Drones for Conservation in Protected Areas: Present and Future

Abstract

Park managers call for cost-effective and innovative solutions to handle a wide variety of environmental problems that threaten biodiversity in protected areas. Recently, drones have been called upon to revolutionize conservation and hold great potential to evolve and raise better-informed decisions to assist management. Despite great expectations, the benefits that drones could bring to foster effectiveness remain fundamentally unexplored. To address this gap, we performed a literature review about the use of drones in conservation. We selected a total of 256 studies, of which 99 were carried out in protected areas. We classified the studies in five distinct areas of applications: “wildlife monitoring and management”; “ecosystem monitoring”; “law enforcement”; “ecotourism”; and “environmental management and disaster response”. We also identified specific gaps and challenges that would allow for the expansion of critical research or monitoring. Our results support the evidence that drones hold merits to serve conservation actions and reinforce effective management, but multidisciplinary research must resolve the operational and analytical shortcomings that undermine the prospects for drones integration in protected areas.

Application of UAV-Based Methodology for Census of an Endangered Plant Species in a Fragile Habitat

“…The advent of UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) or "drone" technology has created the promise of a revolution in data collection methods for biodiversity conservation that could address many of the constraints imposed by on-the-ground fieldwork [5,6]. Wildlife biologists are attempting to adopt this new technology to address a wide range of questions and problems in wildlife conservation [6,7]. Techniques for characterization of vegetation using high-resolution drone imagery have also received considerable study [8][9][10][11][12][13].…”

“…Sanchez-Bou and Lopez-Pujol [5], in a 2014 review, could find no references that dealt with the use of drones in plant conservation. In a more recent extensive review of drone applications for conservation in protected areas [6], rare plant conservation was not even formally considered, and only one cited paper addressed the use of drones to evaluate rare plant population status. Baena et al [14] reviewed and discussed recent examples of the application of drone technology to plant conservation.…”

Editorial of Special Issue “Drones for Biodiversity Conservation and Ecological Monitoring”

“…Further, more essays have to be completed to evaluate the limitations while tracking moving animals and defining adequate flight paths or search patterns to find close signals. All three studies are good examples of the wide spectrum brightly depicted by Jiménez López and Mulero Pázmány [4] in the special issue review. The authors summarize the search for published contributions of drone applications in wildlife monitoring and management, ecosystem monitoring, law enforcement, ecotourism and environmental management and disaster response.…”

Implementation of Nature-Based Solutions for Hydro-Meteorological Risk Reduction in Small Mediterranean Catchments: The Case of Portofino Natural Regional Park, Italy

“…(3) decrease of the impacts by landslides and slope instability at the coastal sediment amount level [68]; (4) decrease of the risk of injuries among the park visitors due to slope instability of interesting hiking paths during heavy rainfalls; (5) support for the interaction between private landowners; (6) integration of the proposed NBS with regional policies for land management/planning and with the Basin Master Plan [69,70]; (7) improvement of the visibility and governance model of the Portofino Natural Regional Park, also in the perspective of becoming a National Park; and (8) improvement of the collaboration between the park authority and the stakeholders.…”