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Education and Research

Eyes in the sky: How drones are revolutionizing geosciences

Students and researchers at the University of Bergen are planning and executing drone missions, processing the data, and creating 3D models to map and track changes in ice-covered regions.

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Earth scientists have always been fascinated by space and time – understanding where something happens and when it takes place. This curiosity spans from tracking ancient glaciers to modeling interactions between the atmosphere and the ocean. As the planet changes, we look for new tools and methods to monitor and understand these shifts.

For the past quarter of a century, the Earth has continuously been orbited by hundreds of Earth-observation satellites. These satellites can detect and measure changes to our planet’s surface in increasingly fine detail and permit scientists to study how the planet’s surface has changed over the last half-century.

However, satellite imagery is dependent on clear skies to survey, the timing of acquisitions is not flexible, and high-resolution satellite imagery can be expensive. Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), commonly referred to as drones have rapidly become essential equipment for any earth scientist and allow detailed, on-demand surveys for small areas.

UAVs are not necessarily new, however over the last decade the technology has evolved to a point where flying a UAV is no more demanding than playing a video game.

Modern, off-the-shelf drones are capable of measuring the oncoming wind and accounting for it when flying, detecting and avoiding obstacles, and adjusting the flying height based on variable topography. UAVs are also affordable, with the cameras on even the basic models typically being sufficient for performing surveys that can match LiDAR datasets in terms of their spatial resolution.

As such UAVs are no longer in the domain of remote sensing scientists but are commonly used by a variety of earth scientists, geologists, ecologists, and geographers, allowing them to digitally capture their field areas which can later be used to characterize landforms and landscapes, and to assess changes over time.

 

Read more here (geoforskning.no): Eyes in the sky: How drones are revolutionizing geosciences - Geoforskning.no

 

This tekst was first published in GEO2024.