Geomorphic Change Detection Workshop

Via Joe Wheaton at Utah State comes this announcement on an upcoming workshop he'll be leading on using repeat topographic data to detect geomorphic change. Joe has been leading the development of the Geomorphic Change Detection (GCD) software package and has spent a lot of time thinking about uncertainties in digital elevation models and how those uncertainties impact the ability to detect real geomorphic change between surveys. The workshop is offered as part of the Stream Restoration course series offered by USU.

Restoration Monitoring: Geomorphic Change Detection Workshop

May 12-13, 2011, in Park City, Utah

This intensive 2-day workshop will give participants an understanding of the theory and tools used to detect geomorphic change based on repeat topographic data using a variety of ground-based and remotely-sensed surveying technologies.

The workshop will be a mix of formal lectures, computer-based lab activities, and discussion sections. The cost for the course is $700 and includes instruction, software, class materials and some meals.

Instruction will be lead by Joe Wheaton (Utah State University), Philip Bailey (ESSA Technologies) and Jack Schmidt (Utah State University).

The workshop is intended for individuals who are charged with interpreting and/or designing geomorphic monitoring campaigns with repeat topography. The course focuses less on the field acquisition of data and more on the analysis and interpretation of that data. Participants will gain a working knowledge of how to apply the newly-developed Geomorphic Change Detection software (GCD 5). Participants are expected to have a basic working knowledge of ArcGIS.

Background
Geomorphic change detection is a technique by which changes from the geomorphic processes of erosion and deposition are inferred from repeat topographic surveys. Due to the quantitative and spatially explicit results it yields, geomorphic change detection is rapidly becoming a more common tool in the monitoring of rivers and in particular restoration monitoring. The biggest challenge in employing such techniques is quantitatively distinguishing changes due to geomorphic processes from those changes due to noise and uncertainty inherent in the digital elevation models.

Participants will learn how to segregate calculated changes due to noise from those that might represent the geomorphic processes being monitored. Case study examples will be drawn from baseline monitoring and post-project monitoring of restoration projects. See here for more information.

Space is limited so register early.