TITLE:
Drone Applications for Supporting Disaster Management
AUTHORS:
Agoston Restas
KEYWORDS:
Disaster Management, Flood, Earthquake, Nuclear Accident, Hazardous Material, Forest Fire, UAV, UAS, RPAS, Drone
JOURNAL NAME:
World Journal of Engineering and Technology,
Vol.3 No.3C,
October
23,
2015
ABSTRACT: Introduction: Besides the military and
commercial applications of drones, there is no doubt in their efficiency in
case of supporting emergency management. This paper evaluates some experiences
and describes some initiatives using drones to support disaster management.
Method: This paper focuses mainly on operational and tactical drone application
in disaster management using a time-scaled separation of the application, like
pre-disaster activity, activity immediately after the occurrence of a disaster
and the activity after the primary disaster elimination. Paper faces to 5
disasters, like nuclear accidents, dangerous material releases, floods,
earthquakes and forest fires. Author gathered international examples and used
own experiences in this field. Results and discussion: An earthquake is a rapid
escalating disaster, where, many times, there is no other way for a rapid
damage assessment than aerial reconnaissance. For special rescue teams, the
drone application can help much in a rapid location selection, where enough
place remained to survive for victims. Floods are typical for a slow onset disaster.
In contrast, managing floods is a very complex and difficult task. It requires
continuous monitoring of dykes, flooded and threatened areas. Drone can help
managers largely keeping an area under observation. Forest fires are disasters,
where the tactical application of drone is already well developed. Drone can be
used for fire detection, intervention monitoring and also for post-fire
monitoring. In case of nuclear accident or hazardous material leakage drone is
also a very effective or can be the only one tool for supporting disaster
management.