San Rafael Falls was Ecuador’s tallest at 430 feet. It ceased to exist in 2021. An upstream riverbed collapsed in 2020, diverting the river through a sinkhole below the falls and eventually destroying the natural lava dam that supported it. 

“A lava-dam collapse of this scale was previously known only in the prehistoric sense,” said USGS Research Geologist Amy East, who was part of the team of U.S. scientists visiting Ecuador in February 2023. “The catastrophic collapse of the Rio Coca lava-dam is unprecedented in modern history.”

The historic collapse of the lava dam, and the subsequent regressive erosion, now threaten the future operational status of the Coca Codo Sinclair Hydroelectric Dam about 12 miles upstream. That plant supplies about 26 percent of Ecuador’s power. Losing the electricity generated by this dam would be the U.S. equivalent of a power outage in every state west of the Great Plains. This is the magnitude of the problem facing Ecuador.

The regressive erosion continues to eat away at the riverbed and surrounding valley walls both downstream and upstream from the plant. This erosion threatens not only the dam’s operations, but has already destroyed bridges, man-made structures, and parts of a major highway and oil pipeline infrastructure along the river. These risks prompted the Ecuadorian government to ask for U.S. assistance.

Shortly after the collapse of the San Rafael Falls in 2020, the governments of Ecuador and the United States established a partnership to study the regressive erosion and identify mitigation strategies to reduce the potential negative impacts on the Coca Codo Hydroelectric Dam. As part of this effort, the U.S. Embassy started pulling in interagency expertise to assess the erosion problem. 

In July 2023, U.S. Ambassador to Ecuador Michael J. Fitzpatrick requested the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s technological support to use small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) to map the impacted areas along the Coca River. NGA Director Vice Adm. Frank “Trey” Whitworth formally approved the mission support effort, which was named “Project Condor” in September. NGA’s Warfighter Support Office was ready to take the lead, as it had been discussing a possible sUAS imagery collection and mapping plan with a range of partners since January.

Input from and coordination with those partners, including U.S. Embassy staff, U.S. interagency experts, and various Ecuadorian military and civilian officials, was key to the successful planning and execution of Project Condor. 

“This was a unique international partner request that required a unique and comprehensive USG team solution,” said Lidia Lopez, International Partnership Manager for NGA’s Source Office of Geography. “It was a great exercise in teamwork building, both internally and externally. We had to tailor our team with the right internal experts and coordinate with U.S. government and Ecuadorian partners for everything from customs processing of equipment to IGM’s authorizations to fly the drones above 400 feet.” 

To understand the unexpected collapse of the Falls, and where subsequent erosion could spread, geospatial intelligence, or GEOINT, was needed.  GEOINT describes, assesses, and visually depicts physical features and geographically-referenced activities on the Earth.  As the world-leader in geospatial intelligence, NGA was the logical choice to lead the effort.  

From Nov. 29 to Dec. 7, NGA’s Mike Shellenberger and Shawn Smith, along with Matt Larson and Brandon Stockwell from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, used small unmanned aerial systems to collect more than 62 miles (100 kilometers) of high-resolution visual, thermal and multispectral imagery of river sections. The joint NGA-ORNL effort used cameras mounted on drones to map the river, collect high resolution sediment images and to scout other launch and recovery areas. The painstaking work proceeded one kilometer of river bank at a time in some of the world’s most weather- and terrain-restrictive environments. 

During the next three days, the collection team processed the raw data into multiple 2D and 3D products for the government of Ecuador. The products will be used to construct engineering models to mitigate the massive erosion event threatening Ecuador’s critical infrastructure. The 2 TB of data collected and processed provides a baseline to forecast erosion severity and speed.  Project Condor’s successful testing of key software and equipment in remote environments ensures improved application in future combat and humanitarian emergencies. 

Project Condor delivers on NGA’s strategic objectives to build partner resiliency and enhance Ecuador’s operational readiness. Those objectives are especially important in this case due to the regional stakes of losing the dam and other critical infrastructure. 

“Arming Ecuador’s leaders with the best information to prevent worst case economic, humanitarian and environmental outcomes is in everyone’s best interest – including the United States,” said Smith. “We need to use the power of GEOINT to get ahead of problems, and that includes environmental problems, before the problems get ahead of us.”

NGA predecessor organizations have a history with Ecuador. In 1999, as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), our analysts in Saint Louis worked with Ecuadorian and Peruvian delegates to map a remote section of their border. That map supported a 1998 peace agreement settling a border dispute dating back to the 1800s that erupted in the Cenepa War of 1995. Prior agreements failed because they relied on subjective and imprecise written descriptions of the remote area’s border.

Ecuador featured prominently in the mapping conducted by the Inter American Geodetic Survey, or IAGS between 1946 and 1989, when it was a component of the Defense Mapping Agency. The IAGS assisted, trained and equipped Latin American cartographers to map their territories. More on IAGS here.

Should Ecuadorian authorities request a second round of Coca River erosion mapping, NGA may have another opportunity to add to its already rich history of contributions to peace and security in Ecuador. During a follow-on January visit, USGS scientists observed substantial river channel shifts and upstream migration of the erosion front since its last assessment in April 2023.