FGCU utilizes drone to map the Southwest Florida coastline

As Floridians enter the “very active” hurricane season, Florida Gulf Coast University professors have begun mapping the coastline with the help of drones.

Through the use of LIDAR or Light Detection and Ranging, a small metallic device mounted on the drone shoots out over 200 lasers per second to accurately map Southwest Florida’s coastline.

Andrew Gross, a research technician for the Coastal Resilience Mission, is tasked with recording the coastline.

“This kind of data is exactly what we would give to our beach managers and policymakers to make better decisions about our coasts,” said Gross.

Dhruvkumar Bhatt, an FGCU Geographic Information System Remote Sensing instructor, started the project from Marco Island to Cayo Costa.

Bhatt intends to maximize methods to keep our beaches safe and resilient during hurricane events.

“We look at the coast, see how the elevation changes from one part to the other, see how the dunes are behaving from, you know, one year to the other, before a storm after the storm,” said Bhatt.

As the National Hurricane Center predicts for an active hurricane season this year, preparation before the storm has been further emphasized as drone usage becomes more prevalent.