sUAS and their application in observing geomorphological processes

Abstract

Methodologies and procedures in processing gained data vary based on possibilities and needs of scientific projects. This paper should help to get a general overview in the choice of small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS – commonly known as drones) for scientific purposes, namely remote sensing of geomorphologic processes such as soil degradation in high mountainous areas that are hard to access and have unfavourable weather conditions. All high mountain areas in European countries are legislatively protected, and so various permissions and observation of strict procedures are needed in order to not have a negative influence on the environment. Nowadays, several types of UAS exist that could effectively help us in such protection, as well as in full-fledged utilization when answering scientific questions about the alpine lake genesis. We demonstrate it here with selected examples of our photo documentation.