New Aerial Imaging Tools Offer Cost Effective Assessments

A new defense-grade, multi-spectral aerial imagery camera is being used to measure land-use changes, impacts of storms on cities, crops and forests, and damage to infrastructure such as pavement and airport runways. One other huge development this technology provides is the capability to use imagery to measure crop damages and yields.

Multi-spectral imagery is a value-added insurance tool that is extremely useful for precise measurement and monetization of crop failure as well as management of crop risks from drought, floods, winds and hail.

For example, during the summer of 2012, USDA reports of moderate to severe drought-affected crops covered 62 percent of the Corn Belt. The camera technology was used for measuring crop damages to corn in accordance with the USDA crop failure handbook. Damage was assessed using 4-band multi-spectral imagery, which captured images on the ground, to measure plant height and the number of vigorous green versus brown leaves which would indicate a healthy or dying crop. Using this data, landscape-scale maps were created to show zones of crop failure and damage.

Damages from extreme weather events have also been mapped with the camera, and can be used to measure and project recovery costs such as after the Joplin, Mo., or Henryville, Ind., tornadoes. This includes documentation of damaged or lost homes, forest tree damages and crop damages.

Spot hail damage measurements can be flown quickly after a storm to document crop losses and impacted acreages. With the help of geographic information systems, property boundaries can be draped over the imagery to document risks and projected losses by individual farm. In the event of a natural disaster, this technology allows insurance companies and government agencies to measure the scope of the devastation quickly and efficiently.

The technology is also being used to measure and map failing septic tanks, which is useful for compliance monitoring. It can ultimately help in improving downstream water quality in lakes, streams and potable water supplies. Mapping storm water runoff from urban areas and distribution of suspended solids, nutrients and contaminants has been linked through maps of invasive aquatic plants, such as European water mille foil, which is becoming increasingly abundant in urban lakes.

Erosion sources in uplands and sediment depositions have also been mapped. In higher clarity waterways, this imaging tool can map bottom conditions down to several meters depth. This is now a way to map underwater sediment deposits more accurately and less expensively than has been possible by probing and coring from boats.

What is often most useful and promising is the just-in-time capability of the new camera and airplane. For ecological projects, images need to be shot during narrow windows of time such as right after a storm event to map runoff conditions, or when an invasive plant is in bloom for mapping its distribution. The selection of plane and camera allow flying low and slow, and can operate under lower light conditions, including flying beneath cloud cover, which usually shuts down other aerial photography technologies carried in faster planes and satellites that fly high.