Practical application of unmanned aerial vehicles for mountain hazards survey

Mountain disasters like landslides occur frequently in Southwest China. Hence, it is urgent to timely conduct geological survey in disastrous region and take necessary measures to treat identified hazards. Field survey is reliable but too expensive and time-consuming. Satellite or manned aerial remote sensing have the advantages of region-scale coverage and moderate timeliness, but restricted by the factors of mist, image resolution, human safety, and cost. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) remote sensing is a very promising approach for rapid disaster investigation in regional scope, as giving consideration to both accuracy and spatial coverage. In this paper, we demonstrate our practice and experiences in applying UAVs in the survey of mountain hazards from the aspects of UAV customization and modification, UAV image pre-processing, and UAV imagery Interpretation.