following significant flooding. Steady progress was made after 2015 because of 3DEP
and WROC partner funding coming into the state, with final completion in late 2018.
Despite costs coming down for geospatial data, lidar still remains an investment for
any county. Therefore, it historically hadn’t gotten updated as often as it should to
account for changes in the landscape from floods, construction projects, agriculture,
forestry, or other factors.
Game changer
But everything changed when (competitive) USGS grants came onto the scene in
2015. The average award of a 3DEP grant in Wisconsin has covered 50% of the base
project – which makes budgeting for lidar a more attainable quest for counties.
Clark County, a large, rural county in west-central Wisconsin, was one of the last in the
state to obtain countywide lidar, primarily because of funding challenges. Planning,
Zoning, and Land Information Administrator Derek Weyer doubts the project
would have been completed without the 3DEP program and Ayres’ assistance with
a grant application.
“Never,” said Weyer, who joined the County in 2017. “Well, never say never, but to have
somebody like Ayres who had done it so many times and knew the next step in the
process was invaluable.”
Already, County staff have found great benefits to their new lidar data,
using it to distinguish between disturbed acres from non-disturbed acres in
nonmetallic mining sites, conduct a countywide culvert inventory, and update
floodplains within the County.
“We have a fair amount of Zone A floodplain in the County, and one of the things
that the lidar’s going to allow us to do is to look at changing the Zone As to Zone
AEs, which is going to prove very beneficial not only from a county standpoint but
also from a private property standpoint,” he said, referring to FEMA-based floodplain
map classifications. Zone A areas have a 1% probability of flooding every year and
are in areas where predicted flood water elevations have not been established.
Zone AE areas have the same 1% probability of flooding but have actual calculated
floodwater elevations.
“With Zone AE being so much more accurate than Zone A floodplains, due to the
known elevation, it is of great benefit for the County to get as many floodplains in
Zone AE status,” Weyer said. “The lidar allows us to do this at an accelerated rate.”
Additionally, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation has requested the County’s
lidar data for upcoming projects of its own – saving time, money, and resources – and
18 | TRENDS
Ingenuity, Integrity, and Intelligence.