May 15, 2013 – Calgary, Alberta – LiDAR Services International Inc., (LSI), a Calgary based airborne LiDAR mapping company, announced they will be mobilizing a fixed wing aircraft equipped with an advanced laser mapping system into Saskatchewan for an 835 km2 flood mapping project north of Saskatoon around the Rural Municipality of Corman Park.
The aircraft is scheduled to arrive on site towards the end of May. LiDAR, an acronym for Light Detection and Ranging, is scanning laser technology which accurately measures topography or surface elevations to an accuracy of less than 15 cm. The collected data will include LiDAR point clouds classified to determine Ground, Low Vegetation and High Vegetation, a Bare Earth Model, Greyscale hillshades of Bare Earth and Full Feature surfaces at 1 m pixel resolution, and Orthorectified mosaicked color digital imagery with 0.20 m pixel size. Once processed and integrated, the LiDAR data will become part of a detailed concept plan for North Corman drainage.
On May 7th the Rural Municipality of Corman Park declared a local state of emergency due to flooding of roadways, land and private property. The Water Security Agency informed the media that Corman Park is experiencing above average flooding because of changes to the landscape from increased development over the past 40 years. High rainfalls last fall combined with heavy snow have left the earth saturated.
“In regions of closed basin prairie hydrology with gentle elevation change, like the Rural Municipality of Corman Park, LiDAR data has been essential to acquiring the level of detail required in developing solutions for flooding problems,” said Dwayne Keir, manager of Infrastructure and Watershed Planning, Rural Municipality of Corman Park No. 344. “The challenge is to evaluate and then identify the hydrology of flood prone areas, while assessing the risk of water runoff problems from snow melt and extreme precipitation scenarios. With these understandings as a starting point, the goal is to ultimately design detailed options to construct solutions that remedy existing problems while minimizing any future concerns.”
LiDAR is commonly used to accurately determine river and stream networks, develop computer-based flood simulations, and delineate floodplains. The data is used in conjunction with hydrography to describe the geometry of streams and rivers, and hydrology to predict the amount of water flowing in streams, simulate flow behavior and estimate flood elevations.
“Airborne LIDAR technology allows large areas of precise data to be captured relatively quickly and economically without direct access to the areas of interest. LIDAR is particularly well suited to flood mapping whereby massive amounts of accurate topographic points are collected which is critical in flat areas where the difference of flood waters rising by an additional foot can inundate thousands of acres. This knowledge can make the difference between flood remediation efforts being effective or not,” said Tony Tubman, president, LSI.
About LiDAR Services International Inc.
LiDAR Services International Inc., is a Canadian, Calgary based airborne LiDAR provider that celebrates 11 years of airborne operations in 2013. LSI owns and operates a number of proprietary airborne LiDAR systems that have been used on projects throughout North America, Central and South America as well as Africa and Asia. What differentiates LiDAR Services International from other mapping companies is their single-minded commitment to their client’s project, their unequalled experience, knowledge, technical expertise, innovation and customized survey solutions and services. For more information contact Kari-Ann McNabb, LiDAR Services International, 403-517-3130, kariann.mcnabb@lidarservices.ca, or visit www.lidarservices.ca.