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Using Drones to Monitor River Restoration

Presenters: Beth Styler Barry, River Restoration Manager, The Nature Conservancy David Zuckerman, Volunteer Licensed Drone Pilot Chuck Gullage, Volunteer Licensed Drone Pilot

Columbia Dam Drone Team: Chuck Gullage, Dave Zuckerman, Nigel Robinson, Jeff Burian, Ellen Creveling, Steve Lyon, Beth Styler Barry, Casey Schrading

Second Annual NJ Watershed Conference

Columbia Dam Volunteer Drone Team

1. How to assemble a Volunteer Drone Team 2. Using drones to tell your story 3. Using drones for quantitative analysis

Using Drones to Monitor River Restoration

1. How to assemble a Volunteer Drone Team 2. Using drones to tell your story 3. Using drones for quantitative analysis

Using drones to help monitor river restoration

Columbia Dam Volunteer Drone Team

•Drone Team Staffing •River Restoration Manager •Licensed Commercial Drone Pilot •Safety Pilot/Observer •Observer •Data/IT Person

Using drones to help monitor river restoration

•Typical Equipment •DJI Phantom Pro •DJI Mavic Pro •Apple iPad

Using drones to help monitor river restoration

•Miscellaneous Equipment • Safety Vests • Traffic Cones • Golf Umbrella • Lawn Chair • iPad Sun Shade • Extra SD Micro Cards • Extra Charged Batteries • Extra Drone

Using drones to help monitor river restoration

•Procedures •Obtain Permission Beforehand •Carry Paperwork •Coordinate With Law Enforcement •Check Data Before Departing

Using drones to help monitor river restoration

Getting an sUAS (small Unmanned Aerial Systems) license

• Why get a sUAS license?

• Paths to getting a license or endorsement

• Current Private Pilot (Part 333 Exclusion) • Abbreviated aeronautical knowledge test

• Non-current Private Pilot/Non-Pilot • Background investigation • Exam fee • Good for 2 years • Full aeronautical knowledge test • Resources

Columbia Dam Volunteer Drone Team

1. How to assemble a Volunteer Drone Team

2. Using drones to tell your story

3. Using drones for quantitative analysis

2. Using drones to tell your story

Columbia Dam Volunteer Drone Team

Who might want to hear your story?

Funders Donors Communities Partners (NGOs) Practitioners

Columbia Dam Volunteer Drone Team

What sort of questions might a drone help answer?

Columbia Dam Volunteer Drone Team

Are our trees growing? Are the banks holding up? Is the channel staying put? Where is sediment collecting?

Columbia Dam Volunteer Drone Team

Columbia Dam Volunteer Drone Team

Columbia Dam Volunteer Drone Team

3. Using drones for quantitative analysis

1. How to assemble a Volunteer Drone Team 2. Using drones to tell your story

Understanding the needs of the “client”

Columbia Dam Volunteer Drone Team

What does the client need to see, learn or be able to explain to others.

Using Drones for Quantitative Analysis: Columbia Dam Removal

Columbia Dam Volunteer Drone Team

The team wants to watch the changes during the dam removal.

• We documented the “pre” conditions

• Documented stages of lowering

• Going beyond just the pictures

Photogrammetry is the science of making measurements from photographs, especially for recovering the exact positions of surface points.

Columbia Dam Volunteer Drone Team

Photogrammetry allows us to map changes at intervals during the project.

Quantitative Analysis

Columbia Dam Volunteer Drone Team

Ground Point Controls

Columbia Dam Volunteer Drone Team

Several ground control point coordinates are used to calculate the coordinates. In the field, ground control points are marked in a way that makes them visible later on aerial photographs.

Ground Point Controls

Thank you!

Any questions?