HR: 0800h
AN: H41A-0139    [Abstracts]
TI: Use of Ground-based LiDAR in River Restoration and Ecohydrology
AU: * Minear, J
EM: tminear@berkeley.edu
AF: Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning; University of California, Berkeley, 202 Wurster Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States
AU: Storesund, R
AF: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering; University of California, Berkeley, 760 Davis Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States
AB: Rivers and their associated landforms have complex topography and vegetation that is difficult to capture with traditional survey techniques such as total stations or GPS due to interference from vegetation and relatively low point resolution. Ground-based LiDAR techniques offer much higher point spacing, increased speed of data acquisition, and decreased cost compared to traditional survey techniques but as yet have not been evaluated for use in river restoration or ecohydrologic applications. For this project, we evaluated the efficiency and utility of ground-based LiDAR over a wide variety of river restoration and hydrology projects. We found that ground-based LiDAR is an extremely useful technique that could greatly improve the science of river restoration through improved survey quality of bare ground surfaces, built restoration structures, and vegetation. In particular, ground- based LiDAR is well-suited for quickly and accurately documenting as-built conditions of restoration projects. Surveys of as-built conditions would greatly improve monitoring efforts, most of which currently rely only on construction design documents, not what was actually built. Ground-based LiDAR also could be used for compliance checks by funding agencies with a minimum of effort and time. In summary, ground-based LiDAR is an excellent monitoring tool for a broad range of geomorphic, hydrologic and vegetation applications, all of which are fundamental to the study of river restoration.
DE: 1803 Anthropogenic effects (4802, 4902)
DE: 1813 Eco-hydrology
DE: 1825 Geomorphology: fluvial (1625)
DE: 1856 River channels (0483, 0744)
DE: 1895 Instruments and techniques: monitoring
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting