Uses of LiDAR Derived Data Products

at WVDEP

West Virginia Association of Geospatial Professionals Conference

May 9, 2012

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Introduction WVDEP’s TAGIS Unit established a rigorous in-house QC review and editing workflow

and successfully produced derived data products (“deliverables”), including:o Intensity image o Breaklineso Digital elevation model (DEM)o ESRI elevation grido Hillshadeo 100 foot contourso 20 foot contourso Slope and aspect datasets

Currently, there are deliverables still under construction, these are:o Contiguous, watershed-size 2 foot contour dataseto Vegetation canopy height dataset may yet be initiatedo Building footprints dataset

The .LAS files covering the first deliverable area were provided to West Virginia View where they were recently made available to any interested party for download.

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Received Deliverables from NRAC

Three deliverables so far

Deliverable are watershed-based

1st2nd

3rd

*Natural Resource Analysis Center

*

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QC CheckingStatus 1FEMA’s QC Contractor Dewberry 1WVDEP

First Second

1st Deliverable

Passed N/A Completed

2nd Deliverable

Failed2 In progress Completed

3rd Deliverable

4th Deliverable1FEMA contracted Dewberry to look at only 5% of tiles for micro errors. TAGIS’ QC process looks at all tiles in NRAC’s deliverables. 2 An automatically but incorrect adjustment in elevation by NRAC’s production software produced an error they discovered in tiles for McDowell County after submittal of 2nd deliverable to Dewberry. Corrected dataset is expected for delivery to WVDEP the week of May 6th, 2012.

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Derived Data Products ProductionProduct 1st. Deliverable 2nd. Deliverable

Intensity Image Completed

Breaklines Completed In production

Digital Elevation Model (DEM)

Completed

ESRI Elevation Grid Completed

Hillshade Completed Draft Completed

100’ Contours Completed

20’ Contours Completed

2’ Contours Nearly Completed1

Slope Completed

Aspect Completed

Building footprints Not Started

Vegetation canopy Not Started1Aggregates (22 blocks created from 2144 tiles) were created but attempts at editing along edges crashes ArcGIS. Planned May onsite collaboration with Virtual Geomatics technical staff to produce a contiguous dataset.

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LiDAR Derived Hillshade

Results of completion of the project’s first large, multi-county size hillshadeo Expected uses several now confirmed

• Subsidence• Portals• Refuse piles• Slips

o Unexpected uses only one confirmed but it’s a biggie!

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LiDAR Derived Hillshade subsidence

Major opening Related Sinks123

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23

Meters

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Salt was King before Coal Only 8 miles from WVDEP’s headquarters is

the town of Malden, WV. In Colonial America, salt was rare and very

expensive. From 1806 to 1808, in present day Malden,

David and Joseph Ruffner developed the world's first deep well drilling process.

That area became known as the "Kanawha Salines“, a very wealthy industrial region on the frontier.

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Salt Created the 1st Market for Coal

It was in connection with the salt industry that the coal industry of the Great Kanawha Valley was started.

John P. Turner, a New Yorker, discovered coal there and opened a mine in 1817 for the purpose of supplying the Kanawha Salines’ furnaces 600,000 bushels of salt were produced in 1814.

Professor William Barton Rogers, University of Virginia, reported in 1840 ninety furnaces along the Kanawha Rivero They made annually a million bushels of salt and …o consumed five million bushels or two hundred thousand

tons of coal.

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Coal and River Corridors Coal fired keelboats distributed salt in the Ohio

Valley, the Mississippi Valley, and throughout President Jefferson's new Louisiana Territory.

Salt was not the only commodity carried on our region's rivers as markets for coal opening up elsewhere resulted in its serious export too.

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What started it all … info about a nearby pre-Civil War - 1910 mine never located in the field

DEP’s

HQ

LiDAR Derived Hillshade portals

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Hillshade and Suspected Portals … on a Roll

Green vectors are West Virginia Geologic and Economic Survey’s coal outcrop dataset

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Another Hillshade, Suspected Portals and Coal Outcrop Example

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Hillshade and Old Mine Map Alignment

Use of the LiDAR derived hillshade to adjust scale and orientation of scanned mine maps was totally

unanticapted!

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Going a Little Off the Deep End Portal Wise …

Within an 8 mile radius of DEP’s Headquarters … more than 800 suspected old portals were found in just a few hours of looking.

None are in the AML Inventory.

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Hillshade and Traces of the Past

Walnut Grove was a pre-civil war plantation owned by the Summer family.

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Hillshade, History and Archeology

Walnut Grove Area

The new hillshade dataset also

clearly shows the old trail system used by settlers

and Native Americans

sometimes called the Mary Ingles

Trail.

The site of log cabin.

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Other Discoveries Using Hillshade Landslides

Wildcat mines

Underground mine fires

Logan Airport

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LiDAR Derived Hillshade difference grid

Wyoming County has two LiDAR datasets

2003 FEMA 2009 WVDEP

Fills

Cuts

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Public Access to LiDAR and Derived Datasets

.LAS files now downloadable by any interested parties from West Virginia View.

April roll out of an aggregated hillshade dataset from TAGIS’ Mining Data Tools.

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Aggregated Hillshade and

WVSAMB

WVSAMB photogrammetrically-based hillshade is above and left of green lines. WVDEP’s LiDAR-based hillshade elsewhere