Evaluating the contribution of drones to building community climate change resilience

研究问题：面临气候变化影响的社区如何认识到使用无人机来提高社区的韧性？无人机在降低社区对气候变化的风险方面的有效性如何？无人机降低风险的有效性是否取决于使用的技术/操作？不同的无人机操作是否会影响国家、地方政府和社区紧急调查小组之间的风险分配？假设：(I)与其他现有的DM程序相比，对于提高气候变化适应能力的社区，无人机可以提供显著的积极好处。(Ii)与使用自动飞行技术和技术相比，使用当地的无人机调查小组具有更高的收益、更低的成本和更低的风险，例如超视距飞行和机器人无人机群。背景和比率联合国可持续发展目标13是“采取紧急行动应对气候变化及其影响”。气候变化引发的灾害(如洪水、气旋/飓风、山体滑坡、热浪、干旱和野火)有可能对世界各地的人民和社区造成灾难性影响，2018年超过3900万人受到气候变化的影响。政府间气候变化专门委员会第六次评估报告确认，极端天气事件将增加暴露在危险中的人口数量，因此将面临越来越大的风险。气候变化危害可能增加对生命、基础设施、心理健康、暴力和流离失所的威胁。全球范围内，风暴正变得更加频繁和猛烈，如飓风艾达(2019年，南部非洲)、飓风玛丽亚(2017年，加勒比海东北部)和风暴埃弗特(2021年，英国)。对沿海社区来说，这些影响可能会加剧。沿海地区往往位于低海拔地区，可人口稠密，容易遭受洪水、侵蚀和基础设施破坏。由于沿海社区往往依赖旅游业和季节性工作，这些风暴正在造成严重的社会经济影响。为了找出提高社会对气候引起的灾害的复原力的方法，必须在严格评估之后实施解决办法。评估过程不仅必须考虑风险可能对个人、社区、政治和文化环境产生的影响，而且还必须考虑减少风险措施可能产生的影响。只有到那时，才能成功实施有效的结构性和系统性变革。无人机为提高社区对气候变化的适应能力提供了潜在的创新解决方案。无人机可用于灾前或灾后测绘，提高对局势的认识、搜索和救援以及运送物资。该项目将重点研究为减少灾害风险而实施无人机对社区的影响，以及这些社区如何看待无人机的使用。此外，该研究旨在评估使用无人机进行DRR是否存在内在的身体和伦理风险。这项研究的结果将使人们能够更好地了解使用无人机的成本/收益，并为未来有关部署无人机以提高社区对气候变化引发风险的适应能力的政策提供参考。这项研究将侧重于来自三个不同沿海地区的社区，分别来自加勒比的多米尼克罗索、非洲的莫桑比克贝拉和英国的鬼魂岛考斯，以评估根据社区的收入水平是否会有不同的结果。

RESEARCH QUESTIONSHow do communities that are at risk from the impacts of climate change perceive the use of drones for improving community resilience?How effective are drones in reducing community risks to climate change?Is the effectiveness of risk reduction by drones different depending on the techniques/operations of use?Do different drone operations affect the distribution of risk between national, local government and community emergency survey teams?HYPOTHESES:(i) For communities improving their climate change resilience, drones can provide significant positive benefits when compared to other existing DM processes.(ii) The use of local drone survey teams is associated with higher benefits, lower costs and lower risks than the use of automated flight techniques and technologies, such as beyond visual line of sight flights and robotic drone swarms.BACKGROUND AND RATIONALEThe United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 13 is 'Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts'. Climate change induced hazards (ie, flooding, cyclones/hurricanes, landslides, heat waves, droughts and wildfires) have the potential to cause catastrophic impacts to people and communities world-wide and in 2018 more than 39 million people were affected by climate change. The IPCC 6th Assessment Report confirms that extreme weather events are due to increase the number of populations that are exposed to hazards and, therefore, will face increasing risks. Climate change hazards can increase the risk of threat to life, infrastructure, mental health, violence and displacement.Globally, storms are becoming more frequent and violent, such as Cyclone Idai (2019, Southern Africa), Hurricane Maria (2017, northeastern Caribbean), and Storm Evert (2021, UK). These effects can be compounded for coastal communities. Coastal zones are often in low elevation areas, can be densely populated, exposed to flooding, erosion and infrastructure damage. These storms are causing severe socio-economic impacts as coastal communities often depend on tourism and seasonal work.In order to identify ways to increase the resilience of societies to climate induced disasters, solutions must be implemented after rigorous evaluation. The evaluation process must take into account not only the effects the risk could have on individuals, communities, political and cultural environments, but also what the effects of the risk reduction measures might have. It is only then that effective structural and systemic changes can be successfully implemented.Drones offer potential innovative solutions to improving community resilience to climate change. Drones can be used for pre or post disaster mapping, increasing situational awareness, search and rescue and delivery of supplies. This project will focus on the impact on communities of implementing drones for disaster risk reduction and how those communities perceive their use.Additionally, the study aims to evaluate if there are inherent risks, both physical and ethical, associated with using drones for DRR. Findings of this research will enable a greater understanding of the costs/benefits of using drones and inform future policies regarding the deployment of drones to improve community resilience to climate change induced risks.The study will focus on communities from three separate coastal regions from Roseau, Dominica (Caribbean); Beira, Mozambique (Africa); and Cowes, Isle of Wight (UK), to evaluate if there is a different outcome based on the income level of a community.