Remote Sensing

GBK's geospatial technology team is currently involved in researching and testing remote sensing technologies to help advance our technical capabilities and offer even more cost-effective solutions for our clients. We consider the field of remote sensing one that will play an increasingly more important role in environmental problem solving through improvements in accuracy and affordability. With the use of remote sensing we can collect more data, with more accuracy and precision over a shorter period of time than ever before.

The Remote Sensing process:

Data acquisition
Data image enhancement, geo-coding, filtering, and band transformations
Data fusion
Data elucidation
Data utilization

Why use Remote Sensing:

Allows data collection at a far greater degree of than can be performed in the field
Span a larger area with more accuracy
Enables collection of 'invisible' data
Has very good spectral resolution
Obtains up-to-date information
Greatly reduces operation costs for larger projects

Reference Project:

Invasive Species Remote Sensing Pilot (White Paper)

Fort Sill Natural Resources, Fort Sill, OK

Following the success of the invasive species identification projects on the Fort Sill ranges, it became clear to GBK that we could offer our client a more cost effective solution in terms of species quantification. Rather than operating labor-intensive physical search programs for each species, it may be beneficial to perform remote sensing studies over the survey area. By analyzing multi-spectral data from thematic mappers, it should possible to identify numerous invasive species based on the reflective radiation wavelengths of each individual plant species. The white paper research is addressing the following:

The extent of aerial imagery available to GBK
The radiometric resolution of that imagery
Minimum resolution required to perform effective wavelength analysis
Software requirements and licensing restrictions
Resource requirements to design and implement a test program