Abstract. The number of scientific studies that consider possible applications of remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPASs) for the management of natural hazards effects and the identification of occurred damages strongly increased in the last decade. Nowadays, in the scientific community, the use of these systems is not a novelty, but a deeper analysis of the literature shows a lack of codified complex methodologies that can be used not only for scientific experiments but also for normal codified emergency operations. RPASs can acquire on-demand ultra-high-resolution images that can be used for the identification of active processes such as landslides or volcanic activities but can also define the effects of earthquakes, wildfires and floods. In this paper, we present a review of published literature that describes experimental methodologies developed for the study and monitoring of natural hazards. IntroductionIn the last three decades, the number of natural disasters showed a positive trend with an increase in the number of affected populations. Disasters not only affected the poor and characteristically more vulnerable countries but also those thought to be better protected. The Annual Disaster Statistical Review describes recent impacts of natural disasters on the population and reports 342 naturally triggered disasters in 2016 (Guha-Sapir et al., 2017). This is less than the annual average disaster frequency observed from 2006 to 2015 (376.4 events). However, natural disasters are still responsible for a high number of casualties (8733 death). In the period 2006-2015, the average number of causalities caused annually by natural disasters is 69 827. In 2016, hydrological disasters (177) had the largest share in natural disaster occurrence (51.8 %), followed by meteorological disasters (96; 28.1 %), climatological disasters (38; 11.1 %) and geophysical disasters (31; 9.1 %) (Guha-Sapir et al., 2017). To face these disasters, one of the most important solutions is the use of systems able to provide an adequate level of information for correctly understanding these events and their evolution. In this context, surveying and monitoring natural hazards gained importance. In particular, during the emergency phase it is very important to evaluate and control the phenomenon of evolution, preferably operating in near real time or real time, and consequently, use this information for a better risk assessment scenario. The available acquired data must be processed rapidly to support the emergency services and decision makers.Recently, the use of remote sensing (satellite and airborne platform) in the field of natural hazards and disasters has become common, also supported by the increase in geospatial technologies and the ability to provide and process up-to-date imagery (Joyce et al., 2009;Tarolli, 2014). Remotely sensed data play an integral role in predicting hazard events such as floods and landslides, subsidence events and other ground instabilities. Because of their acquisition mode and capabilPublished by Copern...

This paper represents the result of the IAEG C35 Commission "Monitoring methods and approaches in engineering geology applications" workgroup aimed to describe a general overview of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and their potentiality in several engineering geology applications. The use of UAV has progressively increased in the last decade and nowadays started to be considered a standard research instrument for the acquisition of images and other information on demand over an area of interest. UAV represents a cheap and fast solution for the on-demand acquisition of detailed images of an area of interest and the creation of detailed 3D models and orthophoto. The use of these systems required a good background of data processing and a good drone pilot ability for the management of the flight mission in particular in a complex environment.

Satellite remote sensing is a powerful tool to map flooded areas. In recent years, the availability of free satellite data significantly increased in terms of type and frequency, allowing the production of flood maps at low cost around the world. In this work, we propose a semi-automatic method for flood mapping, based only on free satellite images and open-source software. The proposed methods are suitable to be applied by the community involved in flood hazard management, not necessarily experts in remote sensing processing. As case studies, we selected three flood events that recently occurred in Spain and Italy. Multispectral satellite data acquired by MODIS, Proba-V, Landsat, and Sentinel-2 and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data collected by Sentinel-1 were used to detect flooded areas using different methodologies (e.g., Modified Normalized Difference Water Index, SAR backscattering variation, and supervised classification). Then, we improved and manually refined the automatic mapping using free ancillary data such as the digital elevation model-based water depth model and available ground truth data. We calculated flood detection performance (flood ratio) for the different datasets by comparing with flood maps made by official river authorities. The results show that it is necessary to consider different factors when selecting the best satellite data. Among these factors, the time of the satellite pass with respect to the flood peak is the most important. With co-flood multispectral images, more than 90% of the flooded area was detected in the 2015 Ebro flood (Spain) case study. With post-flood multispectral data, the flood ratio showed values under 50% a few weeks after the 2016 flood in Po and Tanaro plains (Italy), but it remained useful to map the inundated pattern. The SAR could detect flooding only at the co-flood stage, and the flood ratio showed values below 5% only a few days after the 2016 Po River inundation. Another result of the research was the creation of geomorphology-based inundation maps that matched up to 95% with official flood maps.