Groundwater Resource Assessment

There is significant interest in the application of UAV Systems for hydrogeologic studies, especially groundwater/surface-water exchange studies.

Initial efforts are focusing on evaluation and demonstration of hydrogeologic data collection with natural color, multispectral, and thermal imaging sensors on a hex-copter. Longer term efforts include assessment of new and emerging geophysical sensors, such as ground-penetrating radar for bathymetry.

Mapping Buried Pipelines

Drone magnetic surveys for locating buried steel pipelines are significantly more challenging than well location surveys because the magnetic anomaly from buried pipelines is discontinuous and less intense than well-type magnetic anomalies.

Drone magnetic surveys can locate steel pipelines ≥ 2 in. diameter buried 1 m deep without a trace current if flown at altitudes of 10 m AGL or lower. Low-altitude flight brings the drone and sensor into potential conflict with ground-based objects, which limits drone pipeline mapping surveys to open areas without trees, overhead utilities, and buildings.

Hydrocarbon Exploration

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones have become integral to the oil and gas (O&G) industry in recent years, owing to their increasing usability with advancements in technology.

Drone Geoscience is collaborating with oil and gas companies to develop data collection technology to obtain real-time insights.

Geologic Mapping

Drones flown at low altitude can capture surface and topographic information that has traditionally been acquired from Airborne LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) or TLS (Terrestrial Laser Scanning).

Airborne LiDAR surveys are best for large areas (more than 5 square miles), whereas low-altitude drone surveys are ideal for small to moderate-sized sites (less than 5 square miles). Drone surveys and image processing software can generate maps with similar accuracies and higher resolutions than many established photogrammetry (whereby measurements are made from photographs) techniques for a fraction of the cost.

Additionally, most drones are small, lightweight, and highly mobile, and thus are rapidly deployed to capture shortlived events (such as debris flows) or used for repeat photography of long-lived events (such as stream erosion). The combination of these factors is encouraging a growing number of geoscientists to add drones to their geologic toolboxes.