Skip to main content
Log in

Geoscientists in the Sky: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Responding to Geohazards

  • Published:
Surveys in Geophysics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This article presents a review of the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the context of geohazards. The pluri-disciplinary role of UAVs is outlined in numerous studies associated with mass earth movements, volcanology, flooding events and earthquakes. Scientific advances and innovations of several research teams around the world are presented from pre-events investigations to crisis management. More particularly, we emphasize the actual status of technology, methodologies and different applications that have emerged with the use of UAVs for each domain. It is shown that the deployment of UAVs in the geohazards context has experienced a tremendous increase during the last 10 years, with the development of more and more miniaturized, flexible and reliable systems. The use of such technology (UAV platform, instrumentation, methodologies) is different for each domain, depending on the spatial extent and the time scale of the observed phenomenon, but also on the practical constraints associated with the civil aviation agencies regulations (outside or within urban areas, before or during a crisis…). This paper also highlights the use of recent methodologies associated with semi-automatic/automatic segmentation or deep learning for the processing of important amounts of data provided by UAVs. Finally, although still sparse, the joint use of UAVs and satellite data is progressing and remains a challenge for future studies in the context of geohazards.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

(Reproduced with the permission of the authors C.Lissak, V. Siccard 2020, Caen University) (Lissak et al. 2019)

Fig. 3

(from Turner et al. 2015)

Fig. 4

Credit: U.S. Geological Survey

Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7

Modified from Feng et al. (2015)

Fig. 8
Fig. 9

(modified from Bemis et al. 2014)

Fig. 10

(modified from Gori et al. 2018)

Similar content being viewed by others

References

Download references

Acknowledgements

This paper arose from the International Workshop on “Natural and man-made hazards monitoring by the Earth Observation missions: current status and scientific gaps” held at the International Space Science Institute (ISSI), Bern, Switzerland, on April 15-18, 2019. The thermal survey of Piton de La Fournaise in 2018 was supported by the SlideVOLC French ANR project. We thank all the authors whose illustrations are presented in this article.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to R. Antoine.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Appendices

Appendix 1

figure a

Bibliographic overview of case studies for mass movements

Appendix 2

figure b

Bibliographic overview on developments around sensors mounted on drone and volcanoes case studies.

Appendix 3

figure c

Main characteristics of the studies cited on the bibliographic overview on flood monitoring and management using UAVs. Information not provided by the authors in the reviewed studies is marked by the symbol “?”.

Appendix 4

figure d

Technical overview of the flights described in Sect. 7 “From tectonophysics studies to post-earthquakes disaster management.”

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Antoine, R., Lopez, T., Tanguy, M. et al. Geoscientists in the Sky: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Responding to Geohazards. Surv Geophys 41, 1285–1321 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10712-020-09611-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10712-020-09611-7

Keywords

Navigation