Best Practices and Lessons Learned from Using Tablet-Based Survey Forms for Geomorphic River Assessments

A geomorphic river assessment seeks to identify and describe river processes to interpret likely evolutionary trajectories to better inform watershed management decisions. Tablet-based field survey forms offer an attractive solution to improve the efficiency and consistency of field data collected during geomorphic river assessments. However, understanding the advantages and disadvantages associated with this type of tool is essential before form development is initiated. Utilizing best practices while developing the survey form is critical to maximize the form’s usefulness in field and data-processing phases, while effectively mitigating many of the potential disadvantages.

This presentation describes the development of a tablet-based survey form in ESRI’s Survey123 which has been used for geomorphic river assessments in Iowa, Wisconsin and New York. The form integrates multiple subforms which can be turned off and on depending on the needs of the survey and utilizes spatially diverse key fields so that field data, once collected, can be easily queried at cross-section, reach, stream, and watershed scales. Examples of potential uses for collected field data will be presented, including documenting discrete points along a river so that future changes can be monitored identification of potential projects to improve watershed health augmentation of field data with landcover, soils, and other GIS based data and rapid combination of multiple field data points into robust river reach descriptions. Final data can be output in Excel or Word format for easy manipulation by the client, or be viewed through online various online portals.