Laser sharp digital maps are part of Next generation
Maps are being used since ancient times for the purpose of navigation and remembering their respectives paths and directions.
They too along with every other thing in this world have evolved from simple huge wall maps, then on some cloth and papers to digital maps. They play huge role in our lives and makes our life simpler.
Maps are also being used to detect the Restoring habitat for spawning species of fish, such as Atlantic salmon, starts with a geological inventory of suitable rivers and streams, and the watershed systems that support them. But the high-tech mapping tools available to geologists and hydrologists have had their limits as every other technology.
Lasers are being used in vaarious applications such as radar,cancer treatments, medical applications and many more. Now these
Lasers are used for beaming from planes overhead are adding greater clarity to mapping streams and rivers and interpreting how well these bodies of water can help maintain or expand fish stocks, according to a new study.
“It’s kind of like going from your backyard telescope to the Hubble telescope”.Restoring fish habitat is just one example. For the fisherman, backpacker, forester, land use planner or developer – anyone who uses map data – this new technology is the next revolution in mapping.
Airborne laser elevation (or lidar) surveys provide a 10-fold improvement in the precision with which topographical features are measured, Snyder reports in the current edition of Eos, the weekly journal of the American Geophysical Union.
Lidar represents the latest technology to improve digital topographical maps – known as digital elevation models, or DEMs. Pulsing laser beams released by a lidar device from a plane overhead bounce off of rocks, trees, soil, even water, and send signals back to the device, which makes topographical calculations based on the time it takes the laser signal to return at the speed of light.
Hundreds of beams produce a dynamic topographical picture. In the case of streams and rivers, the technology means that channel features such as water surface, bank edges, floodplains, even the slope of a stream, can be measured. In addition, lidar provides new types of data about the vegetation that covers a particular watershed, such as the height and density of the tree canopy.
DEM technology, which digitized topographical maps in the early 1990s, led to breakthroughs in research ranging from the relationship between hillside and stream processes to the response of rivers to climate change. But the technology did reveal some limits, such as difficult profiling relatively smooth landscapes.
Traditional DEMs offer a resolution that provides one measure of elevation value for every 10-square meters of ground. Lidar mapping offers one measure of elevation value for each square meter, reports Snyder, whose research was funded by the National Science Foundation.
The amount of land currently mapped using lidar is gradually expanding. The state of Connecticut is the only stated entirely mapped via lidar. Pennsylvania has embarked on a lidar mapping project. Researchers, government agencies and private companies are increasingly using the technology to speed the creation of the next generation of maps.
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