Evaluating the contribution of drones to building community climate change resilience

研究问题：处于气候变化影响风险中的社区如何看待无人机的使用，以提高社区的复原力？无人机在减少社区对气候变化的风险方面有多有效？无人机降低风险的有效性是否因使用的技术/操作而异？不同的无人机操作是否会影响国家、地方政府和社区应急调查小组之间的风险分配？假设：(i)对于提高气候变化适应能力的社区，与其他现有的DM过程相比，无人机可以提供显着的积极效益。（二）与使用自动飞行技术和技术（如超视距飞行和机器人无人机群）相比，使用当地无人机调查队具有更高的效益、更低的成本和更低的风险。背景和理由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（即洪水、旋风/飓风、山体滑坡、热浪、干旱和野火）有可能对全球人民和社区造成灾难性影响，2018年有3900多万人受到气候变化的影响。IPCC第六次评估报告确认，极端天气事件是由于暴露于灾害的人口数量增加，因此将面临越来越大的风险。气候变化危害可能增加生命、基础设施、精神健康、暴力和流离失所受到威胁的风险。在全球范围内，风暴变得越来越频繁和猛烈，例如飓风伊代（2019年，非洲南部）、飓风玛丽亚（2017年，加勒比东北部）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。沿海地区通常位于低海拔地区，可能人口密集，容易受到洪水、侵蚀和基础设施破坏的影响。这些风暴造成了严重的社会经济影响，因为沿海社区往往依赖旅游业和季节性工作。为了确定提高社会应对气候灾害能力的方法，必须在经过严格评估后实施解决方案。评估过程不仅必须考虑到风险对个人、社区、政治和文化环境可能产生的影响，而且还必须考虑到减少风险措施可能产生的影响。只有这样，才能成功地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，增强态势感知、搜救和物资运送。该项目将重点关注无人机对社区减少灾害风险的影响，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是否存在内在的物理和道德风险。这项研究的结果将使人们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的政策提供信息，以提高社区对气候变化引发的风险的适应能力。这项研究将集中于来自三个不同沿海地区的社区：多米尼加（加勒比）罗索；莫桑比克贝拉（非洲）；和考斯，怀特岛（英国），以评估是否有不同的结果基于一个社区的收入水平。

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.