VICKSBURG, Miss. – A team from the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center’s (ERDC) Environmental Laboratory (EL) recently received the Sebastian Sizgoric Technical Achievement Award from the Joint Airborne Lidar Bathymetry Technical Center of Expertise (JALBTCX) at their annual Coastal Mapping and Charting Workshop. The award recognizes any worldwide public or private contributor striving to advance the science of using light detection and ranging, or lidar, in coastal mapping and charting.
Sam Jackson, Christina Saltus, Glenn Suir and Molly Reif of EL’s Environmental Systems Branch are currently working on a project, During Nearshore Event Vegetation Gradation (DUNEVEG), to extract metrics from lidar and hyperspectral imagery to remotely quantify dune vegetation biological characteristics. The goal of the project is to develop semi-automated tools that provide rapid and accurate estimates of these high priority metrics, thereby improving the ability of coastal managers to assess and predict storm impacts as well as other important applications. The work is part of on-going research and development funded by the USACE National Coastal Mapping Program.
“The efforts of the DUNEVEG project are helping to advance existing dune and wetland system knowledge and remote sensing techniques for developing new technologies to classify, quantify and estimate critical dune vegetation metrics,” said Mark Graves, EL Environmental Systems Branch chief. “I am extremely proud of our ERDC team for receiving this prestigious award for the work they are doing.”
According to JALBTCX, “the Sebastian Sizgoric Technical Achievement Award exemplifies Sebastian Sizgoric's creativeness and passion for lidar. The recipient will have made a major contribution in the field of lidar bathymetry and airborne coastal mapping and charting within the past two years. The goal of the award is to recognize those who are making notable contributions to science and practice.”
“It was a great honor for our team to receive the Sebastian Sizgoric Award at the 2022 JALBTCX workshop. It was an unexpected surprise to be recognized with such a prestigious award for our work and we are so grateful to be chosen as the recipient this year,” said Sam Jackson, EL Environmental Systems Branch project lead. “We would like to thank the JALBTCX and Jennifer Wozencraft for the opportunity to contribute our DUNEVEG work and for acknowledging our efforts among so many other deserving professionals in the field of coastal mapping.”