The Evolution of Unmanned Aerial System (Drones) in Water Science

With the advent of the Federal Aviation Administration development of certification requirements for operators of unmanned aerial systems in 2016, combined with the explosive growth of hardware and software for aerial imaging, the use of unmanned aerial systems (commonly referred to as “drones”) has opened a new method to obtain, observe, and document both the existence of, and changes in, surface and groundwater resources and their associated ecosystems. While aerial photography has been used for decades to provide a “birds eye” view of the earth’s surface, the readily available newest aerial technologies enable real-time data acquisition of ongoing processes affected by changes in surface and groundwater conditions and their impacts on ecosystem changes. Aerial imagery platforms, including visual documentation, infra-red imaging, LIDAR, and other technologies are evaluated and the opportunities provided by each technology are discussed. Evolving software options that include redundant flight opportunities, geo-imaging, geo-spacial data acquisition, telemetry, and cloud data integration into projects are reviewed, as is the utility of the integration of evolving technologies in the applicability to project activities. The review provides a coherent and succinct summary of the current tools and software available to assess, document, and catalogue the many remote sensing options available to the professional scientist evaluating both surface and groundwater systems.