Lidar Maps of Wisconsin: What the 3D Elevation Program Is Worth to the State

Lidar — light detection and ranging — maps the ground and everything on it in three dimensions, in great detail. In Wisconsin that detail pays off in farming, conservation, water supply, flood risk management, roads and construction, water quality and forestry, and helps the state deal with heavy rain, flooding, Great Lakes coastal erosion and growing cities and suburbs.

The 3D Elevation Program

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) runs the 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) with federal, state, tribal, territorial and local partners. Its goal is the first national baseline of consistent, high-resolution elevation data — lidar everywhere, and radar (IfSAR) in Alaska.

3DEP data include the full point clouds and bare-earth elevation models at 1-meter resolution or better, are built into The National Map, and are free with no restrictions on use — download them from The National Map.

Wisconsin is covered

• Collection began in 2015, and statewide coverage was completed in fall 2023. Work continues: updating older data, raising quality, and re-flying areas changed by floods and development.
• As of 2025, 33 counties have or are getting QL1 data; the other 39 have QL2.
• Most counties helped pay for collection and can recoup it in programs from infrastructure and agriculture to Next Generation 911 and broadband.

Figure 1. Status of 3DEP baseline lidar in Wisconsin, January 2025 — find data with the Lidar Explorer. Image from the U.S. Geological Survey

What it's worth

A national assessment conservatively estimated lidar would bring Wisconsin at least $11.18 million a year in new benefits.

Nationally, 3DEP is conservatively worth $690 million a year, with potential for $13 billion a year more.

How Wisconsin uses it

Farming. Wisconsin had 13.8 million acres of farmland in 2024 and sold about $15.3 billion in farm products. Detailed terrain makes inputs more precise, cuts runoff, and powers tools like the USDA's Agricultural Conservation Planning Framework, which maps water flow paths, runoff and drainage to site grass waterways, contour buffer strips, water impoundments and streamside buffers.

Roads and construction. Dense lidar pulses reach the ground through gaps in the forest canopy, so engineers can assess roads remotely instead of in the field — sizing culverts to survive floods and scour, checking road and ditch grades, sight lines and cut-and-fill, and mapping roads, railroads, levees and buildings in more detail and at lower cost than ever.

Water. Detailed topography shows how water moves, where nutrients and sediment come from, and where water is conveyed — saving substantial time.

Forests. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and timber companies build bare-earth and canopy models to estimate forest volume, density, biomass, leaf area, height and growth, and to gauge wildfire fuel loads. Forest products contributed $26.9 billion in direct output and about 57,000 jobs in 2022.

Joining in

3DEP partnerships are open to federal, state, tribal, territorial and local governments and the private sector. Partners can fund USGS-managed projects, receive funds to run their own, contribute qualifying data, or pay for higher quality, through the annual Data Collaboration Announcement — see 3DEP collaboration.

Sources

Based on Mitchell Bergeson, "The 3D Elevation Program—Supporting Wisconsin's economy," U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2026–3007, U.S. Geological Survey; a work of the United States government in the public domain.