Hydrologic & Hydraulic
The WSI team has more than a decade of experience with airborne LiDAR for applications in flood risk management, hydroelectric design, engineering, navigation, and permitting. For modeling and analysis, WSI generates hydrologically-adjusted products. Precise water feature classification, accurate river and lake bank elevations, and the creation of vast naturally draining surfaces are just a few examples of our robust hydrologic treatments. Our largest project to date included ~5500 square miles of LiDAR collection and processing of the Rio Grande River on the U.S.-Mexico border. Through custom software and techniques developed by the WSI team, this study produced digital elevation models (DEMs), both hydro-flattened and hydro-conditioned. Breakline development from the LiDAR point data allowed for a robust and highly accurate representation of channel morphology that was applied to the digital surfaces. The surfaces were hydrologically-functioning surfaces (i.e. water 'poured' on the surface flows to an outfall point) to assist the U.S. International Boundary & Water Commission in their watershed modeling efforts.
