2025 Airborne Electromagnetic (AEM) Surveys
The Lower Big Blue NRD was awarded Water Sustainability Fund (WSF) grant dollars for an Airborne Electromagnetic (AEM) survey flown in the summer of 2025. The 2025 AEM survey work is the third installment of the Lower Big Blue NRD's phased approach to cover the entire District. The resulting datasets will be uploaded to the Nebraska GeoCloud (NGC): go.unl.edu/aem.
The latest digital versions of Flight Lines as of 2025 are available here: ESRI Geodatabase File Download (zip file 3.3 MB) kmz file Download (Google Earth file 6.3 MB). Additionally Saturated Aquifer and Saturated Coarse Aquifer Thickness Maps from the NRD AEM and model work reports have been stitched together for several NRDs using the same color scales for thickness: 10 feet (blue) up to 218 feet (red) designed to match the 0 to 60 ohm-m scales fo the AEM data and borehole material logs from the Nebraska GeoCloud. A Google Earth Version of the saturated aquifer material above bedrock file is available here or ESRI map package here, Dakota saturated aquifermaterial thicknesses are availiable in Google Earth format here and ESRI format here. Email kcameron_enwra@lpsnrd.org for a login to the Nebraska GeoCloud where you can visualize AEM data, borehole data, related shapefiles, use profile tools to draw cross-secitons and download data files.
Video AEM overview (depreciated, new video coming soon)
Approximately 494 line-miles of AEM survey were acquired with the SkyTEM 304 system for the Lower Big Blue AEM survey in July 2025. Collected data was processed in the Spatially Constrained Inversion (SCI) AEM earth models with 39 layers. Mapping results produced from the AEM data for the LBBNRD project provide three-dimensional subsurface views of the aquifer materials and estimates of the extents of the groundwater resources available following the approach used for previous Eastern Nebraska Water Resources Assessment (ENWRA) areas. Interpretations provided in the 2025 AEM Report, including the identification of potential saline groundwater locations, will be used by the NRD to address potential quantity and quality concerns in the Lower Big Blue NRD.
Lower Big Blue NRD 2025 AEM Survey
Links
Google Earth Datasets:
The interpreted results for the 2025 AEM flights have been provided in Google Earth format. You can download the free version of Google Earth Pro by clicking here.
*Click here for a link to download the Google Earth datasets from ENWRA's Dropbox.
The link above provides a link to the KMZ Folder deliverable with ".kmz" files that will show the 2025 AEM flight line locations: "as flown" and "retained" where data was chopped out from interferences, as well as interpreted ".kmz" files that show clickable data dots in Google Earth (LBBNRD25_Profiles Folder) for the Lower Big Blue NRD. There are 72 associated image files (36 MB) linked to the data dots provided in the interpreted .kmz file.
You do not have to sign-up for a Dropbox account to download the files (sometimes written in fine print at the bottom of a log in or sign up button or depicted as a down arrow symbol). You must have Google Earth installed on your computer before opening the .kmz Google Earth dataset files. If you already have a Dropbox account, please sign out before clicking this link and choose download so you do not fill up space on your personal Dropbox.
Please follow the instructions in the "GoogleE_README.pdf" PDF file on Dropbox here and save the downloaded files with the same exact file structure as shown on the Dropbox onto your computer's C drive. See the video tutorial example here for detailed walkthrough. Google Earth will look here on your hard drive: C:\LBBNRD25_Profiles for every profile image when you touch a link on a data dot - see example image below.
