84
ERDC TR-05-1
8
COSTS
8.1
Poplar Island Restoration
The overall cost of this small effort was approximately ,000. This total
included: mission planning, image acquisition, image post-processing and image
classification. Owing to the fragmented locations of the eight individual study
sites, the per unit area cost is relatively high at to per acre. However,
high resolution satellite data, such as IKONOS imagery, would not have been
more cost effective. This is because of the minimum area requirements defined
by the vendors. It is estimated that three commercial satellite images would be
required to cover all the reference wetlands, each costing approximately ,000.
When combined with processing costs, the total estimated price to produce these
1-m resolution class maps using satellite imagery would be between ,000 and
,000.
8.2
Enhanced Levee Inspections
Project costs can be segregated into: 1) image acquisition and 2) image proc-
essing. Image acquisition costs differed slightly between the two collection dates.
The September 2001 acquisition employed a CAMIS sensor owned by TEC
(originally purchased from Flight Landata in 1998). TEC contracted with a local
flight services company, with TEC personnel operating the CAMIS system dur-
ing acquisition. Owing to a number of unavoidable constraints, image capture
was limited to a 2-day window. The total mission costs were roughly ,000,
including 00 for flight services and 00 for labor and travel. Image post-
processing costs, including data archiving, geometric/radiometric corrections,
and data transfer, are estimated at approximately ,000. This estimate assumes
a rate of /hour for 225 hours. Therefore, the total cost for creating the rela-
tively poor mosaics was ~,000. The failure of this initial mission can be at-
tributed to the limited time allowed for image acquisition coupled with the poor
atmospheric conditions.
Flight Landata, using their CAMIS equipment (identical to TEC's sensor),
acquired the July 2002 image data. Because their contract stipulated cloud-free
imagery, the contractor did not set a rigid schedule and timed the image acquisi-
tion with favorable weather conditions. The total cost for the second acquisition
mission was ,000. Post-processing costs, assuming the same number of hours
and the same labor rate, remained at ,000. Therefore, the total cost of the
more successful second mission was ~,000. The CAMIS frames cover ap-
Previous Page
