DEVELOPING A METHOD TO REMOTELY LOCATE EROSIONAL FEATURES USING A HIGH RESOLUTION DIGITAL ELEVATION MODEL

Erosional features can have a negative effect on water quality, fishing, tourism, and overall ecosystem health due to increased sedimentation in streams. This project endeavors to better understand if eroding drainage gullies created by road runoff in steep terrain are remotely identifiable. If the gullies are identifiable, we hope to determine if they are a significant contributing factor to sediment pollution. To do this, we utilized the recently released North Carolina LIDAR data. The previously available Digital Elevation Model (DEM) had a resolution 6.1 m and was therefore too coarse to locate these narrow linear features. The new DEM has a resolution of 1.0 m, potentially making these features identifiable. For preliminary identification, we calculated and combined several landscape metrics, such as topographic contours, a hillshade, and slope to manually locate erosional features. So far, it appears we were able to identify erosional features. In the future, we will field verify the identified potential erosional gullies. Finally, we present a plan to develop an automated process that is capable of accurately locating these features.