LiDAR - Pipeline Project

The Wimmera Mallee Pipeline Project is one of the largest engineering initiatives currently underway in Australia. It spans an area of 11,700 sqkm and aims to increase the efficiency of its water distribution through a reduction in the number of open water channels and the introduction of pipelines and pump stations for water distribution. From the outset, this engineering initiative had ambitious targets for the project’s design and construction timeline.

Given the short timelines on this massive project and the exacting standards set, a combination of ‘brawn’ and ‘brains’ was applied by AAM. An earlier edition of Scanning the Horizons detailed the ‘brains’ aspect implemented to support the data management (this included use of the Terrain feature class from the latest ESRI Arc9.2 software). The ‘brawn’ aspect included deployment of multiple LiDAR units and a large format digital camera to deliver terrain data and imagery.

The terrain data sets for this project included a digital terrain model (+/- 15cm vertical accuracy @ 1 Sigma on open areas) with an average laser strike spacing of 1.3m. The terrain data was complemented by orthoimagery with 60cm image resolution. This imagery provided a vital source of information for the planning and engineering works of this megaproject.

At the time, the spatial foundation data sets provided by AAM to the Wimmera Mallee Pipeline Project in Victoria established a benchmark for the largest single file, terrain dataset ever produced in the country. AAM has gone on to eclipse this achievement in more recent projects!

Project Overview
- A$600 million engineering project
- 11,700 sqkm area
- Short project timelines
- Diverse landscape
- Terrain products (+/- 15cm vertical accuracy)
- Orthophotos (60cm resolution)