Module 2: Wetland Delineation

 Hello all,

This week's lab, we learned about some of the applications of LiDAR in forestry and wetland conservation. We used data in the lab to create a density of vegetation map within the boundary of Shenandoah, Virginia. We also used this data to create a distribution of tree height graph showing that the average tree height could be skewed due to the few outliers of trees above 100 ft. As seen in the graph below, most of the vegetation falls between about 45 and 75 ft. Negative values indicate man-made structures.

Some of the skills we learned in this lab were how to download data from USGS, Virginia.gov, or other source websites and turn it into usable map elements in ARCGIS, creating map elements such as DSM and DEM used for LiDAR analysis, and how to use LiDAR to calculate various keys of interest such as biomass and vegetation height. 

Some errors I found I ned to correct were to make sure I was inputting the input and output items correctly. I found out during the CON tool that after this step my map elements were no longer displaying on my map. It turns out I was inputting 0 into the 'input false raster or constant value' when this item should have been my Ground_Raster. After fixing this error, the rest of the analysis went smoothly until the final map was to be made. Quite interesting tools we used this week; I hope to be able to apply some of the skills I learned this week to future projects.