Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/19957
Title: Monitoring gully change: A comparison of airborne and terrestrial laser scanning using a case study from Aratula, Queensland
Contributor(s): Goodwin, Nicholas R (author); Armston, John D (author); Muir, Jasmine  (author)orcid ; Stiller, Issac (author)
Publication Date: 2017
DOI: 10.1016/j.geomorph.2017.01.001
Handle Link: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/19957
Abstract: Airborne laser scanning (ALS) and terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) technologies capture spatially detailed estimates of surface topography and when collected multi-temporally can be used to assess geomorphic change. The sensitivity and repeatability of ALS measurements to characterise geomorphic change in topographically complex environments such as gullies; however, remains an area lacking quantitative research. In this study, we captured coincident ALS and TLS datasets to assess their ability and synergies to detect geomorphic change for a gully located in Aratula, southeast Queensland, Australia. We initially used the higher spatial density and ranging accuracy of TLS to provide an assessment of the Digital Elevation Models (DEM) derived from ALS within a gully environment. Results indicated mean residual errors of 0.13 and 0.09 m along with standard deviation (SD) of residual errors of 0.20 and 0.16 m using pixel sizes of 0.5 and 1.0 m, respectively. The positive mean residual errors confirm that TLS data consistently detected deeper sections of the gully than ALS. We also compared the repeatability of ALS and TLS for characterising gully morphology. This indicated that the sensitivity to detect change using ALS is substantially lower than TLS, as expected, and that the ALS survey characteristics influence the ability to detect change. Notably, we found that using one ALS transect (mean density of 5 points / m²) as opposed to three transects increased the SD of residual error by approximately 30%. The supplied classification of ALS ground points was also demonstrated to misclassify gully features as non-ground, with minimum elevation filtering found to provide a more accurate DEM of the gully. The number and placement of terrestrial laser scans were also found to influence the derived DEMs. Furthermore, we applied change detection using two ALS data captures over a four year period and four TLS field surveys over an eight month period. This demonstrated that ALS can detect large scale erosional changes with head cutting of gully branches migrating approximately 10 m upslope. In comparison, TLS captured smaller scale intra-annual erosional patterns largely undetectable by the ALS dataset with a large rainfall event coinciding with the highest volumetric change (net change >46 m³). Overall, these findings reaffirm the importance of quantifying DEM errors and demonstrate that ALS is unlikely to detect subtle geomorphic changes (<0.45 m) potentially missing significant sediment change. TLS was able to detect more subtle intra-annual changes but was limited in its spatial coverage. This suggests TLS and ALS surveys are complementary technologies and when used together can provide a more detailed understanding of gully processes at different temporal and spatial scales, provided the inherent errors are taken into account.
Publication Type: Journal Article
Source of Publication: Geomorphology, v.282, p. 195-208
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Place of Publication: Netherlands
ISSN: 1872-695X
0169-555X
Fields of Research (FoR) 2008: 050206 Environmental Monitoring
050302 Land Capability and Soil Degradation
040601 Geomorphology and Regolith and Landscape Evolution
Fields of Research (FoR) 2020: 410601 Land capability and soil productivity
370906 Regolith and landscape evolution
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2008: 970104 Expanding Knowledge in the Earth Sciences
961202 Rehabilitation of Degraded Farmland, Arable Cropland and Permanent Cropland Environments
839899 Environmentally Sustainable Animal Production not elsewhere classified
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2020: 280107 Expanding knowledge in the earth sciences
180604 Rehabilitation or conservation of terrestrial environments
Peer Reviewed: Yes
HERDC Category Description: C1 Refereed Article in a Scholarly Journal
Appears in Collections:Journal Article

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