| Floodplain Mapping, McCarthy, Alaska

Late Season LIDAR Acquisition Penetrates to the Ground Providing High Accuracy DEM Data This project for the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service was designed to deliver a LIDAR DEM suitable for accurate 1-foot contour mapping from the high-resolution digital elevation model (DEM) data for 3-D modeling of the McCarthy floodplain. In addition we provided orthophoto coverage with 0.5-foot pixel size. AERO-METRIC Anchorage provided all ground control, base stations and QA/QC surveys for the project.

LIDAR proved to be an excellent tool for this application. Acquisition occurred in September 2004. LIDAR was able to penetrate through openings in the vegetation to reach the ground. These returns define the 1st, 2nd, 3rd & last returns from each laser pulse. The data was classified to "Bare-earth" and used to generate DEMs after the classification process. Accuracy ground truth data as compared to the LIDAR was within 0.5-feet RMSE, suitable for 1-foot contour mapping at ASPRS Class 2.

BACK TO PROJECTS