Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs also known as unmanned airborne systems (UAS) or remotely piloted airborne systems (RPAS)) have significantly developed in the last few years. Progress in sensors for (guided) navigation and processing as well as in mechatronics (air frames and electronics) lead to compact and light systems for close range aerial data acquisition. Miniaturization in sensors for observing the earth, including next to cameras, e.g., hyperspectral imagers, magnetic sensors, or range sensors, make these platforms interesting for the geosciences. This leads to a small (ground) sampling distance and correspondingly high resolution. Furthermore, the onboard navigation sensors allow the direct georeferencing of the sensor data. In different areas of application (infrastructure mapping, mining, agriculture, archaeology, search and rescue, computer vision) UAVs have already proven that new insight can be gained because of the simplified deployment and customized sensing. This session will bring together geoscientists interested in exploiting UAVs for their research questions. It will provide insight into current UAV system capabilities and different applications in the geosciences.