of the present tutorial Select c climate ALES displays data entry form appears with the limiting yield factors for each of the four severity levels i e LQ values for this LUR The current values are 100 full
468. x this cell shows the results for the first row A13 and the first column ccc In the present case the cell contents are predicted net present values So looking at the highlighted cell we see that if we implemented Land Utilization Type column ccc on map unit row A13 according to the ALES model and the data we entered we would expect a net present value of 101 13 per acre Each evaluation can have a different currency symbol and unit of areal measure so the choice of dollars and acres for this example is because the available data was expressed in these units ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 82 February 1997 The matrix provides us with useful comparisons among and within land units and Land Utilization Types First we can look in a given column representing a LUT to see which land area is most remunerative for that LUT For example looking in the first column representing ccc we see that map unit CeB is far superior to the other map units as a land area on which to implement continuous corn with no land improvements This answers the question What is the best land for this land use Next we can look in a given row representing a map unit to see which LUT s are most remunerative on that map unit For example looking in the first row representing the compound map unit A13 we see that LUT ttpp has a far higher present value than the others This answers the q
469. xpose the bedrock which we can t dig into with hand tools So we must edit the decision tree to correct our mistake Notice that in the annunciator line F3 is marked Edit sever level DT In the Why screens all model factors and or data values that are relevant to that screen can be edited the annunciator line shows which keys are active and F1 help explains the options Press F3 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 139 February 1997 to edit the decision tree The decision tree editor now appears with the top level displayed Recall that we are going to alter the decision for moderately deep soils on steep slopes You can see from the editor that deep soils are equated to moderately deep soils that will have to be changed since the potential for pond construction on deep soils will now be different from moderately deep soils Cutting and pasting in decision trees Now we must apply another decision tree technique cutting and pasting This is useful whenever one subtree shares much of its information with another but is not exactly the same in this case we join the two subtrees with The basic idea is as follows A subtree is cut out to the paste buffer y It is immediately pasted back in the same place since it is still valid there V We then move the highlight to another branch and paste the same tree in this new location V We edit either or both the pasted subtree or
470. y Now this subtree is complete so Press lt twice to go back two levels to the top level cfv A Notice how the branch is now marked with a complete subtree gt fpsc This completes the editing of this tree so Press F10 to leave the editor and return to Menu 1 2 7 Comparing related Land Utilization Types Let s see if the modified decision procedure changes the evaluation results To do this we will compute an evaluation for all the map units in the survey area for both the original and modified LUTs Press F10 four times to return to Menu 1 Main options Select Menu Main options 1 Option 4 Evaluations Select Menu 1 4 Evaluations Option 1 Compute an evaluation ALES now asks for the LUTs to compute Since we only want to compare the effect of the changes to the decision procedure we need only select ccc and ccc m The cursor should already be on evaluation ccc which we want to evaluate so Press F3 to included it in the set of LUTs to be evaluated The cursor should move to the second LUT in the list ccc d We don t want to include this so Move the cursor to evaluation ccc m Press F3 ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 155 February 1997 to included it in the set of LUTs to be evaluated Notice the next to the selected items We only want to evaluate these two LUTs so Press F10 to
471. y but only one record for the combined key There also must be a field in the xBase table which defines the proportion of each constituent 3 Import or Export LC values To Import or Export LC values Menu 1 8 Options 3 amp 4 the correspondence is with an ALES Land Characteristic LC code in a one to one relation ALES LC xBase field 4 Export Evaluation Results To Export evaluation results Menu 1 8 Option 5 the correspondence is with a Land Utilization Type LUT and the type of evaluation results physical suitability subclass economic value economic suitability class yield Land Quality input amount in a potentially many to one relation The results type is exactly the same as for screen displays of evaluation results Menu 1 4 Evaluations Option 2 View Evaluation Results xBase field ALES LUT Evaluation Results Type We now consider these types of transfers in more detail Import Land Mapping Unit definitions This is a shortcut to what can also be done using Menu 1 3 Data Option 2 Definitions from a disk file read It avoids the use of an intermediate comma and quotes delimited ASCII file and provides a more logical way of organizing compound map units There are three options in a sub menu 1 8 2 Import Land Mapping Unit definitions 1 Import definitions of homogeneous map units 2 Import definitions of compound map units 3 Import lists of constituents of compound map unit
472. y by FTP or as an e mail attachment Finally the model is restored from disk file F8 to the target system A model of the same name can t already exist on the other system if necessary such a model can be renamed Alt F6 before the model is loaded ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 234 February 1997 Transferring data between ALES evaluation models In ALES there is no shared database between evaluation models each model has its own separate database as well as knowledge base You may want to transfer land unit data and definitions between ALES evaluation models The way to do this is Write the definitions and data from the source evaluation to separate temporary DOS files Menu 1 3 Options 3 and 6 V Read the definitions from the first temporary file into the target evaluation Menu 1 3 Option 2 Set up a data entry template in the target evaluation that matches the template with which the data was written Menu 1 3 Option 7 and V Read the data into from the second temporary file into the target evaluation Menu 1 3 Option 5 Transferring LUTs between ALES evaluation models As explained in Tutorial 3 and the Chapter Maintaining an ALES system entire ALES evaluation models can be transferred between computer systems by making a backup of the model to a diskette with F7 on the source system then loading the diskette into the target system and using F8 to load the model However yo
473. y deep 200 3 d deep 1000 sl slope 4 0 1 A nearly level 3 2 B sloping 10 3 C steep 30 4 D very steep 200 text soil texture 4 1 c coarse 2 m medium 3 f fine 4 p peat ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 113 February 1997 pH pH of the water 4 pH 1 1 vacid very acid 4 2 acid acid 6 3 n neutral to alkaline 9 4 valk very alkaline 14 pe subsoil permeability 3 1 s slow 2 m moderate 3 r rapid You should now have a list of ten land characteristics cfc cfs pH pe rs sd sl text ws and wt Press F10 to return to Menu 1 1 Reference Lists Again Press F10 to return to Menu 1 Main Options Build models If you are familiar with standardized descriptions of map units or soil profiles you may notice that several of the characteristics do not have the same number of classes class abbreviations or class limits as you may expect For example soil texture is measured here in only four classes here instead of the standard 12 USDA classes This illustrates an advantage of ALES compared to a land evaluation system with a pre defined list of characteristics in ALES the LCs can be defined according to local needs In the present case we feel that knowing whether the texture of the fine earth is coarse medium fine or peat is sufficient to determine the severity levels of the land qualities that we wo
474. y unsuitable The economic class limits are based on the objectives of the evaluation The lower limit of S3 is the level at which the farmer would elect not to carry out the enterprise typically this is zero assuming that labor has been included in the costs The lower limits of S1 and S2 correspond roughly to the Gross Margin one would consider excellent and good respectively This depends completely on the socio economic setting In particular the per unit area return that is considered adequate may depend on the typical holding size to ensure an adequate per farm income See the next Chapter for details Fill in the data entry form 1 100 2 50 3 0 Confirm the form to return to Menu 1 2 8 At this point we could if we wished specify class limits for the other economic metrics Instead Press F10 to return to Menu 1 2 We re all done specifying this LUT so Press F10 to return to the list of LUT s In a real evaluation we would certainly define more than one land use alternative i e LUT in the interests of keeping the tutorial to a manageable length we won t do this Press F10 to return to menu 1 2 Press F10 again to return to Menu 1 Main Options Congratulations you have defined a simple evaluation model Defining data entry templates Before we can compute and view evaluation results Menu Option 4 we must define map units and enter data Menu 1 Option 3
475. ype of template Defining ALES xBase import export templates You will first be asked for the type of transfer which the template describes 1 import LMU definitions 2 import constituent of compound LMUs 3 import or export LC values the same template serves for both directions in this case 4 export evaluation results For all types of templates you must always enter the DOS file name of the xBase table which will be the source or destination of the transfer You must also enter the xBase key field which must contain the ALES Land Mapping Unit LMU code ALES LMU xBase key field It is easiest to use the F3 popup menu to select the xBase key field The further correspondence between ALES and xBase fields depends on the type of transfer 1 Import Land Mapping Unit definitions To import LMU definitions Menu 1 8 2 Options 1 amp 2 you may also specify a xBase field for the map unit descriptive name and for the area it covers both of these are optional 2 Import constituents of compound Land Mapping Unit In addition if the LMU is compound Menu 1 8 2 Option 3 there is a relation between a secondary key field and the homogeneous LMU constituent ALES Version 4 65 Users Manual Page 217 February 1997 ALES homogeneous constituent LMU xBase secondary key field so that in fact the two xBase fields together form the key into the xBase table which will have several records corresponding to the primary ke

ALES User`s Manual - Crop and Soil Sciences

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