Welcome to the 2026 GIS in Action Annual Conference hosted by the Oregon & SW Washington Chapter of the Geospatial Professional Network & Cascadia ASPRS.
Topographic-bathymetric lidar is a critical tool for coastal resilience, infrastructure planning, and nautical charting. Woolpert, Inc. collects topo-bathymetric lidar using Leica’s HawkEye5 system mounted on a fixed-wing aircraft, enabling efficient, high-resolution mapping of coasts, rivers, and lakes. The system simultaneously collects topographic and bathymetric data, allowing continuous coverage across the littoral zone. Compared to traditional vessel based acoustic surveys, airborne topo-bathymetric lidar excels in nearshore and shallow regions (~0–20 m) where vessel operations can be unsafe or inefficient. Clients include the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP). These projects support applications such as change analysis, disaster response, navigational charting, and deeper water applications (up to 50m) such as benthic habitat mapping, underwater obstacle detection. Collection and processing challenges, including weather, water clarity, turbidity, and vegetation, require careful planning and adaptive workflows. GIS plays a central role in the workflow, supporting flight planning, coverage assessment, quality control, result validation, and product creation. Examples of final deliverables include seamless topo-bathymetric digital elevation models (DEM), web maps, and derived feature layers to support informed decision making.
