New Hydrographic Survey in Lake Michigan Among Projects Using Cutting-edge Survey Technologies and Creative Approaches to Yield Actionable Data that Supports Maritime Mapping, Resource Management and Greater Understanding of Changing Environment
Coastal GeoTools, Wilmington, N.C. – January 21, 2025 – NV5, the world’s leading provider of geospatial software and services, is marking 20 years of providing valuable geospatial services to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). During the past two decades, NV5 has worked in 30 U.S. states, for more than 220 contracts covering over 50,000 square miles, providing topobathymetric surface modeling for shorelines, bays, estuaries, lakes, wetlands, rivers and streams in detail for a variety of applications. These projects deliver important data that helps the agency make informed decisions on how to protect and restore natural resources and habitats, update nautical charts, and better understand the impacts of environmental and man-made changes over time. NV5 will discuss its work and showcase additional projects with NOAA at Booth 1 and in presentations at Coastal GeoTools 2025, taking place January 27-30 in Wilmington, N.C.
NV5’s work for NOAA has leveraged continued innovations in technologies and purpose-built platforms to meet the specific needs of each project. NV5 consistently delivers the most detailed data designed to support federal government projects through use of state-of-the-art airborne remote sensing technologies, such as topobathymetric laser scanning for near real-time depiction of the ever-changing nearshore topography and bathymetry, and integrated marine vessel-based technologies, including multibeam echosounding for offshore bathymetric mapping of sand resources, essential fish habitat and historic shipwrecks.
“Our collaborations with NOAA over the past 20 years have yielded many important insights and baseline data that helps the agency with its core mission of climate monitoring, coastal restoration and supporting marine commerce – all of which supports our nation’s economic vitality and affects more than one-third of America’s gross domestic product,” said Dave Bernstein, vice president of Hydrospatial Operations at NV5. “We appreciate the trust that NOAA puts in NV5 and look forward to showcasing even more advancements in our technology as we continue with existing projects and undertake new ones in the future.”
NV5’s work spans five core disciplines:
- Hydrographic Surveying and Mapping – In a recent contract, NV5 conducted a large-scale hydrographic survey in the southern portion of Lake Michigan for the NOAA Office of Coast Survey (OCS). Covering 481 square nautical miles from northeast of Chicago to Michigan City, Ind., that has not been surveyed since the late 1940s, NV5 acquired multibeam bathymetry and backscatter data to update the NOAA nautical charting products. The data will increase maritime safety near the Michigan, Indiana and Illinois shorelines. Under its Office for Coastal Management (OCM) contract, NV5 has also provided certified hydrographer expertise for mapping missions on the Pisces (R226), a NOAA fisheries and oceanographic research vessel, including the direction and oversight of collecting and processing various hydrographic data used for marine habitat mapping.
- Coastal and Shoreline Mapping – NV5 collects data under NOAA National Geodetic Survey’s (NGS) Coastal Mapping Program (CMP) that is used to define U.S. marine territorial limits, update nautical charts, understand tidal patterns and support coastal resource management applications. Currently NV5 is conducting surveys that include topobathymetric lidar, imagery and shoreline compilation across the entire shoreline (3,115 square miles) of Maine and New Hampshire, and 1,150 square miles of the Long Island Sound in New York. The Long Island Sound project is being accomplished in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to support soil studies in the area as well. Another project with NGS and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Alaska combines 2,196 square miles of topographic lidar and 6,765 square miles of imagery to examine areas of the northern Alaska coast impacted by Typhoon Merbok in September 2022. NV5 also provided topographic lidar for numerous indigenous community locations along the western Alaska coast under OCM’s Coastal Services contract.
- Riverine Mapping – For a CMP contract that supports the NOAA National Weather Service (NWS), National Water Center (NWC) and national water modeling efforts, NV5 is now collecting topobathymetric lidar and imagery in the Ozarks, spanning Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas. NV5 recently collected thermal imagery of the Narraguagus River in Maine to support the NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) and their efforts to characterize the river’s thermal heterogeneity and study Atlantic Salmon habitats impacted by temperature change.
- Land Cover Mapping – NV5 recently completed two projects for NOAA’s Coastal Change Analysis Program (C-CAP) that leveraged aerial multispectral imagery and machine learning techniques. In Rhode Island, in partnership with the National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERRS), NV5 examined saltmarsh habitat and created change mapping products, and produced high-resolution land cover products for Brown County, Wisc., and several key watersheds. Data from these projects will help assess urban growth, map and inventory wetlands, delineate wildlife habitat and determine changes in land cover over time. Other projects include collection of high-resolution multispectral aerial imagery for mapping eelgrass throughout coastal Massachusetts, including areas along Nantucket, Cape Cod and Plymouth Bay, as well as the spatiotemporal analysis of large amounts of satellite imagery for estimating the range of coastal wetland acres and change over time in the Great Lakes region.
- Marine GIS – For more than 10 years, OCM and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) have partnered on development and maintenance of the Marine Minerals Information System (MMIS), an enterprise GIS for gathering, processing, analyzing, maintaining, storing, disseminating and informing decisions regarding marine minerals access for use, and part of the foundation to support the National Offshore Sand Inventory (NOSI). This GIS was developed by NV5, enabling BOEM to stay informed of the location and character of sand reserves, and understand the biological and physical drivers associated with marine resources to avoid or minimize environmental impacts from dredging.
