Concepts and applications for integrating Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV's) in disaster management

Over the past few decades, the impact of natural, manmade and natech (natural hazard triggering technological disasters) disasters has been devastating, affecting over 4.4 billion people. In spite of recent technological advances, the increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters and the escalation of manmade threats is presenting a number of challenges that warrant immediate attention. This paper explores the integration of drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles UAV's) into infrastructure monitoring and post-disaster assessment. Through reviewing some of the recent disasters, effectiveness of utilizing UAV's in different stages of disaster life cycle is demonstrated and needed steps for successful integration of UAV's in infrastructure monitoring, hazard mitigation and post-incident assessment applications are discussed. In addition, some of the challenges associated with implementing UAV's in disaster monitoring, together with research needs to overcome associated knowledge gaps, is presented.