- United States
- Environmental monitoring
Wetlands are the superheroes of storm damage prevention—here’s how MAP61 is helping them stay strong
According to NOAA, as of November 1, 2024, the US saw 24 confirmed natural disasters, each exceeding 1 billion USD in damages. For context, the 1980–2023 annual average was 8.5 events. But there’s a bright side to this story if we take action: Wetlands and wetland monitoring helps reduce the damage of these more frequent natural disasters significantly. And drone data—based on the latest technology—helps professionals do that more efficiently than ever before.
Challenges
Billions of dollars a year could be saved if wetlands are conserved restored as buffer zones between the brunt of storms and nearby residential areas. So land owners are now compensated to manage them. Surveying huge, inaccessible areas is hard to do efficiently.
Solutions
Drone data is key to getting these areas documented, starting with high-accuracy and high-resolution baseline conditions. In cases where wetlands are being used as preventative mitigation banks, Wingtra data is useful to monitor species composition and health.
The power of US wetlands, at a glance
The above figures are cited from the US EPA, 2018, Nature Conservancy and Lloyd’s of London, 2016, and Boston University and USGS 2017.
Army Corps Geographer and assistant professor at VCU’s Rice River Center, Will Shuart describes why payload quality matters to the final survey product. He particularly emphasizes mechanical shutter tech and drone flight stability as factors that improve your drone survey outcomes, especially when trees are involved.
An invaluable survey tool
Shuart has been working with Wingtra for several years. He’s mapped with every payload the drone can carry. And he’s provided a range of valuable data to various projects, including wetland survey data for carbon credits and billions of dollars of storm prevention.
Nationwide, USA
Wetland mapping, forest mapping, Army Corps surveys
The Wingtra difference for wetlands mapping
Big, inaccessible areas
Wetlands are large zones, inaccessible on foot—so a drone needs to fly from a take-off point to the capture area and back.
Wingtra VTOL and efficiency
Wingtra’s VTOL enables take-off and landing from compact points, while its fixed-wing flight enables huge areas covered per flight.
Tight wetland flight windows
Tides and precipitation can reduce the windows of data capture time and make it hard to predict when it’s even possible
Easy setup and fast capture
Wingtra constantly upgrades from the best-in-class cameras by Sony, which offer high res, sharp imagery.
High detail
MAP61 oblique configuration
Getting good baseline data
Efficient surveys
Data sets and accuracy reports
Will Shuart has been flying Wingtra for years and has every Wingtra payload. Wingtra RGB payloads in particular are founded in leading-edge Sony cameras.
These cameras offer premium optics and speed that promotes sharp imagery. Shuart’s experience offers a glimpse of the trade-offs across payloads in terms of coverage, accuracy, image weight and flight time. He’s especially excited about MAP61 since it grabs fine details in 3D for tree counts.
Accuracy reports are a full, in-depth testament to the quality of the optics of any payload. Check these example reports Shuart provided for a look at the real accuracy achieved.
Wingtra LIDAR for wetlands mapping
Adding Wingtra LIDAR data to the analytics brings a new level of analytics as classification of the data enhances tree counts and also helps monitor terrain. For this video, Shuart flew at 200 ft (61 m) AGL for a point density of about 80 ppm.