MAPPING THE WEST VIEW CEMETERY IN RADFORD, VIRGINIA AND IDENTIFYING POTENTIAL UNMARKED GRAVES USING UNMANNED AERIAL SYSTEMS (UAS)

The West View Cemetery, located in Radford, Virginia, contains approximately 4,000 graves and is spread over a 14.5 acre area. West View Cemetery has been in use since the early 1800’s. It is home to the historical monument and grave of Mary Draper Ingles (1732-1815). At the time of this abstract, the website “Find A Grave” reports that a majority of the gravestones have been photographed by volunteers. However, there is not a system to geographically represent this data. The authors have flown Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) over the cemetery to create a detailed orthophotomosaic map of the area, allowing the authors to create a custom map product. The authors have also taken the geographic data, photographs, demographic information of those buried, and recorded the headstone material. The authors used this data to create an interactive web-based map product for further research of burial practices of Appalachian peoples from the 1800’s to today. The authors also used LiDAR to identify patterns in ground deformation to help identify potential unmarked gravesites within the West View Cemetery and others. This study could help guide the development of best practices for both cemetery management and cemetery cataloging.