The land parcels to be surveyed varied in size from 200 to tens of thousands of acres. The current method of meeting the annual compliance requirements was to conduct a multi-day pedestrian survey for each parcel. This method was very time intensive and had limited effectiveness as it often missed critical issues until several years had passed. The large size of most parcels made a pedestrian survey infeasible. Drone-based mapping created a new, efficient technological method to record, review and archive annual compliance requirements.

The project objective was to create baseline orthomosaic imagery and document current site conditions, encroachment issues, illegal dumping, homesteading, change detection over time and possible areas for remediation and cleanup. The mapping is planned to occur annually, providing additional data for comparison and allowing for change detection analysis.

A range of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were used to map each site and create video fly-throughs of each parcel. A baseline of the environmental conditions of each site was created. Additionally, recorded videos were reviewed to look for illegal dumping areas along with other potential remediation issues. Mapping of larger parcels was used to create a virtual fly-through and recorded for mapping reference and archival purposes.

Photogrammetric data was also collected to create a single-pass photogrammetric model which was used to create a 3D fly-through of the locations. Current analysis includes change detection analysis between concurrent photogrammetric datasets and other statistical analysis.