Management and Publication of Drone Imagery for Long-Term Land Use Monitoring

Project Lead

Francisco Artigas

Project Description

The Meadowlands Environmental Research Institute (MERI) submits this application under FY 2021 National Environmental Information Exchange Network Grant Program. If successful, this project will allow the NJSEA to capture long term land use changes in the urban estuary of the Lower Hackensack River using drone technology and cloud publishing services. The proposed work supports EN Funding Area 1: Increased Data Access and Innovative Business Processes - by improving and facilitating environmental decision making by providing timely access to high resolution drone imagery and spatial information. The project supports EPA Strategic Goal 3, Objective 3.4 ‘Streamline and Modernize’ by creating an open, interoperable and conveniently accessible data portal where agencies can search, view, and, upon formal request, download drone imagery to facilitate permitting and compliance tracking. MERI will develop a cloud hosted interface that is updated continuously and allows for sharing, analyzing and displaying environmental data over the long term, supporting EPA’s E-Enterprise Web Portal effort by providing quick access to environmental data.

Problem

The post-processing and publication of drone imagery is a multi-step process and requires using several different technology platforms and tools. An online platform or desktop software consumes the raw imagery and creates various image products. The outputs from these platforms are processed with a Geographic Information System platform to overlay spatial attributes. Create a final product that is shared in a presentation or document or may be published over the web through web-facing services.

Ideally, any agency would like to have access to well-organized geospatial data in the future and easily search for and share this new "home-grown drone data'' within the agency and between agencies.

Objective

Address the problem by developing a solution for automated processing and long-term storage and retrieval of drone imagery and related image products.

Strategy

Build a data management and archival system that provide a long-term storage solution and discoverable archive database that holds the image products that accumulate over time, allowing the agency to track land use management changes and nature conservation efforts over time.