Project abstract summary the rapid advancement of technology to measure high resolution 3D landscape features is poised to revolutionize fire and resource management this agreement explores two…

Project abstract summary the rapid advancement of technology to measure high resolution 3D landscape features is poised to revolutionize fire and resource management this agreement explores two applications of high density lidar to advance next generation fire behavior modeling and cultural resource site detection light detection and ranging lidar is useful for developing high resolution inputs to coupled fire atmospheric modeling to plan prescribed fires and evaluate wildfire risk this project will apply vegetation measured through lidar as inputs to a new fire behavior model called quic fire on USFWS priority landscapes across the SE US the objective of this project will be to evaluate prescriptions used to treat fuels for desired outcomes the use of lidar before and after fire will provide an ideal monitoring of model performance at management scales secondly, this agreement with USFWS will develop a lidar feature detection workflow for archaeological sites on the same priority landscapes using existing cultural resource databases datasets and new targeted archeological surface surveys, we will validate detection results and provide additional assistance in integrating this work into existing cultural resource management planning procedures for the USFWS following a successful pilot project, lidar feature detection workflows will be augmented and tested nationally with other federal partners in locales with varying topographic conditions and multiple cultural resource site types this work will be developed under a larger cultural resource management toolkit for federal archaeologists additional components of this toolkit may also include using lidar to develop models and workflows for assessing vulnerability of cultural resources to the effects of wildfire and suppression