Disturbed Landscape Mapping Project, Peterson Space Force Base, El Paso County, Colorado

Peterson Space Force Base, spanning 1,630 acres near Colorado Springs, has undergone significant land disturbances across pre-colonial, historic, and military eras, potentially affecting cultural deposits. This project utilized historical imagery, high-resolution light detection and ranging data, and geographic information system layers to map land disturbances, categorizing them into moderate disturbance (14.10%, 229.78 acres), high disturbance bladed (50.88%, 829.43 acres), high disturbance fill (2.20%, 35.78 acres), developed area (32.71%, 533.23 acres), and fluvial disturbance (0.12%, 1.91 acres). A total of 438 features were manually mapped, while 39,861 were automatically assigned disturbance values. The highest disturbance levels indicate reduced likelihood of intact cultural deposits, whereas lightly disturbed areas (not found at Peterson Space Force Base) may still contain original cultural materials. Multi-criteria decision analyses models were developed to identify areas with high suitability for archaeological sites, aiding future cultural resource identification by integrating disturbance mapping with site suitability assessments