Please note that this session was withdrawn and is no longer available in the respective programme. This withdrawal might have been the result of a merge with another session.
ITS3.21/BG8.34 | Drones and their role in addressing the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
EDI
Drones and their role in addressing the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Convener: Karen Anderson | Co-conveners: Dominic FawcettECSECS, Jana Müllerová, Lammert Kooistra, Adrien MichezECSECS
Drone-based approaches are a mushrooming area of research within the geosciences, such that most Earth and environmental science departments will now include drone equipment, along with the people who know how to use it. Whilst there has been a particularly strong emphasis on developing reproducible workflows for drone data within the geosciences, there is less work that considers the role/s of drone technology in addressing cross-cutting themes. With drone workflows now relatively mature, it is time to think more critically about where drone data fits within the geospatial ‘ecosystem’ and to consider the benefits of fine resolution data offered by drones in a broader context than has been done up to now.

The UN SDGs provide a useful interdisciplinary framework for grappling with major social and environmental challenges. The SDGs offer a “shared blueprint for peace and prosperity” through 17 goals (https://sdgs.un.org/goals) that call for action. Core to the SDGs is the plan to end poverty hand-in-hand with other strategies, particularly those that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth, while also addressing climate change and global conservation priorities.

In this session we invite papers from across the diverse disciplines of the EGU describing work positioning drone-based approaches (e.g. drone applications, technical developments, social innovations, and community approaches) against the UN SDGs. We follow Chabot et al.’s (2022) definition of a drone to include all types of robotic vehicles including aerial, ground, water-surface, underwater and space drones. Some examples (not exhaustive) might include:

- Monitoring geohazards (e.g. near urban zones, the coast, volcanoes, forest fires); SDGs 1, 9, 11, 13
- Exploring sustainable energy futures, in smart mining for example; SDGs 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13
- Environmental remediation of contaminated lands and water bodies, legacy sites and tailings; SDGs 3, 6, 10, 14, 15, 16
- Oceanography, sea floor mapping; SDGs 13, 14
- Vegetation monitoring and carbon/biodiversity accounting; SDGs 11, 15
- Partnerships to embed drones in community projects; SDGs 4, 5, 8, 9, 16, 17
- Education through the drone, empowering marginalised groups; SDGs 4, 5, 10, 11, 13
- Exploring volumetric space, underground, oceans, understory; SDGs 7, 11, 14
- Agricultural drone approaches, food security; SDG 2

Reference: Chabot et al. 2022. Drone Systems and Applications, 10(1), pp.399-405.