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Environmental Crime teams in the Environment Agency are interested in making assessments of illegal waste sites. They approached the team at Geomatics Group about developing techniques for making assessments using remotely sensed data. To do this, archive LIDAR are used to provide the ‘before’ status of a site. More recent LIDAR data, sometimes specifically acquired for the purpose (along with aerial photography), are used to provide the current conditions. Using these data, Geomatics Group can provide those involved in a prosecution with information on volumes of waste being dumped. Additionally, ‘before’ and ‘after’ images can be produced as a visual aid to understand the impacts of dumping. Without LIDAR, accurate volume information about illegal waste often isn’t available prior to the waste’s removal. As fines and compensation are generally set before waste removal, LIDAR provides a way of accurately setting compensation, as well as being used to provide information for the prosecution itself.


Another area where technology has provided a push is the increasing ability to acquire data from multiple instruments simultaneously. These data may be combined to provide products with increased accuracy, or completely new products that could not be generated from a single type of data. This is particularly true of airborne data, as it is relatively easy to mount multiple instruments on a plane. In this way simultaneous topographical elevation data, standard aerial photography, false-colour aerial photography, multispectral imagery and thermal data can be acquired. Not only can each of the datasets be used for multiple purposes individually, but when combined a whole new range of products may be derived. Though the popular perception of remote sensing is that it is expensive, remotely sensed data can work out significantly cheaper than other sources of data, if the value per-map or output is taken into account.


Due to the multi-purpose outputs that may be derived from the data, there is now the realisation that the acquisition of remotely sensed data for a single area is of interest to government and businesses, as well as local interest groups. In an environment where multiple organisations fund data acquisition, costs per partner are reduced. The knowledge base used to generate the outputs is also shared, thus increasing the usefulness of the derived operational products. When this is the case, the interaction between those commissioning the data acquisition and those producing the data products is at the heart of the project and is the key to its success.


A recent project carried out by Geomatics Group, funded by many organisations, including Dartmoor National Park Authority, Natural England and South West Water, looked at the provision of various map outputs of Dartmoor National Park using airborne remote sensing. Archaeology, ecological variables, hydrology, erosion and grazing land quality were some of the map outputs produced from the LIDAR, multispectral and photography


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data acquired on a single mission. This was a great example of how large numbers of high quality products could be produced when highly accurate data were combined in the right project environment.


An area where remote sensing has a distinct advantage over other forms of monitoring is in terms of legacy potential. Data acquired from the ground tend to have single or limited use, for example a habitat map. We have seen from the LIDAR examples above that there are a great number of potential uses of remotely sensed data acquired at a single time. These uses are not necessarily considered at the time of data acquisition. This means that, in some instances, baselines for variables may be acquired, even though the variable may not have been considered. Once the data have been acquired, they may be re-worked to provide multiple map outputs a long time after acquisition, as changes in monitoring requirements dictate.


Remote sensing cannot provide all of the answers, but by targeting its use to areas where there is the possibility of multiple outputs, by being smart in the acquisition of data and by ensuring that users are involved in product development and production, remote sensing has a strong future in UK mapping.


Image - Environment Agency Geomatics Group's Cessna survey aircraft


Image below - DTM derived from Airborne LIDAR, revealing iron age fort, Sherfield on Loddon, near Basingstoke, Hampshire

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