Oct. 2--Federal officials are testing a new laser radar mapping technology along a section of the proposed gas pipeline route. Once completed, the information will be available on the Web, according to the Alaska gas pipeline coordinator.

The move is an effort to speed the process of permitting and to create a more cohesive set of data for studying a pipeline route, said Drue Pearce, the federal coordinator for the Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Project.

Pearce said her office is overseeing the development of a prototype geospatial information system, or GIS, mapping project along a 20-mile stretch of the proposed pipeline route along Atigun Pass.

The group also has conducted a light detection and ranging, or LiDAR, shoot along the pass.

Pearce announced the project on Sept. 15 at the fifth annual Alaska Oil and Gas Conference held in Anchorage.

The GIS project is set to be completed by the end of the year. If it is successful, the agency will propose to do similar work to cover the entire 750-mile pipeline route from Prudhoe Bay to the Canadian border.

The technology offers detailed mapping and topography images.

LiDAR, also called laser altimetry, gathers data by scanning the earth's surface with a laser from an aircraft. Laser light reflected back to the aircraft is geodetically calibrated using a combination of global positioning system and inertial navigation system, yielding geodetically referenced elevation data.

Data gathered is formatted into a digital terrain model, for use in analyzing the surface of the earth.

"This system will provide the most consistent source of information and mapping for the pipeline project," said Pearce. "Using LiDAR technology to create a base map, the GIS will offer a range of existing documents, studies and research from private sector and government sources to create a Google Map-like Web-based data source that can be used not only by federal and state agencies involved in permitting, but also the public."

Test images along the 20-mile area in Atigun Pass are completed. That work was done under a $200,000 contract awarded to Michael Baker Jr. Inc., an engineering firm whose parent company is headquartered in Pennsylvania.

The technology offers two types of mapping resolution: a small footprint that scans ground units from 5 to 30 centimeters for detecting faults, detailed local mapping and vegetation canopy studies; and a large footprint that scans 1 to 25 meters for larger-scale studies of tree types and to penetrate tree canopies.

Rob Stapleton can be reached at

rob.stapleton@alaskajournal.com.

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