Aerial Missions with Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems to Monitor Sediment Flow and Changing Topography Resulting from the Removal of Dams on the Elwha River
Clark D, Bell A, Sloan J, Bauer M, Goplen S. 2013. Aerial Missions with Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems to Monitor Sediment Flow and Changing Topography Resulting from the Removal of Dams on the Elwha River. Technical Memorandum 86-68260-13-03. U.S. Geolgoical Survey; Bureau of Reclamation. Washington, DC
The use of the DOI unmanned systems for monitoring the Elwha River changes took place in two separate image acquisition flights in June and September of 2012. The cooperative effort with the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), the National Park Service (NPS) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) combined the skills of UAS operators, hydrologists, biologists, and geographic information systems and remote sensing experts. The proof-of-concept missions set out to discover the capabilities of the new technology for mapping topography. The benefit of the project is far reaching in terms of the timeliness and type of data acquired. The aerial imagery collection provides data for on-going studies, future research, and development of an historical record. This project had the following objectives: * Outline the permitting and authorization processes involved with flying within the National Airspace System over the DOI, National Park Service lands. * Outline and describe the process of UAS mission operations, data acquisition and data processing. * Conduct a data and accuracy assessment of the derived orthoimagery products and elevation models from the UAS acquired data over the accessible portion of the former Lake Aldwell lake bed. * Conduct an overall assessment and feasibility of using low-altitude UAS data collection capabilities for topographic mapping. * Provide readers with an overview of mission planning, mission operations, and data processing. * Make recommendations as to the utility of UAS to meet or extend the Bureau of Reclamation remote sensing capabilities.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Clark, Douglas; Bell, Alan; Sloan, Jeff; Bauer, Mark; Goplen, Susan
- Date of Issue
- 2013-09
- Publisher
- U.S. Geolgoical Survey; Bureau of Reclamation
- Units
- OLYM
- Keywords
- Dam Removal, Elwha River Restoration, Sediment Transport, topographic mapping, unmanned aircraft