needs for high-quality topographic data and three-dimensional representations of
the country’s natural and built features. Its goal is to acquire national lidar data within
eight years to provide a baseline of consistent, high-quality data. The first full year of
3DEP production began in 2015 and, already, more than 60% of the country has data
meeting the program’s stringent accuracy and resolution specifications.
Ayres coordinates Wisconsin’s 3DEP Program and has produced more than 22,000
square miles of lidar statewide.
“Wisconsin needs to continually update its elevation mapping for anything
from construction projects to FEMA floodplain mapping to risk assessments to
environmental studies,” explained Adam Derringer, a senior project manager in
Ayres’ Geospatial Services division. “Before 3DEP funding was available, it was up
to the client to complete a project on their own. In 2015, when new federal funding
became available, we started to build an education program around the state,
meeting with counties in various regions to develop that partnership between
the local governments and federal agencies to complete new updated elevation
mapping across the state.”
Ayres functions as program manager, in cooperation with the Wisconsin Department
of Administration, and coordinates 3DEP grant funding with the project partners. The
firm works with individual counties (and, in some instances, municipalities) to define
project specifications and meet – or beat – USGS base specifications. Ayres’ survey
staff collect independent checkpoints to test the lidar data throughout the project
area to ensure data accuracy and integrity. Ayres’ geospatial technicians process
billions of elevation points from the sensors to classify the points to features like
the ground, water, trees, bridges, and buildings. Ayres then produces final reports
and works with the USGS for acceptance and inclusion of the data into the national
3DEP Program. To date, Ayres has helped bring more than $2.3 million in USGS 3DEP
funding to 40 counties.
Joining forces for complete coverage
For the first time, complete lidar coverage was achieved statewide in 2018. Wisconsin
counties led the way with funding and initiating these projects, with established
Wisconsin Regional Orthoimagery Consortium (WROC) funding partners such as the
Natural Resources Conservation Service and U.S. Forest Service playing a significant
role in helping the counties achieve their lidar.
“Having an established program like WROC, with funding partners in place, helped
show USGS we were organized and had past successes working together in the state,”
said Zach Nienow, a senior project manager at Ayres and WROC program manager.
The complex, multi-phased process began with the first countywide lidar flight
in 2002 with significant progress made in 2010 in the southern third of the state
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