UAV-Based Photogrammetry and Measurements for Monitoring Natural Hazards and as a Risk Reduction Measure

Dear Colleagues,

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have developed into powerful tools for natural phenomena illustration, mapping, and monitoring, such as volcano eruptive crises, rockfalls and landslides, floods, earthquakes, coast erosion, and fire propagation. The combination of increasingly efficient platforms and a heterogeneous range of sensors increases acquisition productivity, enlarges the field of application, and significantly reduces the operating costs and hazards for the operator. Moreover, the use of UAVs is irreplaceable for those who must furnish stakeholders with the right information to manage a natural hazard emergency. The strengths of UAVs are speed of the mission planning, repeatability of the mission to ensure homogenization of the products, low cost, and, last but not least, operator safety. The use of non-military UAVs varies from photogrammetric mapping, updating topography after ground movements such as landslides, settlements, rock block rotation or sliding, 3D jointed rock mass modeling, object-based characterization, and thermal measurements to the sampling of gas and ash. UAV application allows us to obtain unique and novel ultra-detailed datasets that can be used to better understand the natural process, support hazard assessments, and reduce risk when monitoring a natural hazard process.

This Special Issue aims to collect the contributions of researchers and technicians who would like to show how UAVs have helped and supported them in dealing with scientific data when faced with emergency and hazard assessments.

Dr. Vassilis Marinos
Dr. Emanuela de Beni
Guest Editors

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• UAVs
• monitoring
• remote measurements
• natural hazard and risk assessment
• photogrammetry
• SfM technique
• landslide
• rockfall