Applications anticipated include environmental assessment plans, non-metallic mining reclamation, industrial and commercial development plans, land use planning, zoning, and floodplain determinations.  Topographic plots with a 2-foot elevation contour will be able to be produced for any area of the County in various formats and scales, and overlaid on photography or other GIS features.  The contour elevations will be placed on the GIS server to be accessible on the County network for all staff with an application.

It is anticipated that staff from various County Departments, including SWCD, Planning, Highway, Parks, and Sanitarian, would use the data for years into the future.  Users outside of County Government, including Developers and Engineering firms, working for public, private, and non-profit organizations should all benefit by utilizing elevation contours that would otherwise require a significant amount of land surveying fieldwork to acquire.  This project has been planned for years and was listed as a goal in the Door County Land Information Modernization Plan 1998 Update.

LIDAR Technology is an acronym much like radar (radio + detecting + and + ranging) or sonar (sound + navigation + and + ranging).  LIDAR (LIght + Detecting + And + Ranging) is a laser scanning process on the aircraft that is used in conjunction with airborne GPS (Global Positioning System) to make very precise measurements.  The technology has developed in recent years so that digital elevation models of the ground and those features above ground can be collected accurately and more quickly than previous methods.  Based on estimates from a firm that would otherwise collect the data through longer established photogrammetric measuring techniques, the county-wide project for acquiring 2-foot contours would have cost almost twice as much through the older methods.

Time-frame for Phase 1 of  project was 12 months.  Door County was flown April 15-17, 2002, to obtain photography and gather elevation data for the County.  Following the collection and post-processing of the elevation data, and digital mapping of two-foot contours by EarthData International, the US Army Corp of Engineers forwarded the deliverables to the County in December 2002.

Fiscal Impact of Phase 1 was $237,000 for the County in 2002, representing a 50% cost-share that was matched with federal dollars from the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers.  County monies were budgeted as follows:

2002 Information Systems Dept. Line-Item Account      $ 60,000
SWCD Grant                                                                  $ 10,000
County LIO (Land Information Office) Account             $167,000
    (fees retained through recording documents in Register of Deeds office with specific purpose of modernizing Land Records)

TOTAL 2002 County Commitment:                                                     $237,000
U.S. Army Corp of Engineers                                                              $237,000

TOTAL 2002 Estimated Phase 1 Project Costs                                   $ 474,000

Time-frame for Phase 2 began in April 2003, as Door County entered into a second contract with the U.S. Army Corp, to now acquire digital orthophotography for the County.  The second phase was delayed somewhat 'til the U.S. Army Corp received its federal funding for providing planning assistance to local governments.  U.S. Congress passed a major budget bill appropriating funds later than in prior years, due in part to unresolved concerns and funding related to the War on Terrorism, the War in Iraq, and the slower economy.  The project to have the April 2002 aerial photography processed into a digital ortho-rectified product was then let out to the contractor.  The orthophotography then became available to the County in September and October, 2003.

Digital orthophotography (DOP) refers to aerial photos on computer that has had distortion corrected so that it can be used as a map for accurately portraying distances; and digital terrain model (DTM) is collected positional and elevation control data to represent the relief of the land, and used to correct the photography.  The processing of the photography into an ortho-rectified format allows it to be used as scaleable map, or used in conjunction with other layers of data on the County’s GIS (Geographic Information System).    The new 2002 photography is in color and shows much greater detail than the 1992 product.  The digital files are available for purchase in a compressed MrSid format, product examples can be viewed by clicking on either scale below.

Example:  400' Scale    and     Example:  100' Scale

The new digital orthophotography is also available for viewing on the County Web Map.

Fiscal Impact of Phase 2, completed in 2003 at a County cost of $109,000 which again represented a 50% cost-share that was matched with federal dollars from the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers.  The second phase of the project was under separate contract with the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, and was completed by the same contractor under Phase 1, EarthData International, from Gaithersburg MD.  Phase 2 was for the delivery of the digital orthophotography.  County monies were budgeted entirely from County LIO funds.