Constructing a Coastal Plains Wetland Delineation Model Using Hyperspatial LiDAR Data.

Wetlands provide critical ecosystem services across a range of environmental gradients and are at heightened risk of degradation from anthropogenic pressures and continued development, especially in coastal regions. There is a growing need for high resolution, spatially and temporally, accurate habitat identification and precise delineation of wetlands across a variety of stakeholder groups, including wetlands loss mitigation programs. Traditional wetland delineations are costly, time-intensive and can physically degrade the systems that are being surveyed, while aerial surveys are relatively fast and unobtrusive and can be performed on demand. One significant drawback of delineations performed using remote sensing is often the lack of structural data to help differentiate between spectrally-similar vegetation types. In order to more accurately assess the vertical structure of complex forested wetlands in the Atlantic Coastal Plains, we quantitatively assess the relative performance of UAS-borne LiDAR data in terms of point cloud and terrain metrics when compared with traditional airborne LiDAR. We show that UAS-borne LiDAR data is effective in penetrating canopies to provide high resolution, high accuracy ground measurements, supplemented by vegetation structure measurements under a range of canopy cover densities. The ultra-high resolution of LiDAR-derived topography models can fill wetlands mapping needs and increase accuracy and efficiency of detection and prediction of sensitive wetland ecosystems.