Digital Aerial Sketch Mapping as a Region wide Assessment Tool

Digital Aerial Sketch Mapping as a
Region--wide Assessment Tool
Region
National Park Service
Florida/Caribbean Exotic Plant Management Team
&
S th Florida
South
Fl id W
Water
t Management
M
t District
Di t i t
Tony Pernas and LeRoy Rodgers
Digital Aerial Sketch Mapping…Introduction

Sketch Mapping – “A remote sensing technique of
observing
g forest change
g events from an aircraft and
documenting them manually on a map” (McConnell, et al 2000)
Aerial Sketch Mapping
Traditional sketch mapping is a remote sensing technique of
observing change events from an aircraft and documenting
th
them
manually
ll on a paper map
Developed by the US Forest Service for Forest Health Monitoring
Digital Aerial Sketch Mapping (DASM)
•Developed by US Forest Service to automate sketch mapping
•Observers detect features from aircraft and digitally record
spatial and attribute data “on-the-fly”
•Uses touchscreen computers linked to a GPS receiver
•Specialized software:
•Displays background imagery for current location
•Allows rapid digitizing of points, lines, and polygons
•Allows rapid attributing of features
•Displays map at multiple scales
•Provides standard GIS format output
p
The DASM System
Power Supply
Software &
Imagery
Touch Screen
Laptops
(networked)
GPS
& Antenna
Computer Requirements

Touch Screen Laptop PC’s
 Dell™ Latitude XT™

Lots of memory and CPU speed recommended
 ...as well as a speedy graphics card

Operating systems – Windows XP, Vista

Serial port adaptor required
 PCMCIA or USB (USB preferred)
Other System Details

GPS receivers
 NMEA 0183 output
p at 4800 baud
 Some proprietary formats are OK
 External antenna recommended

Power
 System is designed to run on 24VDC or 12VDC
Aircraft power
power.
 Power boards access aircraft power via firepack radio
power plug
Software

Six software vendors
investigated in detail

Modifications to GeoLink GPS
mapping software via GSA
contract ((Michael Baker Jr, Inc))

Changes
g focused on the user
interface to the software and
increasing display performance
Geolink™ Features

Features attributed with user-defined quick keys

“Heads-up” orientation

Background map tiling

ESRI shapefile output

Ability to reproject output shapefiles
Lygodium, 5-26%
LNWR
Post--flight Processing
Post

Post-Processing
 Rectify
y overlapping
pp g p
polygons
yg
 Combine shapefiles from different
surveys
 Calculate acres

Melaleuca
6-25%
Melaleuca
6-25%
Data editing (QA/QC)
 Editing using ArcMap/ArcView GIS
 Changing feature position or
boundary
y
 Deleting erroneous features
 Checking feature attributes
Melaleuca
6-25%
Everglades DASM Program

Everglades Forever Act
 Requires biennial invasive plant monitoring in the Everglades Protection
Area

USNPS & SFWMD adapted USFS technology for invasive
plant detection

2005 Pilot Study
 Effective for trees, vines, and large shrubs
 “Hit & Miss” for understory vegetation in tree islands
 Mapping in winter improves sub-canopy detection
 Observer
Ob
bi
bias can b
be hi
high;
h ttraining
i i critical
iti l
Why DASM?

New invasive plant infestations are extremely important
to detect, especially in remote areas (Quarantine
St t
Strategy).
)

Traditional remote sensing technologies cannot respond
to rapid changes in plant occurrence and may be cost
prohibitive.

Up-to-date and quantitative maps with are very useful
for planning management programs .
Everglades CISMA
DASM Methods
•Mapping
area included:
•Loxahatchee NWR
•Holeyland
Holeyland WMA
•Rotenbeger WMA
•Big Cypress Reservation
•Water
Water Conservation Areas 2 & 3
•Miccosukee Reservation
•Big Cypress National Preserve
•Everglades National Park
•East Coast Buffer Lands
•Southern
Southern Glades WMA
•South Dade Wetlands
Everglades CISMA
DASM Methods
•East-west
transects on 1 km intervals
•Helicopter
permits hovering and/or low altitude for verification
•Altitude:
•Speed
150 meters
: variable
150 m
500 m
Everglades CISMA
DASM Methods
•East-west
transects on 1 km intervals
•Helicopter
permits hovering and/or low altitude for verification
1 km
•Altitude:
: variable
Observerr 2
O
Ob
bserver 1
•Speed
150 meters
Everglades CISMA
DASM Methods
•North
section mapped Feb 2009
•Southern section mapped Feb-Mar 2010
•Species
S
i mapped:
d
•Old World climbing fern
•Melaleuca
•Brazilian
B ili pepper
•Australian pine
•Also
mapped
•Rookeries
•Frozen pythons
•Percent
≤5%
cover estimated:
6-25% 26-75% >75%
2009/10 Everglades CISMA Invasive Plant Mapping
Results (preliminary
(preliminary data)
data)
Australian Pine (Casuarina
(Casuarina spp.)
Infests
5,778 acres within Everglades
CISMA
Most common in southeastern Everglades
g
Easily detected with DASM
Approaching maintenance control
regionally
Intensive control needed in Southern
Glades and Model Lands Basin
Percent Cover
Acres
≤5
3,908
6 25
6-25
1 247
1,247
26-75
564
>75
59
Australian pine infests remote mangrove swamps and sawgrass marsh
Southern Glades and South Dade Wetlands region.
Melaleuca (Melaleuca
(Melaleuca quinquenervia)
quinquenervia)
Infests
103,630 acres within Everglades
CISMA
Widely
scattered in sawgrass marsh and
cypress swamps at Big Cypress
Preserve and eastern ENP
In
sawgrass marsh, wet prairie, and
cypress swamp at Loxahatchee NWR,
but down from 2007 DASM .
Percent Cover
Acres
≤5
21,290
6-25
79,346
26-75
2,651
>75
343
Old World Climbing Fern (Lygodium
(Lygodium microphyllum)
microphyllum)
Infests
7,019 acres within Everglades
CISMA
Most
abundant on tree islands but also
invades graminoid/prairie marsh
Only
detectable in open canopied
areas (e.g. gaps) or when dominant
Percent Cover
Acres
≤5
1,808
,
6-25
3,555
26-75
1,532
>75
123
Old World Climbing Fern
is ubiquitous on the tree
islands of Loxahatchee
NWR.
The majority
j
y of bay
y and
dahoon holly islands have
some level of infestation.
Willow-dominated islands
Willowand scrub are lesslessfrequently invaded.
Brazilian Pepper (Schinus
(Schinus terebinthifolius)
terebinthifolius)
 Infests
67,415 acres within Everglades
CISMA
 Not
just a “disturbance weed”
 Dominant
in mangrove
g
fringe
g of SW
Everglades, disturbed lands, and tree
islands
 Displaces
most tree island flora once
dominant
Percent Cover
Acres
≤5
12,614
6-25
30,877
26-75
18,933
>75
4,991
Brazilian pepper a dominant component of buttonwood swamps
and graminoid marshes in the SW Everglades region.
Acreage
g by
y Species
p
Old World
Climbing
g Fern
Cover Class
Melaleuca
Brazilian
Pepper
pp
Australian
Pine
Sparse (<5%)
1,808
21,290
12,614
3,908
Low (5-25%)
3,555
79,346
30,877
1,247
Medium (26-75%)
(26 75%)
1 532
1,532
2 651
2,651
18 933
18,933
564
Dense (>75%)
123
343
4,991
59
Total Gross
I f t d Acres
Infested
A
7,019
103,630
67,415
5,778
Net Acreage*
1,452
14,059
18,780
618
Results of 2009/2010 Everglades DASM
*Net Acreage
= %cover
%cover--adjusted acreage using cover class midpoints
Net Acreage
= (.87)acresdense + (.50)acresmedium + (.15)acreslow + (.02)acressparse
Accuracy Assessment

Visited 181 polygon centroids using stratified
random
d
selection
l ti process
 Species (Old World climbing fern, melaleuca, Brazilian pepper)
 Cover Class (0%,
(0% ≤5%,
≤5% 6
6-25%,
25% 26
26-75%,
75% >75%)
 Polygon Size (0.3–5 ac. & 5–45 ac.)

Used helicopter due to access difficulties
 hovered at low altitude to validate polygon

Observer remapped each infestation without
access to previously drawn polygon
Accuracy Assessment
Validation
OWCF = Old World climbing fern
MEL = Melaleuca
BP = Brazilian pepper
DASM
OWCF
48
0
0
6
54
0.89
MEL
0
41
1
5
47
0.87
BP
0
0
46
2
48
0.96
Null
1
4
3
24
32
0 75
0.75
Sum
50
44
49
29
181
Producer's
P
d
'
Accuracy
0 98
0.98
0 91
0.91
0 92
0.92
0 65
0.65
Costs
•Everglades CISMA = 2.9 million acres
Observers
2 @ $65/hr (162 hrs)
$21,060
GIS/Data Analysis
1 @ $30/hr (80 hrs)
$2,400
Aviation: (Helicopter)
$950/hr (162 hrs)
$153,900
Total Cost
$177,360
Cost / Acre
$0.06
DASM Summary







Provides rapid, operationally-useful data
Accuracy levels acceptable for planning and
operations applications
Good balance between accuracy, promptness,
and cost
Training and strict protocols critical
Early detection generally limited to sparsely
canopied vegetation types
Trend analysis likely but “TBD”
Ground-based monitoring still needed for
understory
d t
species
i
definitely
a pepper
Questions?