The Canadian forestry sector is undergoing a period of rapid change due to the advancement and increasing affordability of modern geospatial technologies.

To support field operations, and to anticipate changing legislation within British Columbia regarding the measurement of waste residue as a product of logging operations, the presentation describes a case study performed by the Scaling and Remote Sensing departments at TDB Consultants comparing traditional field survey methods to both airborne LiDAR and photogrammetrically derived point clouds.

The process of waste pile formation is first described, along with a brief history of provincial legislation and field mensuration, before detailing the collection and processing of LiDAR and photogrammetric data to be used within a GIS for volumetric calculation.

The potential of using OBIA techniques to create automatic classifiers for feature identification in large datasets is also explored. Finally, the practical utility of aerial collects using fixed wing aircraft vs. UAVs within a business setting is examined .