1. Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources
  2. Geoscience Data System

Field Activity 2025-011-FA

Identifier 2025-011-FA
Alternate names Darby UAS Mapping 2025
Purpose sUAS flights at the Darby Creek landfill in Pennsylvania will support ecological restoration monitoring and environmental assessment. Aerial imagery will be used to quantify and classify vegetation growth over time, evaluate landscape elevation changes to assess cap stability and erosion, and collect thermal data to identify potential groundwater seepage areas.
Location Darby Township, Philadelphia, PA
Summary Collected lidar and RBG data with Wingtra drone and multispectral data with the Altum-PT on the M600. A general vegetation survey was also performed, along with a more specialized tree survey. GNSS data was taken using the Emlid.
Info derived Will be flying multiple sensors on the M600 including a LiDAR and multispectral sensor. We will also be flying a Wingta Lidar UAS. The SkyDio will be used to collect thermal and normal RGB imagery and video. GCPs will be deployed and GPS used to collect elevation check points. Vegetation data will also be collected in random quadrats (% cover, type, and height). Summer data collections will add multispectral imagery collection with our MicaSense Altum camera for vegetation analysis.
Comments Entries for this field activity are based on entries from Field Activity 2024-006-FA. Entries for this field activity are based on entries from Field Activity 2024-020-FA.
Projects
Related activities
2024-006-FA: Project
Platform
on foot
survey conducted on foot
Itinerary
Start Woods Hole MA 2025-03-24
End Woods Hole MA 2025-12-31
Days in the field TBD
Activity events
Start date End date Description
2025-03-24 2025-03-28 Jen Cramer, Amit Millo, Sandy Brosnahan, Seth Ackerman, and Jin-Si Over traveled to Philadelphia to collect UAS imagery and data over the Clearview landfill as part of an ongoing project with the EPA. Datasets include Lidar, RGB imagery, and GPS data.
2025-08-04 2025-08-08 Jen Cramer, Amit Millo, and Sandy Brosnahan will be traveling to Darby Creek to collect repeat UAS imagery and data over the Clearview Landfill for an ongoing project with the EPA. Datasets will include lidar, natural color imagery, multispectral imagery, and GPS data.
Bounds
West -75.3028965
East -75.24890899
North 39.90721244
South 39.87435071

Personnel

Organization
384 Woods Hole Road
Quissett Campus
Woods Hole, MA02543-1598
(508) 548-8700
Principal investigators Sandra M Brosnahan
Crew members
Seth Ackerman
Scientist, Staff
Sandra M Brosnahan
Scientist, Staff
Jin-Si R Over
Scientist, Staff
Information specialist(s)
Jennifer M Cramer
Specialist, Information
Amit Millo
Specialist, Information

Data types and categories

Data category: Location-Elevation, Imagery, Visual Identification
Data type: LIDAR, Navigation, Photo, Ground Truthing

Documents: Notes and log books

Name Survey Equipment Description
Vegetation Survey Reconnaissance Notes of location, height, and type of vegetation

Equipment used

Equipment Usage description Data types Datasets
DJI Matrice Navigation 1
Emlid RS3 Navigation 2
Reconnaissance CI-110 canopy leaf analyzer for veg survey Emlid RS3 data for checkshots Ground Truthing (no data reported)
Aeropoint targets Navigation, Transects, Profiles 2
Skydio X10 Hand flown to get videos of landfill Navigation, Other Imagery, Photo (no data reported)
Wingtra Lidar at 51 m, cross gird was flown Navigation, LIDAR (no data reported)
WingtraOne Gen II Navigation, Photo 2
YellowScan Mapper + Navigation, Photo, LIDAR (no data reported)
Altum-PT Photo 1

Datasets

Datasets compiled from multiple sources

Dataset name Equipment Description Dataset contact
2025011FA_Clearview_Aug DJI Matrice Lidar point clouds (LPC), elevation models, GPS data, image mosaics, vegetation survey, and aerial images from natural color (RGB) and multispectral cameras collected during UAS operations at Lower Darby Creek, Darby Township, Pennsylvania, August 2025 Amit Millo
2025011FA_Clearview_Mar Emlid RS3 Lidar point clouds (LPC), elevation models, GPS data, image mosaics, and aerial images from natural color (RGB) camera collected during UAS operations at Lower Darby Creek, Darby Township, Pennsylvania, March 2025. Amit Millo
2025011FA_Clearview_Aug Emlid RS3 Lidar point clouds (LPC), elevation models, GPS data, image mosaics, vegetation survey, and aerial images from natural color (RGB) and multispectral cameras collected during UAS operations at Lower Darby Creek, Darby Township, Pennsylvania, August 2025 Amit Millo
2025011FA_Clearview_Mar Aeropoint targets Lidar point clouds (LPC), elevation models, GPS data, image mosaics, and aerial images from natural color (RGB) camera collected during UAS operations at Lower Darby Creek, Darby Township, Pennsylvania, March 2025. Amit Millo
2025011FA_Clearview_Aug Aeropoint targets Lidar point clouds (LPC), elevation models, GPS data, image mosaics, vegetation survey, and aerial images from natural color (RGB) and multispectral cameras collected during UAS operations at Lower Darby Creek, Darby Township, Pennsylvania, August 2025 Amit Millo
2025011FA_Clearview_Mar WingtraOne Gen II Lidar point clouds (LPC), elevation models, GPS data, image mosaics, and aerial images from natural color (RGB) camera collected during UAS operations at Lower Darby Creek, Darby Township, Pennsylvania, March 2025. Amit Millo
2025011FA_Clearview_Aug WingtraOne Gen II Lidar point clouds (LPC), elevation models, GPS data, image mosaics, vegetation survey, and aerial images from natural color (RGB) and multispectral cameras collected during UAS operations at Lower Darby Creek, Darby Township, Pennsylvania, August 2025 Amit Millo
2025011FA_Clearview_Aug Altum-PT Lidar point clouds (LPC), elevation models, GPS data, image mosaics, vegetation survey, and aerial images from natural color (RGB) and multispectral cameras collected during UAS operations at Lower Darby Creek, Darby Township, Pennsylvania, August 2025 Amit Millo

Publications

Samples collected during this field activity

Images collected during this field activity, from the Imagery Data System

16541 images are associated with this activity.