2025 Big Sky GeoCon - Mapping the Future: Innovations in Geospatial Technology

Utilizing temperature of a tracer of ground water-surface water (GWSW) interaction has a long history in hydrology. Increasingly UAS thermal data is being used to evaluate high spatial resolution micro-scale (cm-level) GWSW interaction. Thermal UAS data can reveal areas of groundwater discharge, hyporheic zone interaction, and reaches of warmer water that can be barriers to fish movement and survival. UM and MTech conducted a 20-mile thermal UAS project on Thompson Creek in the summer of 2024. This work provides insights into the GWSW interaction along the creek and has implications for stream restoration in support of native fish populations. 

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have significantly transformed spatial data collection and analysis. This presentation will delve into the utilization of OpenDroneMap, an open-source software toolkit designed for processing UAV imagery. Attendees will learn about the capabilities of OpenDroneMap in generating high-resolution orthophotos, 3D models, and point clouds, with real-world case studies presented by Montana State University's Geospatial Core Facility.
Join us to explore how OpenDroneMap can transform your GIS projects, providing a practical and scalable solution for advanced geospatial data management and analysis. 

Advancements in UAS hardware and Lidar technologies have provided opportunities for organizations to gather highly accurate and dense Lidar point clouds for small scale projects with quick turn around times. This presentation will outline a variety of projects, with varying challenges, specifications and client needs. We will review steps for planning successful UAS Lidar missions and detail UAS Lidar system specifications and applications. Assessing site suitability and the size of project area are important factors for UAS projects. Dense point clouds will be explored from engineering and water resource projects. 

In October of 2024, approximately 26 road miles within Helena, MT city limits were captured with a state of the art mobile lidar sensor. This presentation will provide a summary of the Helena mobile lidar collection including the technology, collection considerations, desired feature collection and accuracy. And will review what the data will be used for by the City. We will review the types of projects this mobile lidar point cloud and imagery can support in a GIS like asset inventory and management, change detection and much more. 

Innovation is not a single event but a continuous process of learning, adapting, and refining ideas to reach the right solution. At Pickett and Associates, our journey to develop an unmanned hydrographic survey program demonstrates this iterative approach. Beginning with a custom-built prototype in 2014, our goal was to enhance safety and efficiency in surveying hazardous industrial mining ponds.
This presentation highlights the innovation process that carried us from a promising yet flawed prototype to the successful adoption of a commercially proven solution. Interdisciplinary collaboration and strategic partnerships with industry specialists were two key factors that helped facilitate this transformative journey. By viewing setbacks as opportunities to grow, we identified essential design criteria, conducted thorough market evaluations, and selected a system designed to withstand the extreme conditions of acidic mining ponds.
Throughout this process, we reaffirmed that true innovation demands adaptability and persistence. Valuable lessons emerged, including the necessity of engaging end-users, knowing when to pivot from custom solutions to established technologies, and maintaining a steadfast focus on safety and quality.
This case study provides actionable insights for fostering a culture of innovation that turns challenges into stepping stones for progress.

Takeaway:
Innovation is not linear but a journey defined by discovery and growth. By embracing challenges and refining our approach, Pickett successfully developed and implemented an unmanned hydrographic survey program that exemplifies the power of collaboration and persistence in achieving meaningful innovation. 

Fluvial geomorphology and channel migration typically have been studied by relying on field observations or long-term, medium- to low-resolution remote sensing imagery acquired over extended intervals. The technology of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) allows for on-demand data collection with high spatial resolution. This study compares the measurements of aerial imagery produced by the National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) and the aerial imagery produced by a UAS, as well as their ability to capture and analyze land cover and geomorphic changes after flood events between 2017 and 2021 on the Sun River in Central Montana. 

Wildfire’s destruction of homes is an increasingly serious global problem. Characterizing home hardening and defensible space at the individual structure level may reduce loss through enriched understanding of structure susceptibility. However, improved data and methods are required to accurately characterize parcel-level features at scale. Here, we present a remote sensing and statistical learning approach to representing single-structure susceptibility in Ouray County, Colorado. Using LiDAR and property records, we characterize fuel attributes in the built environment. This method uses open-source data and may be used by communities to develop policies and mitigation programs.