Using LiDAR, Aerial Photography, and Geospatial Technologies to Reveal and Understand Past Landscapes in Four West Central Missouri Counties

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on Hugh Prince's principle of using the present (in this case as seen through remotely sensed imagery) to understand the past via relict features. I studied ghost towns, cemeteries, and abandoned railroads via NAIP and LiDAR imagery in four west-central Missouri Counties (Carroll, Chariton, Lafayette, and Saline). The remnants of ghost towns, cemeteries, and abandoned railroads ("relict features") often manifest themselves in surface spatial patterns and terrain deformation. Each sensor offers unique advantages and disadvantages due to the design and construction of the sensor. LiDAR can strip away vegetation to present a bare earth model (a DTM) of terrain, useful in the detection of features revealed by subtle elevation and terrain changes. Specifically, LiDAR was useful for revealing historic roads and depressions in ghost towns, exposing abandoned railroad beds under tree canopies, and for the detection of monuments and other larger features in cemeteries. In addition, LiDAR also proves useful for uncovering previously undocumented roads and offers precise locations of railroad beds that were previously uncertain. NAIP presents a researcher with a color (either natural color or near-infrared) birds-eye view of the earth, revealing spatial patterns on the surface of the earth. For ghost towns, NAIP imagery was most useful for the detection of historic roads in recently abandoned ghost towns. NAIP imagery was also useful for the detection of abandoned railroads where the bed is exposed or when there is a single tree line in the bed and for visualizing the spatial patterning of cemeteries.