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Impact of Drone Technology on Wetland Data Collection

Ken Johnston

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Motivation to Monitor Landscapes Using Drones

High Precision: detailed, high resolution, accuracy- wetland vegetation

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Efficiency: quickly survey large difficult areas- reduced time

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Monitoring: changes over time, ecologic health, floods-alterations

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Real-time: enable rapid analysis of change & response to floods

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Drone Mapping Projects

  1. Mid-Hudson Valley Wetland Inventory Project
    • Non-profit NYenvironcom
      • Natural resources monitoring near new developments
  2. Flood Inundation using LiDAR & live sensor data
    • UVM-CIROH Sensor network & SAL drone team
      • Max Flood Level Modeling- LiDAR
  3. Quantify erosion and identify geomorphic features
    • UVM-CIROH Sensor network & SAL drone team
      • Geomorphic Modeling & Stream Bank Erosion- LiDAR

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NYS Wetland Regulation Issues (Pre 2025)

  1. Mapping Limitations

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  • Fed vs State Protections
    1. Size restrictions (12.4ac or unusual local importance)
    2. Small wetlands relied on Clean Water Act

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  • Inconsistent Enforcement
    • Outdated maps, limited jurisdiction, inconsistency

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  • Lack of Public Awareness

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NYenvironcom�Identifying & Classifying Wetlands

Goals

  1. High-resolution inventory of wetland & their classification

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  • Monitor new development area & changes over time

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  • Support changes to NYS wetland rule changes

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  • Adaption of detailed imagery and data to NYS & NWI databases

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Creating an Inventory of Impacted Wetlands

Steps:

  • Create a list of natural areas to be impacted by development
    • Data collection before impacts
    • Especially near Neversink river
    • Under-mapped areas
  • Data Collection & Processing
    • Field verification
  • Build Inventory & Geodatabase
  • Monitoring in the future

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PFO1A

PFO1A

PFO1A

PSS1B

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Results

  • 36 unidentified or impacted wetlands in database
    • Submit changes to NYS wetland rule change
  • Datasets
    • Desktop review, ARCGIS, rendered files, quality reports
  • Submitted request to change (196.5ac) wetland boundaries and classification to NWI
    • Outdated polygons, imagery or incorrect classification
  • Monitoring Millenium pipeline, large developments, others

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  • Funding ran out Fall of 2022

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UVM�CIROH PROJECTS

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Cooperative Institute for Research to Operations in Hydrology

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How can we represent floods and their impacts to landscapes, property and water quality more accurately?

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Can LiDAR, paired with sensor data, be used to model flood inundation in high resolution?

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Steps

  1. Deploy water level sensors at long term floodplains sediment sites

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  • Capture drone data recently after flood, survey HWM

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  • Download & process data

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  • Create flood depth raster for each flood event and flood level captured by water level sensor

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Develop Max Flood Inundation Rasters

  • Drone LiDAR (10cm) pt cloud
    • For each flood
  • Max flood level from Floodplain sensor
    • Surveyed sensor height & HWMs to verify

What land areas flooded during these floods? 1m

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How the model works

1m Depth

Pt cloud

Flood Raster

Sensor & Drone captures data. Floodplain sensor determines raster’s max depth (1m)

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Findings:

  • Inefficient
    • Long runtime

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  • Produced raster for each flood captured by the sensor
    • Floodplain will change

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Next:

  • Can this be automated?
  • Expand to all sites
  • How is this useful to others?

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Geomorphic Modeling �& �Quantifying erosion

  • Lidar derived DEMs can provide geomorphon prediction

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  • By examining Pre & Post flood DEMS, we can estimate floodplain dynamics and erosion

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  • Create sediment budgets i.e. what “type” of floodplains are there, and which capture or export sediment & P

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Quantify volume of erosion using LiDAR

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Potential

  • Classify types of the floodplains in Lake Champlain Basin
    • Sediment budget
    • Quantify stream bank erosion
      • Compare Pre & Post Flood

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  • Geomorphic alterations
  • Fluvial Erosion Map of the LCB

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  • Flood influence on vegetation & how vegetation influences floods

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  • Many Avenues!

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Acknowledgements

NYenvironcom Volunteers

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UVM Spatial Analysis Lab (SAL)

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UVM- Rebecca Deihl, Kristen Underwood, Beverley Wemple

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Questions

Thank you!