Evolution of the USACE National Coastal Mapping Program and Implementation of Small Unmanned Aerial Systems

In 2004 the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) initiated their National Coastal Mapping Program (NCMP) to collect high resolution bathymetric and topographic data and imagery data along the sandy shores of the United States on a reoccurring basis. This program is executed by the Joint Airborne Lidar Bathymetry Technical Center of Expertise (JALBTCX). The NCMP historically performed regional scale mapping to support the Regional Sediment Management community. With the addition of a hyperspectral imagery the program quickly expanded its stake holder base to include coastal managers and organizations performing environmental studies. As mapping technologies advanced and the users desired higher resolution data, the NCMP continued to incorporate the next generation systems to meet the demand. At the present time, JALBTCX utilizes the Teledyne Coastal Zone Mapping and Imaging Lidar (CZMIL)Nova bathymetric and topographic lidar system along with a Teledyne Galaxy Prime topographic sensor, an Itres CASI-1500, and a PhaseOne 150MP true color camera. This suite of sensors allows the Program to generate products with high resolution lidar, imagery, and spectral information. As these datasets have grown, it became apparent that additional product lines also needed to be generated to provide the information required by the end users instead of just supplying the standard data products. JALBTCX brought in Coastal Engineers from the USACE Engineering Research and Development Center (ERDC) to utilize these different data products to create a series of analytical tools that deliver the information required for organization leaders to make informed decisions about activities occurring along the coastline. The latest evolution of the NCMP is to incorporate small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS) to provide an even higher resolution set of products to study microscale projects with a level of detail that was previously cost prohibitive to acquire. Microscale projects are often time sensitive and require an additional level of detail to provide Coastal Engineers and Project Managers with more informative, metric-based decision-making products. The JALBTCX has employed the GeoCue True View 640 UAS Lidar system to provide over 100 pts/m
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and 2 cm Ground Sample Distance (GSD)imagery for these efforts. JALBTCX-based ERDC Coastal Engineers are also exploring the use of land and sUAS based ground penetrating radar (GPR) to add a subsurface set of information. Additional investigations are underway with UAS based topobathy lidar systems and hyperspectral imagers to provide the same ultra-high resolution data products across the land-sea interface. JALBTCX is striving to implement guiBathy in these microscale projects utilizing UAS based data collection. guiBathy utilizes sUAS video of incoming waves to the shoreline to estimate the near shore bathymetric profile based on the wave structure. This paper will outline the current standard products for the NCMP, their efforts on advanced, fusion products for the coastal managers, and the new capabilities and innovative approaches that JALBTCX is undertaking to support both the regional and microscale projects being performed along our coastlines.