LIDAR Survey started by Nepal: will take 7 years to finish

Survey department of Nepal have begin to surveying the Nepal’s physical structure using LiDAR technology. The survey department have called this as dream project which will make revolution in infrastructure development, terrain mapping and many more.

LiDAR is the Light Detection and Ranging. It uses the light ray as a beam of laser to measure the ranges. The difference between the transmitted and received time duration will be used to create a 3-Dimensional images using the software.

This survey will be carried out using the aircraft but only after Tihar. However, all the preparations are done as informed by the spokesperson of survey department, Minbhawan kathmandu.

At initial phase, 20000 Square Kilometer of the land will be surveyed ranging from Far-western to Chitwan. Indeed, The duration of this survey is estimated to be of 15 months.

In second phase, remaining mapping of the country will be done. This mapping was started by the budget of Nepal government but for second phase aid from Japan government will be used.

Survey department spoke person, Janakraj Joshi told “Mapping using this technology will create artificial map as exactly to the natural orientation like the high-low places,depths,corner and every small details”. The data extracted by this mapping will be used extensively in infrastructure designing like road, hydro-power, canel,etc. Even, for surveying there wouldn’t need to visit the site. Using this surveyed data will help to create feasibility and surveying report. This will save a lot of money and time.

The survey department expect to complete the whole Nepal survey in the next 7 years. Departments expects high and even this surveying will help to know the feasibility of 83,000 MW of electricity.

With surveying, the aircraft will also capture the high resolution image of the mapping area at a time. So the geography digitization using lidar technology will help for easier survey.

History of Lidar in Nepal

Before also, surveying using lidar technology was done but in some specific areas and purposes. Manakamana cable car, Bheri Babai diversion, Budhigandaki hydropower,etc are the projects where Lidar was used.

In Gandaki river, lidar was used to get data.