This lidar project provides high-resolution, region-wide elevation data for the San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary, offering an unprecedented view of the landscape, landforms, and habitat conditions. LiDAR, which stands for Light Detection and Ranging, uses laser pulses to measure the distance between the sensor and the ground, creating detailed three-dimensional maps of terrain. This dataset captures fine-scale features across the San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary. This supports researchers, community members, and agencies to better visualize changes in topography, habitat distribution, and flood risk. By providing consistent, accurate, and comprehensive coverage, the lidar data supports a wide range of applications. Researchers can use the data to study habitat dynamics, track landscape change over time, model ecological processes, and more. Agencies and planners can integrate the information into flood risk management, infrastructure planning, and climate adaptation strategies. Community organizations and local stakeholders can also use the data to understand environmental conditions in their neighborhoods and inform local projects. The lidar data will be made publicly available following final review in 2026.
Availability details and links will be shared here as soon as the data are released.
This lidar collection collaboration would not be possible without funding support from the Wetlands Regional Monitoring Program (through funding awarded by the San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority), Delta Stewardship Council, California Department of Water Resources, South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project, and Valley Water (Santa Clara County).
Project Details:
Area
~1.25 million acres (the size of Delaware)
Timing
Coordinated with low tides
Aircraft
Cessna Caravan
Sensor
Riegl VQ-1560ii-S
Accuracy
Precise to ~12 cm (height of a soda can!)
Quality
Q1 (last LiDAR collection in 2017 was at Q2)
Invasive aquatic macrophytes (aquatic weeds) cover increased dramatically in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta during the 2013-2015 drought and the 2021-2023 drought. This trend toward increasing dominance of these invasive aquatic weeds has profound implications for delta/marsh habitat, as aquatic weeds are known to significantly alter the physical environment by slowing water velocities, increasing water clarity, providing habitat for invasive fishes, and reducing open water habitat. These habitat effects are thought to negatively impact the endangered Delta Smelt and other pelagic species that rely on turbid, open water habitat.
Different state and federal agencies have funded the acquisition of airborne spectroscopy data over the legal Delta since 2004. However, this long dataset has a critical 5-year gap in data acquisition during one of the most severe droughts that California has seen. This project is focused on inventorying any high spatial resolution satellite imagery that may have been taken over the legal delta, processing and analyzing it and mapping it to fill this 5-year gap in the only existing large-scale monitoring and mapping effort focused on aquatic macrophytes in the Delta.
The main objective of the study is map the satellite "gap-fill" imagery using the same methods used for the spectroscopy airborne data and creating and publishing a time series of those maps that could then potentially be used as a 21-year continuous dataset of floating and submerged aquatic macrophytes distribution in the Delta. Further, these maps will be used to study the effect of nutrients and management activities on the distribution of these invasive species.
