Blackwater LEAN-Corrected Chesapeake Bay Digital Elevation Models, 2019

Lidar-derived digital elevation models often contain a vertical bias due to vegetation. In areas with tidal influence the amount of bias can be ecologically significant, for example, by decreasing the expected inundation frequency. We generated a corrected digital elevation model (DEM) for the area surrounding Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Chesapeake Bay using a modification of the Lidar Elevation Adjustment with NDVI (LEAN) technique (Buffington et al. 2016). GPS survey data (3699 points, collected across four tidal marsh sites in Chesapeake Bay (Eastern Neck, Martin, Bishops Head, and Blackwater) in 2010 and 2017. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) derived from an airborne multispectral image (2013) and a 2 m [...]