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For the United States to effectively manage its remaining wetlands, their abundance, distribution, boundaries, and inherent characteristics must be better understood. As natural resource management becomes more holistic and moves towards ecosystem management, the synoptic view that remotely sensed data provide will become increasingly important. Remote observation of wetlands is particularly necessary because they are often difficult to access on the ground, and on-site mapping at the landscape scale is usually cost prohibitive. Remotely sensed images aid our understanding of wetlands within a wider landscape setting and help to ensure wetland preservation via an increased appreciation of the services that wetlands...
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To best preserve wetlands and associated ecosystem services, wetlands must be routinely monitored. Wetland mapping is an essential part of this monitoring program. Recently developed remote-sensing technologies and techniques have the potential to improve the detail and reliability of wetland maps and the ability to monitor important drivers of wetland condition and function, such as hydrology. One of these relatively new and reapidly developing technologies is laser altimetry, or light detection and ranging (LiDAR), which provides fine-scale information regarding 3-D topography, vegetation height, and plant structure, as well as hydropattern, across large areas.
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