TNSA TALKS

Title: Environmental Land Management and Compliance using AI:  Navigating Digital Data

Thursday, October 10, 2024, 2pm central time 

Register by Wednesday, October 9, 12pm central time

Speaker: Brendan Brown, PWS with CDM Smith

Description: The use of drones, automation, and machine learning are revolutionizing our ability to collect and analyze robust digital datasets. These tools are rapidly transforming the scale and efficiency of digital data collection and facilitating the development of comprehensive environmental solutions. Drone-based sensors such as multispectral or hyperspectral can detect what the human eye cannot and provide meaningful data on environmental conditions. Digital data collection generates gigabytes and terabytes of information at resolutions down to square inches but how do we best manage this information? The value of the resolution can easily become weighed down by the size of the datasets. Therefore, automation and machine learning are key to unlocking these large datasets.   

 

In this presentation, we will provide an introduction on advanced remote sensing and how machine learning models can be used to benefit environmental projects through multiple case studies on restoration, infrastructure, and water resource projects.

 

Learning objectives

• Understand the significance of digital data collection advancements, including specialized environmental sensors such as lidar, multispectral, hyperspectral, and thermal.  

• Have a basic understanding of how machine learning models are applied to environmental systems and what types of environmental challenges they can provide solutions to.  

• Understand how these technologies are changing the temporal and spatial resolution of natural resource monitoring and assessment and understand the limitations of traditional field methods. 

• Learn how to develop the project goals and objectives to facilitate the incorporation of these technologies. Including asking the right questions to get the most out of remote sensing datasets and expand their application to the environmental challenges of today.  

Speaker Bio

Brendan Brown is a professional wetland scientist with over 18 years of experience in environmental data collection for remediation, ecological restoration, and environmental compliance. He has extensive experience in assessing various ecosystems with advanced remote sensing and machine learning, including wetlands, grasslands, upland forests, seagrass, mangroves, and salt marshes. Brendan is the principal investigator of numerous R&D projects leveraging machine learning and remote sensing to assess environmental systems, including the use of lidar, multispectral sensors, drone-derived 3D models, and high-resolution cameras. He leads Sky Wave at CDM Smith. He has a BS in Forest Environmental Resources from the University of Georgia and an MS in Biological Science from Virginia Tech. He is an FAA-certified drone pilot. 

 

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