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Roy Dokka calculated it to roughly $10 per “boink”—probably the most accurate way to describe the sound that issued from the Jeep’s dash-mounted GPS data collector every 100 feet of muddy levee top.

This was surveying, but a new kind, using a system Dokka designed with off-the-shelf technology that relies on satellites to pinpoint precise locations and elevations. It’s extremely accurate, astonishingly fast compared to conventional methods—and yes, about 10 bucks a boink if you factor in the cost of conventional surveying, which is about $500 a mile.

The usual method is to put a surveying crew in the field to make a series of line-of-sight measurements that originate from a “benchmark”—a metal disk supposedly representing true elevation at a given point. The problem in south Louisiana is that due to subsidence—sinking—true elevations frequently are much lower than that indicated by benchmarks.

“This is going to save surveyors a boatload of money,” Dokka says, steering around big chunks of hardening mud.

It could also save you money if you have flood insurance, or misery if you live in a flood plain and don’t know it.

A magnetic sign on the Jeep’s door reads “Louisiana Spatial Reference Center.” Dokka is the center’s executive director, and a professor of civil and environmental engineering, and director of LSU’s Center for GeoInformatics. An act of the 2006 Legislature charged Dokka with mapping levee elevations throughout south Louisiana using the new technology, which includes a network of the 42 GPS stations Dokka has established so far throughout the state.

The network is called GULFNet. Each of the network’s GPS stations, relying on satellites, constantly communicates in real time its position and elevation to an LSU server via the Internet. Dokka, a geologist, mainly uses GULFNet to track the North American Tectonic Plate, though it’s also handy for a quick Jeep-enabled survey of the levee southeast of Henderson on a crisp December morning.

The 2006 law says all levees have to be measured every three years—which had levee boards complaining about the cost.

“People said it was too expensive to do,” Dokka says. “The lowest cost most surveying companies would charge would be something like $400 a mile. We can do this literally for $100 a mile.”

And did. The project to measure every wall, sheet pile and earthen levee from Donaldsonville to the mouth of the Mississippi River cost about $150,000 and took only three months—10 to 20 times faster than had it been done by conventional surveying, Dokka says.

With a $30,000 investment in equipment and the $5,000 annual fee required to tap into the LSU system, any levee board could measure its own levees. The user fees keep GULFNet up and running, since it has no steady government funding. All the money Dokka has gotten for the project has come from federal grants and contracts. About $2.5 million has been invested in the project since Dokka started building the network in 2000.

Windell Curole, general manager of the South Lafourche Levee District, says Dokka’s method of measuring levee elevation is a “quantum leap” over conventional surveying, which is prohibitively expensive and can take months.

“With the new technology, in one day he covered the whole system,” Curole says.

The GPS technology on which GULFNet is based is already used in surveying, construction, agriculture and navigation around the world. There are even similar networks in parts of the United States, though nothing as integrated as GULFNet. As for possible applications, the only limit is imagination. Dokka compares it to erecting a power grid, then leaving it to others to figure out how to use. It turns out there are quite a few uses for electricity. He expects a tidal of applications eventually, and says someday every state will have a network like GULFNet.

“This is the goose that lays the golden egg,” he says.

A major practical application: flood maps, which propose to show the level of flood risk in a given area. They’re drawn based on elevations, which are based on benchmarks. If the benchmark is wrong—largely been the case in south Louisiana—so is the flood map. Dokka’s system provides a benchmark-free way of drawing flood maps (and creating hurricane-impact models, for that matter), which means a clear understanding of risk as opposed to an educated guess.

“What’s insurance about? It’s about confidence,” Dokka says. “The more you know about the risk, the better chance you have to mitigate it, therefore your potential losses become more manageable and insurance rates should probably be reduced. On the other hand, it probably means that you should increase the insurance rates in some places.”

More accurate flood maps, ideally, will mean more intelligent land-use decisions, leading to better development—or no development—in the most vulnerable areas. To Dokka, it all comes down to the cost of getting it right versus the cost of getting it wrong. Knowledge is power. Power is money.

“We don’t need no stinking benchmarks,” Dokka says.

Nothing’s definite, though FEMA, which administers the National Flood Insurance Program, appears favorably disposed toward a plan to give credits to South Louisiana communities that only use elevation surveys based on the GULFNet network.

“This may result in across the board savings to communities that participate with LSU in this program,” Dokka says. “Indications from FEMA are that this is definitely the way to go.”

Robert Hartwig, president of the Insurance Information Institute, says it’s in everyone’s best interest to have good information when it comes to elevation and flood risk. Those who discover they’re not so vulnerable can breathe easier and maybe pay less in flood insurance. Those who discover they’re more vulnerable will have the opportunity to mitigate, he says.

“At a minimum, you’d expect to see different development,” Hartwig says. “Maybe the same amount of development but the structures will be different. At the end of the day everybody’s better off. Having correct information is better than having incorrect information. When people go to the doctor and they’re told the don’t have cancer when in fact they do. That’s not a good thing.”