1. Operational Lidar Inventory | Olympia, WA | March 6-7, 2018
Forest Service Lidar Contracting
Oregon, Washington, and Idaho
Operational Lidar Inventory | Olympia, WA | March 6-7, 2018
Mark Riley
Region 6 Remote Sensing Coordinator
Data Resources Management
Portland, OR
Dan Johnson
Region 6 Contracting Officer
Acquisition Management
Olympia, WA

2. Light detection and Ranging
Region 6 lidar contracting model
Overview
Contracting process
Quality assurance
Value-added products
Data distribution

3. Tim Bryant, Biometrician Pete Heinzen, Remote Sensing Specialist
Regional lidar
Tim Bryant, Biometrician
Pete Heinzen, Remote Sensing Specialist
Dan Johnson, Contracting Officer
Jim Muckenhoupt, Remote Sensing Specialist
Leah Rathbun, Regional Biometrician
Mark Riley, Remote Sensing Coordinator
Pete and Jim: tech specs, Quality Assurance, value-added products, distribution
Dan: contracting and budget coordination
Leah and Tim: field data collection and additional value-added products
Mark: contracting, tech specs, partner coordination, technical specifications

4. Usfs Lidar contracting
In 2015 the Forest Service, Region 6 started contracting for lidar acquisition internally with a 742 mile2 project on the Colville National Forest. This innovative approach was necessitated at the time due to a paucity of external partnership opportunities, misaligned budgets, and differing management priorities with other federal or state partners.
Forest Service is all on the same budget cycle

5. Usfs Lidar
Since 2015, Region 6 has contracted for 6,781 square miles of lidar for national forests in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. This was done by engaging the competitive marketplace through the General Service Administration's Federal Supply/Service Schedules.
Magenta: 2015, Blue: 2016, Orange: 2017
3-year average cost per square mile:
8 pulse/square meter is contracted
The 2016 Gifford Pinchot project was a USGS-FS partnership
In 2015 the Forest Service, Region 6 started contracting for lidar acquisition internally with a project on the Colville National Forest. This innovative approach was necessitated at the time due to a paucity of external partnership opportunities, misaligned budgets, and differing management priorities with other federal or state partners: the decision distilled to either contracting in-house or foregoing a lidar collection altogether.
2015: 742 miles2
2016: 4,113 miles2
2017: 1,926 miles2
2018: ~1,300 miles2
planned

6. Usfs Lidar contracting
Inter- and intraregional Forest Service partnerships for lidar contracting have utilized an economy of scale model that has resulted in reduced costs for all Forest partners.
In 2016, partner funding from Colville National Forest (Region 6) and the geographically adjacent Idaho Panhandle National Forest (Region 1) was combined into a single lidar contract.

7. Usfs Lidar contracting
Due to the economy of scale approach, small areas that would otherwise go uncollected due to funding limitations, are collected.
For example, in 2017, the 10-mi² Swauk Pine project on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest (a Northern Spotted Owl study site) was contracted and the 3-mi² Whychus Creek project on the Deschutes National Forest (stream restoration) was contracted economically.

8. Usfs Lidar contracting
Some advantages
• Coordination. Easy to coordinate Forest partners and funding. Exploring possibility of a 2018 external partnership.
• Accountability. The Regional Office is responsible for defining the contracting specifications and conducting Quality Assurance (QA) to insure the integrity of the accepted lidar deliverables.
• Defining the specifications. Saves time and funding by insuring the most applicable data sets and derivatives get delivered to the Forests. Solicitations can easily be changed to accommodate changes in lidar technology and deliverables, which keep costs down.
• Solicitation amendments. Easily amending a solicitation during the quotation response period is an advantage directly attributable to internal contracting.
3DEP main differences: classes (water, ignored ground near breakline, bridge decks), las 1.4, hydro-flattening

9. Usfs Lidar contracting
Some advantages
• Post-award modifications. The capacity to accommodate post-award Forest funds for one or more modifications via negotiated supplemental agreements to add areas to an existing contract, during contract performance is critically valuable to make the best use of the Forests’ funds and helps ensure all available areas for lidar acquisitions are accommodated in a timely manner.
• Direct communication with the vendor. Efficient in terms of managing unforeseen or unexpected on-ground conditions and other factors affecting the project data value. For example, if errors are discovered during the quality assurance process, these can be directly, clearly, and quickly communicated to the vendor for resolution.
• Fast data delivery to the Forests. Lidar contracted internally is delivered quickly. For example, lidar contracted and collected in the summer of 2016 was processed by the vendor, quality checked by the regional office remote sensing staff, and delivered to the Forests in February 2017.

10. NIR topo lidar contracted at 8 pulses/meter2
Lidar data products
Contract Deliverables
Classified Full Point Cloud (high and low noise filtered), .laz
1-m Digital Terrain Model
1-m Intensity Image
Report and metadata
2018: adding hydro-flattening option (USGS spec)
Full backup on NAS and external HD
NIR topo lidar contracted
at 8 pulses/meter2
Value-added Standard Deliverables
50-cm Digital Surface Model
Bare Earth DTM
Bare Earth Hillshade
Bare Earth Aspect
Bare Earth Slope
Canopy Height
Canopy Closure
Canopy surface hillshade (DSM)
Hydro-flattening in future contracts
Region 6 classification: 1 Processed, unclassified, 2 Bare earth, 7 low point noise, 8 high point noise
T:\FS\Reference\GIS\r06\LayerFile\ImageryAndClassifiedImagery

11. Lidar fusion and qa/qc Analysis Processing (Fusion and LTK)
Display (LDV)
Quality Assurance/Quality Control
Density per square meter and returns per pulse

12. Lidar quality assurance
Tiles are 1500m x 1500m or 1000m x 1000m, calculates square, if empty space or partial gets counted as area for total pulse density
Each delivered tile is examined in Fusion for Total Return and m2 Nominal Return Density

13. Lidar quality assurance
Example of unfiltered high hits
Visual examination of hillshade model reveals infrequent but potential errors that may have been missed during processing. These are reported and fixed.

14. Lidar quality assurance
Example of data void
Visual examination of raster models reveals infrequent but potential errors that may have been missed during processing. These are reported and fixed.

15. Lidar discovery and distribution
Enterprise T (\\ds.fs.fed.us\EFS): what’s there and what to expect
Internal distribution
For internal Forest Service use, lidar derivatives work best and pretty much exclusively with Citrix ArcGIS
Can always provide point cloud data on an external hard drive or network access

16. Lidar discovery and distribution
Can also be delivered with external hard drive
PSLC requires registration and login

17. Federal lidar coordination

18. Future activities
Economy of scale is essential to keeping lidar contract costs down and there is no guarantee of annual continuity. For the past three years, Regional Office-based lidar contracting has relied largely on networking and good communication with the Forests. This technique has been effective and successful.
In 2018 a more coordinated inter- and intraregional approach was taken as the Forest Service Pacific Northwest Region lidar contracting process continues to evolve.
Continued investigation of the potential benefits offered by external partnership opportunities will be pursued congruent with the internal approach to lidar contracting…
While navigating agreements is easier between federal agencies, it is not impossible with state partners and we are hoping to partner for a 2018 collect for the Twisp and Tieton post-fire areas to support a planning effort.
Following in recent footsteps, in 2018 we will be doing the first Forest Service-based green band topo-bathy contract for part of the McKenzie River on the Willamette National Forest to support a stream restoration project.

19. July 22, 2016 1976 Cessna T210L Turbo Centurion Mark Riley
Remote Sensing Coordinator
Portland, OR
Dan Johnson
Contracting Officer
Olympia, WA
July 22, 2016