If there’s one thing the Lake County Forest Preserves understands and does well, it’s using aerial imagery to protect, monitor and manage the natural environment.
They’ve been using aerial imagery since 1939. But what they lacked was the ability to see change on a more regular basis. The aerial captures being flown in the county were occurring every two years or so.
Enter Nearmap. The Lake County GIS/Mapping division started looking at the capabilities of Nearmap after discovering how many times a year they captured imagery in their area. “We needed more consistency, more current imagery we could rely on,” says Nick Spittlemeister, GIS analyst in the Planning and Land Preservation Department.
Tracking invasive species in HD
Dave Cassin, Superintendent of Natural Resources for Lake County Forest Preserves, uses aerial imagery as a critical component in the care and monitoring of the forest environment. Cassin runs field crews that investigate, identify and monitor invasive species management, controlled burning, tree planting, tree removal and more.
“Using Nearmap imagery,” comments Cassin, “we’ve been able to monitor an area we had burned to control the spread of phragmites. In evaluating an area that had not yet been burned, the phragmites were easily distinguishable. We could even see the flower heads on a plant.”
Within Collector on the ArcGIS platform, Cassin’s crews mapped the spread of the phragmites, creating polygons to frame impacted areas.
“Having Nearmap’s quarterly aerials really helps because of the phenology of plants changes through the season,” says Cassin. “This is a colonizing plant; it grows very circular. In the spring, it doesn’t quite stand out yet, there’s no real pop in color. But it bolts in the fall and is really easy to spot. We can use Nearmap’s imagery to easily show the striking difference between burned and unburned phragmites.”
Cassin’s crews were able to digitize the phragmites for monitoring using a Web AppBuilder for ArcGIS application. “Due to COVID-19, our Natural Resources crew members, who would normally be working in the field, used the application remotely from home to draw the extents of the phragmites populations based on Nearmap’s imagery,” says Spittlemeister.
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Nearmap’s imagery helped Cassin’s team identify the burned area of phragmites as well we clearly define two other blooming growths. Captured Sat., Oct. 12, 2019 (Imagery: Nearmap)
Planning in the time of COVID-19
Like many other public serving entities, the Lake County Forest Preserves was faced with countless challenges in stepping up to address the COVID-19 pandemic. One such challenge? Identifying and locating picnic tables normally used for outside congregating.
A request came in to round up all of the picnic tables in their five dog parks, popular places for the public to gather. The Lake County Health Department asked that they be removed, so when parks reopened, it would help to reduce intense social gathering at those points.
Kevin Kleinjan, Senior Engineer of Operations and Infrastructure for Lake County Forest Preserves, started mapping out the location of each picnic table using Collector for ArcGIS. By dropping points and identifying the tables in the dog parks, Kleinjan could send his crews out to quickly and easily recover the tables from the field.
“I didn’t have any data or information available in the beginning to me of where they were, how many there were—our sites are fairly large,” shares Kleinjan. “But I was able to open up our most recent capture from Nearmap, which was in March. That was around the time we shut everything down so there hadn’t been a lot of activity, and we knew we could trust that the tables would be where they were.”
The ability to plan remotely—and keep crews safe during the pandemic—also helped alleviate the strain of staying compliant with social distancing rules. “This created an efficiency and saved us a lot of time. No one had to visit a site beforehand to identify how many tables were there,” says Kleinjan.
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The benefits of seeing clearly
“Nearmap is just so unique in the fact that you’re able to get aerial photography—get that clear imagery—within a week or two after the capture,” reflects Spittlemeister. “And getting it across seasons? We use that routinely across many of our projects, whether they are developmental or restoration based. Before Nearmap, we’d have to wait nine to 12 months for access to imagery from other companies.”
Nearmap flies regularly across the U.S. and Canada, capturing up to three times per year in major urban areas. Industries such as AEC, State and Local Government, Real Estate, Insurance, Roofing, Solar and many more, use Nearmap’s high-resolution aerial content.
For more information about Nearmap, visit www.nearmap.com or download the free white paper below.
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This page was produced by North Coast Media’s content marketing staff in collaboration with Nearmap. NCM Content Marketing connects marketers to audiences and delivers industry trends, business tips and product information. The GPS World editorial staff did not create this content.
Header image: Nearmap