Space-Time Cube Representation of Stream Bank Evolution Mapped by Terrestrial Laser Scanning

Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) is utilized to monitor bank erosion along a stream that has incised through historic millpond (legacy) sediment. A processing workflow is developed to generate digital terrain models (DTMs) of the bank´s surface from the TLS point cloud data. Differencing of the DTMs reveals that the majority of sediment loss stems from the legacy sediment layer. The DTM time series is stacked into a voxel model to form a space-time cube (STC). The STC provides a compact representation of the bank´s spatiotemporal evolution captured by the TLS scans. The continuous STC extends this approach by generating a voxel model with equal temporal resolution directly from the point cloud data. Novel visualizations are extracted from the STCs to explore patterns in surface evolution. Results show that erosion is highly variable in space and time, with large-scale erosion being episodic due to bank failure within legacy sediment.