UAV aerial imaging applications for post-disaster assessment, environmental management and infrastructure development

This paper discusses the use of a low-cost unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based remote sensing system for different applications, namely post-disaster assessment, environmental management and monitoring of infrastructure development. A collaborative research consortium was established to promote the acquisition, post processing, analysis and sharing of UAV-based aerial imagery. A streamlined workflow - flight planning and data acquisition, post-processing, data delivery and collaborative sharing - was created in order to deliver acquired images and orthorectified maps to various stakeholders within this consortium. Various use case examples of UAV aerial imagery work are still in ongoing development. Initial experience shows that the combination of aerial surveys, ground observations and collaborative sharing with domain experts results in richer information content and a more effective decision support system.