MONROE - It's a chilly day and a fog has settled over the Monroe Municipal Airport.
"We are going to have to wait until that fog burns off. Welcome to spring," said Jason Carlson, environmental specialist at Applied Ecological Services Inc. in Brodhead.
He and another AES employee are here to shake out the cobwebs and get ready to do some airborne vegetation mapping. They will be taking a few test flights around Monroe to calibrate an aerial mapping system that utilizes infrared photography. AES workers have been flying around southern Wisconsin in a Cessna Stationair 6 for about three years now, using a highly advanced, precise digital camera mounted in the plane to view vegetation. They use the camera to take an index of the vegetation in the areas where they are working on ecological projects. The camera can shoot traditional pictures and near-infrared imaging to color index anything from leaf cover to invasive weeds to problem watersheds where flash flooding is a concern.
"Historically, you would just shoot down a hole," Carlson said.
Now AES has the Leica RCD30 digital camera, a bulky medium format camera that can shoot precisely detailed images from about 5,000 feet up in the air. Carlson said they can take pictures with a resolution of 2 inches per pixel up to 18 inches per pixel, depending on how high the plane is flying. The larger the area they photograph, the less resolution and vice versa.
AES works with Ayres Associates, a Madison engineering firm, which uses the images AES gets and plugs them into a mapping system similar to Google Earth. They can then take these maps and, based on the time of year, discern tree cover, bank erosion on river systems, road infrastructure and many other uses. Carlson said his company used this method to find wild rice populations that were submerged under water, a project AES did for two Native American tribes in Michigan to help restore the native plants.
AES has two camera operators and three pilots at their disposal, but Carlson said their work is highly dependent on the weather.
"You're really only shooting on sunny days and weekends," he said.
Carlson said they typically map a 200- to 300-square mile area at a time and log in about 300 hours of flight time per year. On this foggy day, they are getting some training in before spring is fully in bloom. Over the next few months, they will map vegetation growth and seek out areas that require restoration management like controlled burning and clearing.
"We're very much focussed with projects before flying," Carlson said.
The mapping helps ground crews understand where the most work is needed, and they can also find watersheds where flash flooding could occur.
"It really enhances our capabilities to view watersheds and mitigate flooding," he said.
AES recently received a portion of a large grant aimed at restoring the Great Lakes. AES will be working to restore the coastal areas of Green Bay and the Fox River. Initial efforts will be taken to map out the problem areas using this process of flying over and photographing.
Carlson said this advanced technology has greatly enhanced AES's work and lowered their costs of groundwork.
"I suppose it's ironic we have this fancy camera strapped into a 1970s orange-painted plane," he said.
"We are going to have to wait until that fog burns off. Welcome to spring," said Jason Carlson, environmental specialist at Applied Ecological Services Inc. in Brodhead.
He and another AES employee are here to shake out the cobwebs and get ready to do some airborne vegetation mapping. They will be taking a few test flights around Monroe to calibrate an aerial mapping system that utilizes infrared photography. AES workers have been flying around southern Wisconsin in a Cessna Stationair 6 for about three years now, using a highly advanced, precise digital camera mounted in the plane to view vegetation. They use the camera to take an index of the vegetation in the areas where they are working on ecological projects. The camera can shoot traditional pictures and near-infrared imaging to color index anything from leaf cover to invasive weeds to problem watersheds where flash flooding is a concern.
"Historically, you would just shoot down a hole," Carlson said.
Now AES has the Leica RCD30 digital camera, a bulky medium format camera that can shoot precisely detailed images from about 5,000 feet up in the air. Carlson said they can take pictures with a resolution of 2 inches per pixel up to 18 inches per pixel, depending on how high the plane is flying. The larger the area they photograph, the less resolution and vice versa.
AES works with Ayres Associates, a Madison engineering firm, which uses the images AES gets and plugs them into a mapping system similar to Google Earth. They can then take these maps and, based on the time of year, discern tree cover, bank erosion on river systems, road infrastructure and many other uses. Carlson said his company used this method to find wild rice populations that were submerged under water, a project AES did for two Native American tribes in Michigan to help restore the native plants.
AES has two camera operators and three pilots at their disposal, but Carlson said their work is highly dependent on the weather.
"You're really only shooting on sunny days and weekends," he said.
Carlson said they typically map a 200- to 300-square mile area at a time and log in about 300 hours of flight time per year. On this foggy day, they are getting some training in before spring is fully in bloom. Over the next few months, they will map vegetation growth and seek out areas that require restoration management like controlled burning and clearing.
"We're very much focussed with projects before flying," Carlson said.
The mapping helps ground crews understand where the most work is needed, and they can also find watersheds where flash flooding could occur.
"It really enhances our capabilities to view watersheds and mitigate flooding," he said.
AES recently received a portion of a large grant aimed at restoring the Great Lakes. AES will be working to restore the coastal areas of Green Bay and the Fox River. Initial efforts will be taken to map out the problem areas using this process of flying over and photographing.
Carlson said this advanced technology has greatly enhanced AES's work and lowered their costs of groundwork.
"I suppose it's ironic we have this fancy camera strapped into a 1970s orange-painted plane," he said.