Environmental Protection Assessment, and Safety Monitoring
Drones in Environmental Data Collection
Drones can be used in industrial settings to monitor site conditions, in wildlife research to fly distribution surveys, for geospatial mapping by collecting imagery for land cover classification, and in many other scenarios where a bird's-eye view is needed
See Publication: "Drones are taking off for Environmental
The soil hydrological process is an essential aspect of the environment.
Soil monitoring can aid in water resource forecasting, crop management, land stability, and climate change. Additionally, it is a significant component of precision agriculture.
For many years, drones have seen greater adoption in this type of environmental monitoring.
When equipped with a multi-spectral camera, drones provide you with a wealth of soil information on any given region. UAVs can collect data on moisture, nitrate levels, contamination, temperature, solar radiation, humidity, and more.
It all adds up to a clear understanding of soil, even in difficult-to-reach locations.
Observing and collecting data on species diversity and abundance in a given area is known as biodiversity monitoring.
Generally, healthy ecosystems include a diverse population of species. With proper diversity, regions better maintain stability, maintain productivity, and resist outside forces more effectively.
And, this includes areas populated by people.
Again, UAVs provide excellent platforms for environmental monitoring of biodiversity.
Drones can keep track of wildlife populations, conduct plant counts, scan for diseases in plants, and assist with forest management. Use cases already include everything from studying animal populations to protecting endangered species.
Other Applications:
- Pipeline monitoring
- Spill assessment or patrolling
- Landfill or wasteland assessment
- Watershed protection and patrol
- Fire hazards..... Forest fire scouting
- Environmental disaster prevention or assessment
- IIlegal dumping inspections
- Tree and agriculture health and disease control
- Air Quality testing
- Water testing and survey.
Oil Spill assessments:
- Assess where the best place to deploy oil spill control assets by observing aerial views of the spills
- Monitor the progress and clean up efforts at time intervals
- Assess damages for insurance claims and control efforts.
The physical limitations of traditional environmental monitoring methods, like walking on foot or driving, are time-consuming, and represent only a fraction of the total picture.
With drones’ abilities to cover large, inaccessible areas quickly and easily, they’re playing a bigger role in environmental monitoring than ever before.
Their ability to monitor conditions in difficult-to-reach regions, while carrying a wide array of sensors, offers tremendous advantages over manual methods. And, through better understanding of our environment, we’ll remain better poised to address future problems.
As you can see, drones provide the perfect platform for any number of environmental monitoring use cases, and provide a unique solution to today’s tough challenges.
So, are you ready to take advantage of drones for your organization? If so, how do you get started? Do you hire out or bring your drone program in-house?
