Possible use of unmanned aerial vehicle for soil erosion assessment

A.M. Gafurov

Kazan Federal University, Kazan, 420008 Russia

E-mail: gafurov.kfu@gmail.com

Received January 16, 2017

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Abstract

The paper presents the results that show possible use of unmanned aerial vehicle in the quadrocopter form factor (DJI Phantom 4 as an example) to evaluate soil erosion rates. Comparative analysis of the drone survey before and after using of the ground control points for three-dimensional digital elevation model (DEM) georeferencing has been performed. The use of four ground control points increased the accuracy of referencing to 100 times with decreasing of the height errors to 2–2.2 cm. In addition, comparison of the UAV-based model with the reference model has been carried out based on terrestrial laser scanning (TLS). The results prove the applicability of the method of evaluating gully erosion and accumulation rates by using UAV if the requirements for geodetic control are observed.

Keywords: erosion, gully, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), photogrammetry, terrestrial laser scanning, digital elevation model (DEM), GNSS, tacheometry

Acknowledgments. This study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (project no. 15-17-20006).

Figure Captions

Fig. 1. An area of the tank-training ground of the Kazan Higher Military Command School (red rectangle) selected for testing the method of data positioning.

Fig. 2. An area of the Temev River basin, a stream of Vysokogorskii district, Republic of Tatarstan (red rectangle) selected for UAV-based survey.

Fig. 3. Pix4DCapture program interface.

Fig. 4. Ground control points locations.

Fig. 5. Adjustment using RTKLib for ground control point 1.

Fig. 6. Adjustment of images using Agisoft Photoscan.

Fig. 7. DEM of an area in the basin of the Temev River, a stream with the selected gully (red rectangle) obtained using the UAV-based survey.

Fig. 8. Gully rim contoured based on the results of the surveys with tacheometer (1) and UAV (2).

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For citation: Gafurov A.M. Possible use of unmanned aerial vehicle for soil erosion assessment. Uchenye Zapiski Kazanskogo Universiteta. Seriya Estestvennye Nauki, 2017, vol. 159, no. 4, pp. 654–667. (In Russian)

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