UH Hilo geographer Ryan Perroy awarded $1.15M to survey five national parks with high-resolution digital documentation
The National Park Service and UH Hilo’s Spatial Data Analysis and Visualization Lab will collaborate to conduct high-resolution digital documentation and identification of cultural resources in five Hawaiʻi coastal parks.
By Susan Enright.
A geographer at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo who specializes in high-tech aerial imagery will be surveying five coastal parks across the state of Hawaiʻi to assist with climate change adaptation planning and resilience modeling for identified natural resources.
Ryan Perroy, professor of geography and environmental science, and Seth Quintus, associate professor of anthropology at UH Mānoa, are co-principle investigators on the project. The researchers have received a new $1.15 million grant from the National Park Service to complete the study, “Inventory and Monitoring of Pacific Island Historic and Cultural Resources Impacted by Climate Change.”
Perroy’s areas of expertise and research are in remote sensing, high-resolution mapping, geospatial data analysis, and aerial robotics. He is principal investigator at the UH Hilo Spatial Data Analysis and Visualization laboratory, a research unit applying geospatial tools to local environmental problems in Hawaiʻi and the Pacific region.
Monitoring climate change at the national parks
Within the last decade, the National Park Service’s Pacific Island Network of parks have increasingly been impacted by climate change related stressors. The Pacific network is one of 32 National Park Service Inventory & Monitoring networks of national parks linked by geography and shared natural resource characteristics.
“Sea level rise, storm frequency, flooding and erosion are the main threats of concern to cultural resources,” says Perroy.
The National Park Service and Perroy’s Spatial Data Analysis and Visualization Lab, housed at the university’s geography and environmental science department, will collaborate to expand on previous documentation and research by piloting high-resolution digital documentation and identification of cultural resources in five selected parks: Haleakala National Park on Maui; Kalaupapa National Historic Park on Molokaʻi; and Kaloko-Honokohau National Historic Park, Puʻukoholā National Historic Park, and Puʻukoholā Heiau on Hawaiʻi Island.
Perroy says the project will utilize remote sensing to survey the large areas of land more efficiently and accurately than has been done in the past.
“Data will be used for the development of condition assessment and monitoring protocols by the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Department of Anthropology,” explains Perroy.
The research team will conduct advanced data collection of resources located in near shore areas and adjacent to flood prone stream corridors using high resolution digital technologies such as helicopter and drone-mounted imaging, LIDAR (the acronym for light detection and ranging, a remote sensing method used to examine the surface of Earth), and terrestrial laser scanning. The techniques will collect point cloud data (data points in space) and derive digital elevation models that can be used for the identification of cultural resources in the parks.
Field and lab experience for students
The project will also provide funding and training for students, two from UH Hilo (one graduate student in the tropical conservation biology and environmental science program, and one undergraduate student) and two from UH Mānoa (one anthropology graduate student and one undergraduate student) allowing for a unique educational opportunity.
The students will gain experience in advanced remote sensing techniques including LIDAR and structure from motion, which is a photogrammetric range imaging technique for estimating three-dimensional structures from two-dimensional image sequences.
Students also will gain skills in the collection, post-processing, and analysis of remotely sensed data and site management through the baseline inventory documentation of identified sites.
Story by Susan Enright, a public information specialist for the Office of the Chancellor and editor of UH Hilo Stories. She received her bachelor of arts in English and certificate in women’s studies from UH Hilo.
