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Community-Based Eco-Drones for Environmental Management and

Governance

Technical Report · June 2016

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.19723.08484

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Community-Based Eco-Drones for
Environmental Management and
Governance
Sustainable Society Network+ Pilot Study Final Report, 1st June 2016

Dr Andrea Berardi, The Open University, UK

Abstract ............................................................................................................................ 2
Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 3
Methodology..................................................................................................................... 4
Results .............................................................................................................................. 6
Exploring context and connections ................................................................................ 6
Scenario analysis ....................................................................................................... 6
Concerns with privacy and safety .............................................................................. 7
Drone regulations ...................................................................................................... 8
Drone procurement and operation .......................................................................... 10
Formulating systems of interest .................................................................................. 18
Identifying feasible and desirable change .................................................................... 20
Taking action ............................................................................................................... 22
Monitoring illegal waste dumping in Blacknest Park, Sunningdale ........................... 22
Surveying flood risk ................................................................................................. 23
Raising awareness and compiling ecological evidence to contest a planning
application ............................................................................................................... 30
Surveying designated Local Wildlife Sites in Ascot and Sunningdale ........................ 31
Developing mapping skills with geography students ................................................ 33
Lessons Learned and Next Steps ...................................................................................... 34
Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................... 37
References ...................................................................................................................... 38

1
Abstract
Unmanned Aircraft Vehicles, commonly called ‘drones’, have recently undergone a
transformation both in terms of falls in price and in terms of usability. This has resulted in an
explosion in sales and significant experimentation in the development of commercial
applications. However, limited research has been carried out on the opportunities and
limitations of drone use by communities for non-commercial purposes. This pilot project
explores the potential of drone deployment by community groups in the villages of Ascot,
Sunninghill and Sunningdale, Berkshire, UK. The research combined Networked Action
Research and a Systems Framework to engage a wide range of participants in exploring the
context, clarifying systems of interest, identifying feasible and desirable interventions, and
taking action through a range of drone survey missions. Case studies include the monitoring
of illegal waste dumping, supporting ecological research, monitoring the status of local
wildlife sites, evaluating flood risk, and engaging schools in geographical skills development.
The research highlights the complexity of drone deployment as a result of the limited
experience with this emerging technology by the wider public, the technical skills required
for drone operation and image analysis, the significant restrictions imposed by regulations,
and the very real concerns with safety and privacy. Community-based drone use for non-
commercial purposes has been shown to have the potential to play an important role in
environmental monitoring and governance, but community groups need to be very careful
in establishing the appropriate operational protocols in order to minimise risk and deliver
appropriate information to decision-makers.

2
Introduction
‘Umanned Aircraft Systems‘ (UAS) or ‘Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems’ (RPAS) are terms
describing the combination of technology and procedures for operating a remotely
controlled aircrafts piloted from the ground. The aircraft component of the system is
colloquially called a ‘drone’, while professional circles prefer the term ‘Unmanned Aerial
Vehicle (UAV). For readability, this report will use the colloquial term ‘drone’. The most
established and visible application of drones are for military purposes, indeed, a 2013 drone
industry convention in Washington, USA, strongly encouraged journalists not to use the
term ‘drone’ in their reporting as a result of the term’s negative association with
controversial militarily uses. Beyond militarily combat and surveillance uses, a number of
civilian applications have emerged in recent years, including research, emergency
responses, and recreation. This has mostly been driven by innovation in drone technology
which has resulted in reduced costs, lower technical skills required for operation, and
increased operational capabilities.
Drones are now emerging as a cheap and accessible tool for communities to use in
environmental monitoring: one can now buy a drone that can take high-quality aerial
imagery for less than £1000 and can, in theory, be operated without users undergoing
specialist training. With increasing frequency of environmental disturbance and criminal
activity (e.g. illegal waste tipping, destruction and degradation of protected habitats and
trees, unregulated construction), the rapid and regular deployment of ‘eco-drones’ for
environmental monitoring has the potential to become an important tool for community
members concerned with protecting their local environment. However, even in professional
and commercial circles, the use of drones is still a rapidly evolving and experimental pursuit.
Cases of drones use by non-professionals for the benefit of their own communities are few
and far between. Issues continue to be raised in the popular media regarding safety and
privacy concerns, while statutory agencies are scrambling to establish civilian drone
deployment regulations.
The aim of this project was to therefore engage in participatory research with community
organisations, the wider public and statutory agencies in exploring the deployment of
drones for environmental management and governance within the communities of Ascot,
Sunningdale and Sunninghill, Berkshire, UK. The questions underpinning the research were:

 What potential drone applications would participants be interested in championing?

 What immediate impacts did the drone applications have?
 What are the legal, technological and social constraints limiting the deployment and
impact of drone applications?

3
Methodology
One could describe the current situation as a ‘mess’: the technology and the consumer
market seems to have rapidly advanced while the social and regulatory mechanisms for
managing drone use is scrambling to catch up. There are fears that incidents such as drones
crashing into aeroplanes may cause a backlash and shut down this fledgling industry, but
also an awareness that positive case studies may lay the groundwork for a bright future. In
such a contested and uncertain environment, there is a need to apply a flexible research
design.
Action Research is distinguished from conventional scientific research by the principle that
the researcher is not an objective and passive observer of the research context, applying a
blueprint approach onto a situation, but instead, is actively involved in adapting the
research approach in order to achieve a practical beneficial outcome in collaboration with
those ‘researched’ (Reason and Bradbury, 2005). Action Research is inspired by ethical
principles, and in this case, these revolved around the themes of social justice and ecological
sustainability. Thus, the Action Research intervention had to be fashioned in such a way that
a positive social and/or environmental impact could be discernible within the lifetime of the
pilot project and beyond.
In addition to this requirement for practical pro-social/ecological outcomes, there is also
recognition that engaging with the real world, especially in a situation of rapid technological
development, is a messy and complex process which is rarely suited to the standard
research cycle characterised by rigid objectives and research plans (Boothroyd et al., 2003).
Instead, Action Research engages in tight cycles of planning, acting, observing and
evaluating, rapidly evolving the process as a result of feedback gained from stakeholder
engagement and action on the ground: Action Research is essentially a process of
participatory learning.
The pilot project structured the Action Research intervention through a Systems Framework
for participatory learning developed for working through complex environmental decision-
making dilemmas (Ison et al., 2007). The Systems Framework uses a learning heuristic
divided into four overlapping and iterative stages:

 Explore context and connections;

 Formulate systems of interest;
 Identify feasible and desirable changes;
 Take action.
In essence, the Systems Framework stages transition from an open, unstructured
exploration of the situation to gradually narrow down the range of choices in order to carry
out one or more practical interventions. However, the Systems Framework is applied
iteratively in that any action feeds back to expand participants’ understanding of the
context, to reformulate systems of interest, and to adapt the choice amongst feasible and
desirable options. Thus, the framework acts as an ongoing process of collaborative learning
amongst participants.

4
In order to operationalise the framework, we applied Network Action Research (Foth, 2006)
to rapidly and actively engage a range of stakeholders in the pilot’s short timeframe.
Network Action Research capitalises on established informal and formal social networks in
order to rapidly engage with diverse stakeholders so as to stimulate participation and
contribute to cycles of critical inquiry, reflection and action. It makes use of all available
forms of communication to support the research process: face-to-face encounters;
telephone conversations; email exchanges; and social media activity. It does not treat a local
‘community’ as a homogeneous and integrated social unit. Instead, it opens up multiple
lines of enquiry and action depending on the evolving relationships and impacts within the
network of contacts. Network Action Research recognises that each individual has specific
interests that may not necessarily exactly match those of others, including individuals living
within the same community and/or working for the same organisation. Instead, the
approach recognises that ‘alliances’ are forged when interests overlap, and these ‘systems
of interest’ form networks for achieving certain objectives and carrying out activities, and/or
stopping certain tasks from being carried out.
The following results section outlines the activities that took place in implementing the
Systems Framework and Network Action Research. All communications with participants
quoted and/or referred to in the text have been anonymised.

5
Results
Exploring context and connections
The timeframe for the pilot project was a three-month period initially scheduled for June-
August 2015. However, administrative delays in issuing the research contract meant that
the project could only officially start in January 2016 – possibly the most challenging time of
year to fly a drone outdoors. With more than 10 years of engagement and network building
within the locality of the research, the project’s principal investigator was able to draw upon
a significant number of network links as soon as notification of the award was received and
before the project officially started on 1 January 2016.
The initial plan was to engage a wide range of stakeholder groups in a period of consultation
to scope eco-drone deployment. E-mail contact was made with key sectors within the
locality that may have had an interest in exploring the use of drones. These included local
government agencies; community groups; schools and private enterprise. The principal
investigator has established strong links with local community groups in the villages of
Ascot, Sunninghill and Sunningdale, Berkshire, UK, including the Neighbourhood Plan
Delivery Group, the local Transition Town group, local wildlife associations, and the area’s
statutory agencies, including the local Parish Council and the Tree Team within the local
Borough Council. The following is an extract of an email that was sent to a contact within a
local government agency tasked with environmental monitoring:
“In an e-mail last year, I mentioned that I was putting together a research project on the
deployment of eco-drones within Ascot, Sunninghill and Sunningdale (proposal attached).
The project has now been given the green light, and the drone has been ordered. It would
be great if we could explore how the project could support your work?” (Extract from email
sent by PI to local government official)
Four public seminars and workshops were also delivered between December 2015 and
March 2016. A Facebook ‘Community Eco-Drone’ page was also established. Positive replies
from these various initiatives were followed up with further email exchanges and/or face-
to-face meetings.

Scenario analysis
Two significant themes emerged in the early exchanges. The first was a need for more
information on the potential uses of the technology and its limitations. Although all
individuals engaged were acutely aware of the use of drones in military information
gathering operations by the UK and US governments, only two individuals engaged in this
initial exploratory phase had ever flown a drone before, and these experiences were
restricted to recreational use. As a result, many contacts wanted to know how a drone could
be used, or, when application ideas were spontaneously provided by individuals, these
required explanations for their feasibility. For example, members of the local wildlife group
wanted to know if the drone could detect animal tracks or bird boxes in people’s gardens,
interventions which could not be supported.

6
Following previous work engaging stakeholder in thinking through complex and contentious
technological developments (Oreszczyn, 2003) it was decided to put together three practical
drone deployment scenarios which could then be used to illustrate their potential use
within the locality in order to stimulate discussions. ‘Backcasting’, where you imagine
possible future situations and then work out how to get there, while allowing participants to
explore the potential issues that may emerge in the process, is a useful technique for
planning and enacting possible future developments in the initial stages of exploring context
and connections (The Open University, 2015).
The scenarios were:

 Monitoring environmental crime - aimed at the timely identification of

environmental misdemeanours, including the felling of protected trees; illegal waste
dumping and the alteration of protected habitats. The surveys would involve the
collection of baseline data for ‘before and after’ comparisons, rapid deployment of
drone surveys based on community ‘tip-offs’ and forwarding the photographic/video
evidence to enforcement agencies. This scenario would involve community
environmental/wildlife groups, members of the public, and enforcement agencies.
The envisaged outcomes would include successful prosecutions, and the drone
capability acting as a deterrent for preventing environmental misdemeanours in the
future. Challenges identified included concerns with privacy, as most of the sites
identified for monitoring would be on private land, and potential involvement in
complex legal prosecutions.
 Wildlife habitat surveys - aimed at supporting awareness raising, education and
research in order to influence local decision-making within, for example, housing
development planning applications. The scenario would involve local wildlife groups,
campaign groups, and wildlife specialists. The envisaged outcomes would be: the
development of publicly available spatial data on species habitats; an enhancement
of community knowledge on local wildlife; and ultimately, better protection of local
wildlife habitats. Potential challenges identified included the difficulties in surveying
habitats underneath the woodland canopy.
 Planning support – aimed at supporting decision-making processes with regards to
strategic planning at a landscape level. The scenario would involve engaging with
groups such as those involved in the local Neighbourhood Plan by providing timely
and high-resolution aerial imagery to support deliberations. The envisaged outcomes
would be a greater integration between social, economic and environmental
objectives through a more efficient and sensitive use of the territory. Challenges
identified included the limitations of surveying built-up areas.
The scenarios were then used as a basis for exploring actual applications with contacts.

Concerns with privacy and safety

The second theme that emerged strongly from initial exploration of the context was
concerns with privacy and safety, and the need to progress cautiously:

7
“Are the drones noisy? How high do they fly?” (Community group leader, e-mail
communication)
All of the individuals and groups initially contacted were curious about the potential of
drone use, but did not want to be the first to be associated with local experimentation with
the technology. The feeling was very much that they wanted others to take the first steps,
and then to evaluate the results, before making a commitment to engage in their own drone
use.
During the pilot project, there were repeated news items concerning near misses and
apparent collisions with aeroplanes at Heathrow Airport (BBC, 2016), just 30 km to the east
of Ascot and Sunningdale. Fear of potential association with an accident were also
heightened by personal accounts of incompetent drone operation which could be found
online:
“The first time I flew an unmanned aerial system, something bad happened. I hadn’t taken
the time to properly train. I throttled my quadcopter, a DJI Phantom 1, upward to about 20
feet, quickly lost control, and didn’t know how to bring it back down. The next few seconds
were terrifying. I narrowly missed a few cars, a couple of people, the side of a building, and
somehow miraculously piloted it down, bumping it into the tire of a parked car.” (Pearlman,
n.d.)
It became apparent that the priority would therefore have to be to establish clear
operational guidelines in order to assure users of the safe deployment of the drone during
missions.

Drone regulations
The initial plan of action for stakeholder engagement and scoping drone deployment very
quickly focused on clarifying the regulations for civilian drone operation and wider concerns
with security and privacy. Many stakeholders found the official regulations for drone
operation confusing. One specific concern was that some websites indicated that the area
comprising Ascot, Sunninghill and Sunningdale was situated within Heathrow Airport’s ‘no-
fly zone’ (Figure 1) suggesting that we would not be able to fly any drone missions at all.

8
Figure 1: Drone ‘No-Fly Zones’ encompassing and surrounding the study site as identified
by www.noflydrones.co.uk . The large blue ‘no-fly zone’, which includes Ascot, is the
Heathrow Airport Controlled Airspace.

The Civil Aviation Authority (2015) has different rules depending on whether one has a
professional drone operation license and whether drone surveys are being used for
commercial purposes. There is further differentiation determined by the weight of the
drone. With regards to the particular drone missions we were discussing, it was important
to clarify to participants that the drone we were operating weighed less than 7 kg, and the
resulting surveys were not going to be used for commercial purposes. No-fly zones exclude
all drones above 7 kg in weight that do not have a permit to operate in that particular zone
by the CAA. In our case, the CAA regulations states that operators of drones under 7kg are
“strongly advised to notify the air traffic service provider of your activity”. In other words,
drone operation within ‘no-fly zones’ is legal although it would be clearly dangerous to fly a
drone anywhere near an airport.
However, a drone under 7 kg operating without a professionally qualified operator has to
adhere to the following CAA regulations:

 Fly below 125m in height.

 Fly at least 150m away from ‘congested’ areas.
 Fly at least 50m away from roads, building and people.
 Fly within ‘line-of-sight’ (<500 m)
This severely restricts the operational space and requires significant skills in operating a
drone when under manual control, and in programming missions when these are
automated.

9
Privacy was also an issue that needed addressing. The Data Protection Act 1998 and the
CCTV Code of Practice, which had been updated to include imagery collected using drones
(ICO, 2015) stipulate that any personal data needs to be:

 collected and used lawfully;

 held/used for reasons initially stated and no data captured unnecessarily or held for
longer than is necessary;
 accurate and up to date, and information kept secure and safe;
 enable people to exercise their rights in relation to collected data e.g. to get a copy;
 not transferred outside the European Economic Area unless the recipient country
has suitable data protection law.
This made it clear that any photographs and videos which included identifiable people
would be problematic, and we would therefore struggle to address the data protection
requirements. Thus, the safest approach would be to make sure that no mission would
purposefully be initiated in order to gain imagery of people, and if any imagery was
inadvertently taken, that this would be deleted immediately.
There is an argument for drone owners to take out insurance, not only for loss or damage of
equipment, but also to protect themselves in case they cause injury, property damage, their
recording infringes on the privacy of an individual, or someone regards their use of that
technology as a form of harassment. In the case of the pilot project, liability would be
covered by The Open University as the host institution of the research. However, one
recommendation for community eco-drone deployment which emerged during this initial
exploratory phase was that community groups thinking of deploying drones outside of the
liability protection of a major institution may want to seriously consider taking out insurance
for the days in which surveys are flown if they had any liability concerns.

Drone procurement and operation

Having clarified the regulations, the next challenge was to develop the skill set for the
technology. This went beyond just the act of flying.
The pilot project included a £1,750 budget for the purchase of a drone and associated
accessories. During the various engagement activities with participants, the general
perception was that all that was required was to walk into a shop, purchased a drone, take it
out of the box, and we were ready to start flying missions. There was limited understanding
of the wider accessories required for achieving some of the tasks that individuals had in
mind. These included:

 Spare batteries, as a single battery would limit a mission to a maximum of 20

minutes flying time (significantly less on a cold winter day), and would therefore
barely survey a hectare, while most sites proposed for surveying significantly
exceeded a hectare in size;
 a charging station for simultaneously recharging four batteries - convenient for
rapidly recharging batteries overnight;
 Propeller guards for minor collisions and spare propellers;

10
  Memory cards for the storage of captured imagery and videos;
 A good quality tablet for connecting to the drone controller;
 A carrying case for the drone and all the additional equipment (batteries, controller,
tablet, spare propellers, etc);
 Specialist apps for operating the drone and computer software for
analysing/processing the imagery and video.
 Access to a high-end workstation.
We wanted to avoid purchasing a specialist drone, and instead sought to buy a popular
brand that would be as familiar as possible with the general public. Just over £800 was spent
for purchasing a DJI Phantom 3 Pro drone - by far the most popular drone manufacturing
company at the time of purchase. Associated accessories were purchased for just under
£1200, including four spare batteries, charging station, propeller guards, spare propellers,
specialist apps and a carrying case. Even without the other necessary equipment, the
project was already over-budget with regards to equipment costs. The tablet (£170) and
workstation (£1,000) were in-kind contributions from The Open University while trial-
versions of the computer software were used for undertaking the analysis of imagery.

Figure 2: Estimated purchase costs of drone, accessories, software and computing

equipment for supporting drone deployment and image analysis.

Having purchased and/or gained access to the drone, accessories, software and computing
equipment, the next challenge was to develop the skill set for drone operation. This went
beyond the act of actually flying it.
Many participants were surprised that drone operation required significant pre-mission
preparations - some participants were under the impression that one could just turn up with

11
a drone and start flying. Once again, safety regulations meant that any potential mission had
to be analysed in terms of its feasibility. In order to support this analysis with community
groups, QGIS, an open source Geographical Information System, in combination with
Ordinance Survey maps identifying the location of buildings and roads, was used to create a
‘Local Drone Exclusion Zone’ map (Figure 3). This allowed us to create a 50 m buffer zone
around all buildings and roads within and surrounding the villages of Ascot, Sunninghill and
Sunningdale.

Figure 3 Local drone exclusion zone map for the Parish Councils of Ascot and Sunninghill,
and Sunningdale developed by placing a 50 m buffer around roads and buildings.

This analysis automatically excluded over 50% of the territory, including many sites that
participants had initially indicated as potential survey areas. In some instances, even some
sites that were outside the drone exclusion zone turned out to be difficult to survey, as
these were surrounded by a perimeter of housing. This meant that although it would be
possible to launch the drone in a safe location, it would not be possible to fly the drone over
the houses and/or roads in order to reach the areas of interest. However, surveys could still
be carried out if permission could be gained to deploy the drone from the garden of a house
adjoining the survey site. This was achieved on several occasions, demonstrating that
community-based drone deployment is more than just a technical exercise, involving the
development of an extended social network and support base.
Another major challenge was the need to keep the drone within the operator’s line of sight.
This meant that each survey flight could not go beyond a maximum radius of 500 m from
the operator. In these circumstances, the operator would either have to move with the
drone, or, land the drone, relocate, and initiate another survey.

12
Having established the ‘local drone exclusion zone’ and where missions could actually be
flown, the next task was to engage with the various apps that could be used to support the
survey work, especially when there was a need to produce high-quality maps. The drone
manufacturer, DJI, does provide its own app, but this has limited functionality. Table 1
compares the capabilities of the different apps tested.
Table 1: Android-based drone deployment apps tested during the pilot project.

DJI Go Altizure Pix4D DroneDeploy Litchi

Cost 0 0 0 0 £14
Real-time Yes No No No Yes
camera view
Pre- Only by No No Yes, through Yes, directly
programmable recording DroneDeploy.com saved on
survey waypoints website (syncing tablet
during a with tablet
first required)
survey
Survey shape Any Rectangular Rectangular Any Any
Survey height Flexible Fixed Fixed Fixed Flexible
Camera angle Can be Five fixed Downwards Fixed at start of Can be
changed orientations mission programmed
during optimised and/or
survey for 3-D changed
modelling during
survey
Reliability OK Good Poor OK OK
during initial
tests

After thorough experimentation, the app selected for most surveys was DroneDeploy
(www.dronedeploy.com). The principal reason was that one could tailor the pre-
programmed survey shape to the exact area that needed surveying (Figure 4). Since the
areas for surveying were significantly constrained by the no-fly zones, rectangular survey
shapes would inevitably encroach onto the no-fly zones and/or waste precious battery life
flying into areas that did not need surveying. However, for surveying small areas in detail,
especially when there was a need to produce a 3-D model, Altizure (www.altizure.com)
proved to be a useful tool.

13
Figure 4: Example of survey mission programmed using DroneDeploy software.

When it actually came to the flying, 21 individuals were trained to operate the drone, either
through workshops or in one-to-one training. Initially, the training procedure was trialled
with a teenager with high level gaming skills, then tested on two professional airline pilots
and a local farmer. This allowed the development of a sequence of exercises which could
then be rolled out to a wide range of capabilities. The exercises included:

 Off-site pre-flight checks: weather forecast (rain, winds above 15 km/h and/or
temperatures below 5°C would mean that the mission would have to be cancelled;
while cloudy skies would mean that there would be low quality aerial
photography/video). Pre-flight checks also involved making sure that all equipment
was fully charged, operating software was up-to-date and that mission plans and
base maps had been uploaded onto the various apps.
 On-site pre-flight checks: overview of survey area to check for obstructions and/or
people; identification of an obstruction free ‘home point’ for safe take-off and
landing; and drone compass calibration.
 Familiarising users with the emergency procedures: when in doubt, stop and hover;
if you’re still concerned, hit the ‘home point return’ command.
 Practising drone operation: taking off and landing; changing altitude; moving
horizontally; changing drone orientation;
 Practising camera operation: angle, exposure, framing, etc.
A number of workshops were organised which were advertised through direct leafleting
through people’s doors and adverts on Facebook. Participants ranged from experienced
model aeroplane hobbyists to retired technophobes. All were successfully able to complete
the training without any crashes or near misses (the drone was set to ‘beginner mode’,
preventing the drone from flying 30 m beyond the operator both horizontally and

14
vertically). However, although the training sessions respected the 50 m exclusion zones
from roads and housing, this did not mean that the wider community was oblivious to what
was going on. The training was therefore an opportunity to engage with individuals in their
views with regards to the deployment of drones within their community. In one instance, a
householder near a training site expressed their objection to the flying:
“I think the bottom line is that nobody likes an intrusion, and even though the drone is high
up and quite possibly greatly off to one side of the garden/where you are, it gives off a noise
like a bee swarm and is therefore immediately noticeable. Once seen, the drone is simply
evidence of someone looking down on you, and feels intrusive.” (Resident of Englefield
Green, Surrey)
Even within the training, participants’ opinions were divided with regards to drone
deployment within communities. Some individuals wanted the sale of drones to the public
to be banned, with only individuals that had gone through formal training to be given the
right to purchase and operate a drone. The local farmer involved in one drone training
session had witnessed a drone fly over Sunningdale village, crossing at low altitude over the
railway station, people’s houses and main roads. He did query whether it would have been
legal for the drone to have been shot down if it had entered the air space above his farm.
One experienced drone hobbyist stated that he had already crashed and destroyed three
drones, and that his experiences convinced him to only fly drones in the open countryside
many kilometres away from any houses and roads. It was clear from the views of many
participants and wider community members that although the cost of drones had
significantly come down for their deployment to be made affordable for many people,
awareness of the regulations were limited, these were easily flaunted by some drone
operators, and even when these were followed, some residents still felt that their privacy
was being intruded upon.
Once the flying training was completed, the next step was to develop skills in the analysis of
the imagery taken. Just as with the apps, a number of tools were explored. These ranged
from cloud-based facilities to professional software applications requiring advanced
workstations (

15
Table 2). Although it was possible to use trial versions during the pilot project, concerns
remained with regards to the high costs of the software tools. Open source software, such
as VisualFV and MeshLab, are available for creating 3-D models, but what distinguishes the
other tools is their ability to ‘geo-reference’ i.e. integrate geographical coordinates within
the output, so that these can be overlaid and compared with other maps, such as those
provided on Google Earth.

16
Table 2: Photogrammetric software tested during the pilot project.

DroneDeploy Altizure VisualFV/ Menci APS Agisoft Pix4D

MeshLab Photoscan Mapper
Platform Cloud Cloud Work- Work- Work- Work-
station station station station
Cost 1 month trial Free Open- Trial Trial Free version
/ £80 per service source version version cannot
month limited to available. available. export
image €1200 for £400 to analysis.
size. one year purchase. >£3000 to
license. purchase.
Ease-of- Basic Basic Complex Complex Complex
use
Output Orthomap, 3- Orthomap 3-D model Ortho- Ortho-map,
D model, , 3-D map, 3-D 3-D model,
elevation model model, elevation
map elevation map
map

Another challenge faced by participants was access to the maps. DroneDeploy and Altizure
do allow the sharing of maps online. However, there is very little one can do with these
online maps other than a visual exploration. OpenStreetMap, on the other hand, is an ‘open
content’ initiative which allowed members of the public to upload aerial imagery and
digitise additional information as separate layers. However, the various tools used for
editing OpenStreetMap do require some time to become familiar with and there was
therefore no scope to engage participants in using OpenStreetMap within the pilot project.
Although the production of maps from the photographic imagery was a priority for all the
scenarios proposed and the emerging real-life applications, participants also expressed an
interest for using the video footage in, for example, awareness raising campaigns. The
software tools explored for editing the video material included YouTube’s video editor,
WeVideo and PowerDirector.
One of the main challenges we encountered with the production of videos was that the DJI
Phantom 3 Pro drone captured extremely high-resolution ‘4K’ video. Although it was
possible to reduce the resolution of the videos during the actual filming, most participants
expressed a wish to continue with the higher resolution recordings as they felt that it would
always be possible to reduce the resolution of videos, but impossible to increase the
resolution from a low resolution video. However, this meant that video editing was time-
consuming and required powerful desktop computers, at least in the initial stages involving
‘4K’ clips. As a result, a relatively inexpensive desktop-based video editing software,
PowerDirector, was purchased for the initial processing, while simpler editing on lower
resolution videos could be carried out collaboratively on WeVideo and YouTube.

17
Formulating systems of interest
This phase of the Systems Framework is an opportunity to summarise our understanding
that has emerged from the exploration of the context. Participants were involved in a wide
range of discussions and experimentations: exploring issues and regulations revolving
around safety and privacy; the procurement of equipment; the actual operation of the
drone; and how the visual imagery could be analysed and communicated.
At this stage, it might be useful to ask some wider ranging questions to capture the interests
that emerged during these deliberations. One technique that has been found to be of
particular use at this stage is Critical Systems Heuristics (Ulrich, 1983; 2000). The technique
allows participants to explore the following questions:

 What are the sources of motivation of those involved – i.e. what are the values
underpinning their system of interest?
 What are the sources of control – i.e. who has power or authority, and on what
basis?
 What are the sources of expertise or know-how, and are they adequate?
 What are the sources of legitimacy and their basis?
In essence, it enables participants to clearly articulate the boundary judgements that
determine values and operations behind a human activity system. In this case, we were
dealing with the regulatory, social, ethical and technical ‘boundaries’ that emerged during
the exploratory phase, while combining these with the ‘opportunities’ of drone deployment
that certain individuals and groups identified for addressing some of their local
environmental concerns.
Let’s look at sources of motivation first. Access to timely information on the ecological
status of inaccessible protected sites was identified by many participants, from employees
of statutory agencies to local wildlife/environmental groups, as a ‘game changing’ benefit of
drone deployment. Success would be measured by the timeliness and extent of aerial
imagery collected, and its effective use by groups for lobbying and/or enforcement.
In terms of who would control the deployment of the drone, and the resulting analysis and
distribution of drone imagery, it became clear that regulatory agencies were the major
‘gatekeeper’ for deployment, effectively excluding significant proportions of the locality
from being surveyed. For those areas that could be surveyed, the regulatory authorities still
limited the freedom of deployment, especially the requirement to keep the drone within
line of sight. The availability of liability insurance through The Open University also meant
that drone deployment could only be carried out in the presence of the pilot study’s
principal investigator, whose institution would take any responsibility in the case of an
accident. The availability of a group of trained operators during the time windows when the
drone could be safely and effectively operated (cloudless days with low wind speeds) also
meant that deployment was limited. In terms of deciding which sites should be surveyed
and when within the acceptable areas, no limits emerged during the initial exploratory
phase – as long as safety and privacy regulations were observed, and the survey could
actually produce information of value, all proposals would be pursued.

18
The need for specific skill sets and expertise also emerged as key requirements within our
community-based drone deployment system. Computing skills were needed in the analysis
of geographical information in order to identify no-fly zones and in the analysis of the
resulting aerial imagery. Only a handful of individuals in the community had this skill set. But
there was also another completely different, but essential, skill set that was required
involving the development of a support base, which required the building of a network of
informants for initiating timely survey missions, and contacts with decision-makers who had
the capacity to use the imagery for the benefit of the wider community.
The analysis of legitimacy was the most challenging. Contrasting views were expressed by
participants. Many were concerned by the increasing number of stories in the media of
dangerous and irresponsible use of drones, undermining the legitimacy of those operators
within the community who used drones judiciously. Some felt the need to rapidly improve
the monitoring of drone operators, including the implementation of an official register of
drone owners. Others felt that increased regulation would simply mean that community-
based drone use for non-commercial purposes would simply become unviable, with drone
use effectively being limited to private corporations for profit-making purposes, and
government agencies for surveillance and law enforcement, with environmental monitoring
restricted to major incidents. All the participants involved in these discussions agreed that
this pilot project was a test case in this regard.

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Identifying feasible and desirable change

During the initial exploratory phase and discussions around systems of interest, a number of
individuals and groups came forward with proposals. Some of the individuals wanting to
follow through with case studies came from the training sessions while others became
involved exclusively as a result of one-to-one e-mail exchanges with the principal
investigator. This highlights the significance of the Networked Action Research methodology
which took advantage of a wide range of modes of communication and relationships for
sustaining the engagement with a range of stakeholders through to drone deployment.
Although the three scenarios initially developed did allow some participants the opportunity
to propose how these could be carried out in practice, a significant observation in this phase
was the variety of proposals that were raised, many of which had very little to do with the
original three scenarios. This was in stark contrast to the limited ideas that contacts had put
forward in the initial exploratory phase. This highlights the strength of the initial exploratory
phases of the Systems Framework, and the various practical activities and analytical
techniques deployed, which enabled participants to identify an eclectic range of feasible and
desirable interventions.
The following is a list of the potential applications which were discussed:
A. surveying the presence and movement of wild mammals such as badgers;
B. assessing the quality of roads and identifying potholes, which could then be reported
to the council for filling in;
C. monitoring protected areas in order to identify the presence of illegal fly
tipping/waste dumping;
D. supporting farmers in identifying, with more precision, areas within their fields that
needed interventions, including drainage, fertiliser use and/or pesticide spraying.
E. surveying the designated green corridors in order to identify the presence of invasive
species;
F. demonstrating drones within schools in order to support the development of
geography skills;
G. deploying drones to collect timely information on flooding to support insurance
claims;
H. surveying wooded areas to identify fragments of ancient woodland;
I. surveying wooded areas to identify potential bat roosting sites;
J. developing a monitoring baseline for woodlands and individual trees protected by
Tree Preservation Orders.
K. using drone video and photographic imagery to raise awareness within the
community of the need to protect local environmental resources from a proposed
housing development.

In order to narrow down the choice of potential interventions so as to identify a practical

subset which could be carried out within the pilot project’s timeframe, this phase within the

20
Systems Framework allows us to focus on the practical questions of feasibility and
desirability. For example:

 Feasible change: Is the application practical given the regulatory constraints, current
capabilities of the drone and the analysis software?
 Feasible change: What are the chances of achieving an immediate impact within the
time-frame of the pilot study?
 Desirable change: Does the proposed deployment satisfy the Action Research’s
mission for promoting pro-social/environmental outcomes?
 Desirable change: What is the level of enthusiasm and support within the wider
community?

Some proposed interventions, such as the surveying of wildlife such as badgers had a lot of
support from participants, but were simply not possible given the technology available (an
infrared camera would have been required for this, and even then, this would have still
been a challenging activity as missions would have to be flown at night). In other cases,
feasibility tests were carried out, but further investigation was abandoned as difficulties
were encountered. For example, although initial sub canopy surveys to identify the
distribution of invasive species within woodland corridors were successful, a subsequent
test showed that drone operation within a woodland was too risky for the equipment, and
therefore no further attempts would be made.
Other interventions, such as supporting farmers in their field management, scored highly in
terms of their feasibility, but scored poorly in terms of their pro-social/environmental
desirability and community support compared to other local concerns. It was also
interesting to note that, notwithstanding the time spent familiarising participants with the
regulations of drone deployment, some participants were still keen to pursue interventions,
such as surveying potholes in roads, that were clearly impossible to execute without a CAA
licence. This highlights the fact that there was a constant need to iterate back to previous
phases of the Systems Framework in order to clarify how we arrived at the criteria for
identifying feasible and desirable change.
The following interventions were identified as having the greatest potential for achieving
feasible and desirable change:
1. Monitoring illegal waste dumping
2. Surveying flood risk

3. Raising awareness and compiling ecological evidence to contest planning applications

4. Surveying designated Local Wildlife Sites
5. Developing mapping skills with geography students

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The following is a summary of the case studies for each of the interventions identified above
which were initiated during the pilot project and which reached an advanced stage of
development.

Taking action
Monitoring illegal waste dumping in Blacknest Park, Sunningdale
On the 10th of November 2015, the following email was sent by The Sunningdale Parish
Clerk to the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Council’s street care mailbox:
“A whole pile of builders rubbish has been left in Whitmore Lane near the junction
with A329 at the entrance to Blacknest Park (no house built there). Looking through
the gate into the property there is an increasing amount of rubbish being dumped
inside – looks ghastly. It used to be a Swan sanctuary – wild life reserve. Please
could you look in to that.”
Blacknest Park, the site in question, is a privately owned area approximately 6.5 hectares in
size. It contains an officially designated Local Wildlife Site comprising ancient woodland.
Most of the site is protected through a woodland Tree Preservation Order. However, the
owners of the site had recently been ordered to replant 1280 trees in order to restore an
area of woodland that had illegally been cleared in order to facilitate the planning
application for the construction of a mansion. Having failed in their bid to achieve planning
consent for the mansion, it now seemed that the site was being used as an area for illegally
dumping construction waste. Given that the site was inaccessible to the public without
permission from the landowners, it quickly became apparent that a drone could be used to
monitor the site and gather evidence of the illegal waste dumping.
In addition to local councillors, several individuals representing local environmental groups
were copied into the parish clerk’s email, and with the support of the local environmental
groups, a first drone survey was carried out on 17 February 2016. A day later, the following
email was sent by the research principal investigator to the RBWM Council’s Senior Street
Care Officer, and copied to local councillors:
“This is to inform you that yesterday we carried out a community eco-drone mission
into Blacknest Park. The video can be accessed on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/dNjg1lBVivY. The video clearly shows that although some activity
has taken place, it seems as if this has simply involved bulldozing all of the waste into
one single pile right next to the waterbody. I am looking forward to hearing what
action is going to be taken now, given that very little seems to have happened since
we brought the situation to the attention of RBWM Council over two months ago.”
Although local councillors had been silent on the case since the matter had first been
brought to their attention, the reaction to the drone video was immediate. This was an
email sent by local councillor a few hours after:
“Thank you for this….which I watched with horror. I believed that this was a site of
ancient wetland? It now looks like the start of a municipal dump! Thankyou for

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 bringing to our attention. It would appear there is little regard for looking after this
beautiful wetland and woodland area . I…will raise with others ASAP” (RBWM
Councillor)
On 4 March 2016, the following email was received from RBWM Council’s Senior Street Care
Officer:
“The video shows the make up of the site to a greater degree than can now be seen
from the road. I was taken aback at the shear volume of waste within the site.
Initially I had had been under the impression that the site had started to be cleared. I
am meeting with the developer, the week beginning the 14th march 2016. I will keep
you informed of the outcome of this meeting and timescales that have been
agreed.”
Two further drone surveys were carried out in Blacknest Park. The survey on 5 March 2016
photographed a container loaded with construction waste, while a survey on 12 March 2016
showed that the waste had been completely cleared.
Although community members had been threatened by the site owner with legal action in
the past for expressing a wish to enter the site in order to carry out tree planting, no legal
threats were made as a result of the public airing of the drone footage.

Surveying flood risk from the River Thame

With incidents of severe weather increasingly achieving headlines in the news, a contact
working for a private environmental consultancy raised the possibility of using the drone to
rapidly survey flooding events. One key area where mapping of historical flooding is of use
to community group is when a planning application has been submitted in an area where
flooding is known to occur from local evidence. However, if the area is not in the floodplain
of a designated main river it would not have been mapped by the Environment Agency (EA)
and therefore the flood risk would be classified as zone 1, an area of low risk. The EA would
have no objection to the development on grounds of flood risk and a sub-standard design in
relation to flood risk and surface water management could end up being approved by the
local authority.
Community groups were therefore highly supportive of this initiative but we were
challenged with identifying an appropriate test site as rainfall had been limited during the
pilot project. The mapping of flooding using drones presents a logistical problem in that the
drone would need to be operated when the floodwater is still present and all but the most
expensive professional drones are unable to be flown during wet weather as the electronics
are not watertight. However, a 35 hectare site which is frequently subject to large-scale
flooding was identified within the River Thame, near the village of Stadhampton,
Oxfordshire (Figure 5) and was used as a case study. Significant floodplain inundation is
observed at this location in most winters (Figure 6). Heavy rain in early March had led to a
small amount of floodplain inundation covering a length of approximately 100m.

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Figure 5 The location of the survey site, approximately 15km east of Oxford on the River
Thame

Figure 6: Flooding of the River Thame near Stadhampton in January 2014.

A drone survey of the site was carried out on 15 March 2016. Although the flooding on the
site had by that time receded, we were more concerned with evaluating:

24
  the time that it would take to carry out a survey of such a large area;
 the challenges we would have in surveying the area without flying within drone
exclusion zones (50 m away from roads and buildings - features that would need to
be included within any outputs);
 the accuracy of the resulting analysis using a range of software tools.
Although the following analysis goes into significant technical detail, we felt that it was
important to report this as it has implications for some potential uses of drones for
community-based environmental monitoring.
The survey was challenged by having to make a number of compromises. The higher one
flew the drone, the greater the area of coverage and therefore the higher the chance of
including areas within ‘no-fly’ zones within the photographs. However, the higher one flew
the drone, the lower the resolution of the resulting imagery, and therefore, the lower the
accuracy of the analysis. A compromise height of 75 m was chosen and a route for the drone
survey was finalised using the DroneDeploy software (as shown in Figure 4) to cover two
areas of floodplain to the west and east of the road. The survey had to be divided into two
parts to comply with the non-commercial flying regulations of never being within 50m of a
public road.
Another logistical problem was encountered while undertaking the survey. The limited
battery charge during the initial survey (approximately 10 minutes due to the cold
temperatures) meant that the drone had to be recalled before the survey was completed in
order to change the battery. The DroneDeploy software did not have the ability to save the
location which had been reached in the survey, so after changing the battery the full survey
had to be started again. Even with a fully charged battery, the predefined area for the
survey was too large to be covered on just a single battery charge so the survey of this part
was truncated.
Aerial photos and Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) were produced using both DroneDeploy
(Cloud-based) and Pix4DMapper (desktop-based) software. Files from both sources were
very large (>100Mb) and the sheer size of the files caused problems with their use such as
high download time and very slow processing in the Geographical Information System used
for further analysis (ArcGIS). The data was not immediately compatible with the Ordinance
Survey (OS) background map layers which are used in ArcGIS. The drone data used a
projected coordinate system of latitude and longitude whereas the OS maps are based on
the Great Britain National Grid. The default transformation of the drone images was out of
sink with the OS data (Figure 7) and further transformations had to be used to obtain a
better fit (Figure 8).

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Figure 7: Imported drone aerial photos to ArcGIS using the default transformation

Figure 8: Imported drone aerial photos to ArcGIS with further transformation.

26
The aerial photos from two analyses in DroneDeploy and Pix4DMapper, although very
detailed, both showed edge effects and areas of miss-match from the mosaicking
programme. Some parts of the images were blurred and some features such as the
telegraph wires shown in Figure 9 did not form an exact match following the mosaicking.
The automated selection of the inundated floodplain was attempted using the image
classification tool within ArcGIS. This is where an area of the image pertaining to a particular
characteristic shading (in this case standing water) is digitised and then the programme
automatically identifies all of the pixels which share the same range of shading (Figure 10).
Unfortunately the classification selected not only the small areas of inundation and the river
itself but also large parts of an arable crop in a field to the south-west where the blue-green
colour of the emerging crop matched the water colour.

Figure 9: Mosaicking miss-match shown by the telegraph wires

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Figure 10: Automated classification showing water in blue, grassland in green and roads in
grey.

The DTM generated from the DroneDeploy software is shown in Figure 11. The colour
shading supposedly showed high ground in red through to lower ground in blue with no-
data shaded in black. A central area of the survey was shown as no data, the drone deploy
output did not give any explanation as to why this area returned no data. The output is not
strictly a DTM since the survey also captures trees and other vegetation or objects above
the ground surface. The correct terminology would be a digital elevation model (DEM) since
not all of the height values would be a point on the ground surface. Filtering techniques can
be used to extract spurious elevation values to convert a DEM into a DTM. The DEM for the
study area showed the high ground around the edges to the north, east and south with the
lowest ground in the centre. This is not correct since the river is flowing from north to south,
so the part of the river in the southern boundary of the image would be of lowest altitude.
In addition the height data associated with the DEM was not provided with the file.
Normally for a DEM the value of each pixel will represent a height value. With the
DroneDeploy DEM the values ranged from zero to 250 which had no relationship to the
topography as the site is known to be around 50m AOD with only a slight variation in
altitude of 2-3m. Various methods were used in ArcGIS to try and convert the drone deploy
DEM into a useable file which listed the altitude but without any success. The conclusion
was that the DroneDeploy DEM was inaccurate and not in a useable format for further
analysis and therefore of little relevant use.

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Figure 11:The DEM generated from the pix4d software

Another DEM was provided form the Pix4DMapper software. As with the DroneDeploy data,
this also captured the heights of all objects above the ground surface. The DEM gave a more
correct representation of the topography rather than the saucer shaped distribution from
the DroneDeploy DEM. It also had the full survey area covered, although edge effects were
evident, especially on the southern edge/lower part of the figure (Figure 10).

Figure 12: The DEM generated from Pix4d software

Height values were associated with each pixel form the Pix4DMapper DEM. However, these
were listed as ranging between -36 to -55, so it is assumed these represent the distance
below the level of the drone.

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In conclusion, although the use of the DroneDeploy app to survey the area of floodplain at
Stadhampton was a relatively straightforward task, with about 3 hours spent on site
altogether, the amount of post-processing and the format of the data obtained from the
drone survey mean the use of drones for flood mapping is a much more challenging
exercise, requiring significant levels of expertise, and not producing data of high enough
quality for inclusion within technical flood risk reports within planning applications. The
additional logistical problems of having to respond rapidly to a flood event, the restrictions
on flight paths for non-commercial licences and the limit of the flight time due to battery
capacity all add to the challenges and ultimately would make such applications extremely
difficult for use by community groups. However, enquiries with an Oxford-based commercial
drone operator for undertaking similar work as that described above resulted in a quote of
£2400 (excluding VAT).

Raising awareness and compiling ecological evidence to contest a planning

application in Windlesham
Participants during one of the workshops included two representatives of a local campaign
group opposed to a major housing development planning application, comprising 120
houses, which would have resulted in the destruction of a significant proportion of
Heathpark Wood - an area of woodland situated between the village of Windlesham, Surrey,
and the M3 motorway. The campaign group wanted to protect the woodland and its role as
a filter of noise and air pollution from the motorway, and as a home for protected wildlife.
The proposed drone survey was tasked with two primary objectives. The first was to take
video footage demonstrating the proximity of the M3 to Windlesham village and the role of
Heathpark Wood as a buffer between the two. The second was to explore the possibility of
using the drone to record wildlife species and habitats within the woodland. As with
Blacknest Park, the private nature of the land meant that the site was inaccessible.
The first survey took place on 25 March 2016. The survey was complicated by the fact that
the ‘home point’ for the mission was situated within the back garden of one of the
campaigners. This meant that permission had to be sought from the campaigner’s
neighbours for launching and landing the drone within the 50 m no-fly zone buffer of their
houses. This was a major test to explore the feasibility of such operations within ‘congested’
peri-urban environments. Permission was readily granted. In fact, one of the neighbours
joined the group in the campaigner’s back garden throughout the survey mission.
Aerial video footage of the woodland, the M3 and Windlesham village were successfully
taken with 15 minute flights. Given that both missions were flown a significant distance
away from the 50 m buffer zone of the M3 and Windlesham village (except for the
immediate area of the campaigner’s house), the resulting footage proved to be exactly what
the campaigners had wanted to capture. A seven minute video was compiled and made
available on Vimeo enabling access via a password.
However, subsequent meetings involved a more detailed debate about the exact content of
the video. For example, the video shows the drone taking off from the campaigner’s house,

30
and then returning to it for landing. This meant that the campaigner’s house could be easily
identified in the video. Discussions revolved around whether it would be better to remove
the clips showing the location of the campaigner’s house, and if that would affect the
narrative of the video, and therefore reduce the impact of the video on viewers. After much
deliberation, it was decided to remove the clips identifying the location of the campaigner’s
house, and a much shorter five-minute video was produced. This video was subsequently
used to raise awareness within the local community through, for example, projection during
the Windlesham Village Fete on the 11th of June, 2016.
Experimentation in using drone imagery for wildlife studies proved to be significantly more
challenging. Bat species had been identified as a key area that required further
investigation. In order to investigate potential bat roosting sites, it was necessary to fly the
drone close to the tree canopy and, in some cases, within the canopy. However, the first
trial in very thick woodland resulted in the drone hitting a low branch and falling to the
ground (the height of the fall was only 2 m and the drone experienced no damage).
Although practice surveys within another site did successfully record potential bat roosting
habitat, another near-crash (this time the drone became tangled up in the branches of a low
shrub) meant that the survey focused on the development of a detailed vegetation map of
the woodland. This would focus on revealing the tree species composition of the woodland
rather than specific habitats – information of lesser ecological value.
Other options under consideration at time of writing include using the drone to carry a
suspended ultrasound microphone in order to rapidly survey the distribution of bats
throughout the site. However, this aspect of the research is still in its planning phase.

Surveying designated Local Wildlife Sites in Ascot and Sunningdale

Contact with an arboricultural officer from the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead
Council identified the need for up-to-date aerial imagery of designated Local Wildlife Sites
within the borough. As many of these sites are under private ownership, and council
officials often have difficulties in being granted access to the sites in order to monitor their
status, it was thought that drone surveys would provide a timely and cost-effective way for
monitoring.
The drone exclusion buffer zones identified four potential local wildlife sites which could be
surveyed within the timeframe of the pilot project: Upton Court Park Wetland; Mount
Pleasant/Granny Kettle Wood; Silwood Park; and Platts Firs/Penslade Bottom/Fireball Hill
(hereafter referred to as Fireball Hill). Once again, all were partially overlapped by the drone
exclusion buffer zone, so mission planning was critical. The Upton Court Park Wetland site
was the most straightforward to survey as it was situated within a public park far away from
roads and buildings and surrounded by grass - keeping the drone within the line of sight was
straightforward as one could move around during the survey. For Mount Pleasant/Granny
Kettle Wood, the survey was complicated by the fact that the site was a heavily wooded
stream corridor constrained on one side by a public road. The other side of the corridor
comprised privately owned polo fields. Although the polo fields were considered ideal for
taking off and landing, permission had to be sought and was granted. The length of the
corridor meant that surveys had to be carried out in small units in order to keep the drone

31
within the line of sight. Silwood Park, another wooded area, was accessible through public
paths but access onto the actual site was not possible within the pilot project’s time-frame.
As a result, only a fraction of the site could be surveyed. Fireball Hill proved to be impossible
to survey as the whole area was surrounded by private housing and no ‘opening’ could be
found in order to launch the drone and keep it within the line of sight.
Significant challenges were also encountered in the analysis. Photographs from wooded
areas have less distinguishing features compared to non-wooded areas, and software tools
therefore find it more difficult to stitch the pictures together into a single vegetation map.
Only Upton Court Park produced a map of high enough quality with a straightforward survey
(i.e. an average of 60% overlap between images). Indeed, the resulting map revealed a
hidden fly tipping site within a wooded area of the Local Wildlife Site which would have
otherwise required a thorough ground inspection in order to be detected (Figure 13). This
incident of fly tipping was duly reported to the local authorities with the aerial imagery
submitted as evidence.

Figure 13: fly tipping identified within the Upton Court Park Local Wildlife Site as a result
of visual analysis of drone imagery.

For the other sites, higher overlaps between the photographs were needed compared
Upton Court Park. Even with the additional photographs, only Mount Pleasant/Granny
Kettle Wood produced a satisfactory end result.

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Developing mapping skills with geography students
The final case study emerged from a workshop participant who is a primary school teacher.
As one of the main issues which emerged during the pilot project was the limited awareness
of the potential for drones in supporting community-based environmental initiatives, the
primary school teacher proposed engaging schoolchildren in developing their mapping skills
through the use of drone acquired aerial imagery of the school grounds or a local wildlife
site. Geography teachers within Upton Court Grammar School, a school adjacent to the
Upton Court Park case study site, were also approached.
Although the potential for engaging students in the geography curriculum was significant,
and the individual teachers showed a lot of enthusiasm for the initiative, school bureaucracy
surrounding safety concerns was a major barrier for progressing with actually engaging
students in flying drone missions. However, as a first step, a case study of Upton Court Park
was produced, integrating the drone imagery already collected. The case study was
designed to directly contribute to the new AQA A-level Geography curriculum which is to be
taught for the first time from September 2016.
The case study allows students to follow the ‘map production’ process from the initial steps
of aerial photographic surveys, to the identification of geographical features within the
imagery, to populating the resulting map with the necessary artefacts, such as scale, legend
and coordinates.
The fact that the most enthusiastic and talented drone operators during the pilot study
were teenagers, highlights how school engagement could be a mechanism through which
the wider community could be supported in drone deployment.

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Lessons Learned and Next Steps

The pilot project showed that the most effective and straightforward use of drone
deployment for community-based environmental management was in monitoring
significant illegal incidents, such as fly tipping, within privately owned, and inaccessible,
protected areas. The imagery collected by the drone did not require advanced analysis, and
rapidly communicated the extent of the infringement to decision-makers and the wider
public. This case study clearly signalled a shift in power relations: private landowners could
no longer rely on trespassing laws in order to prevent the monitoring of illegal activities on
their properties; council decision-makers could no longer rely on the lack of evidence for
their inaction in carrying out their statutory duty to tackle illegal activities; community
members felt empowered to proactively address illegal activities as a result of access to a
drone. In this case, community based eco-drone use demonstrated the ability to rapidly
democratize information acquisition, beyond privileged and powerful elites. The technology
was also a source of motivation for environmental community groups: involving younger
generations that are usually not so proactive in local environmental matters; providing new
fascinating perspectives from the air that thrilled the participants; and catching the
attention of passers-by during the deployment which allowed campaigners to raise their
concerns and to network. This pilot study therefore demonstrated that drone deployment
can strengthen community groups and their collective capacity to act for environmental
protection
There is also significant potential for drone deployment to be used in education, although
uncertainties with regards to safety and regulation resulting in administrative ‘foot dragging’
may mean that this may take a while to actually set up. Teachers were excited by the
prospect of ‘bringing back into the classroom’ geographical information collected by
students themselves during field trips, and young teenage students were thrilled by the
prospect of operating a drone and applying cutting-edge technology within their studies.
Rather than relying on textbooks and online case studies compiled by experts, teachers
recognised the huge potential of students producing their own learning materials through,
for example, generating 3-D models of geographical features through drone surveys.
Community eco-drone deployment is not a ‘silver bullet’ however. This is one clear outcome
of the pilot project. The challenges are manifold: regulatory; technical; safety and privacy
concerns. In clearly identifying these challenges, the pilot project was able to identify
strategies for overcoming these difficulties with community partners through the Action
Research process. By openly acknowledging that we all had a licence to experiment and
innovate, we were able to adapt our objectives and practices, and overcome many of the
seemingly insurmountable barriers which regularly popped up. Adhering to drone
deployment regulations severely restricted where the drone could be flown – effectively
excluding over half of the territory and many potential applications. Official regulations on
drone deployment are clearly non-negotiable and have to be implemented to the letter, not
only so as to avoid potential injury and damage to property, but also to reassure project
participants. The fear that many individuals expressed revolved around ‘liability’ if they

34
were found to be associated with a particular drone mission that went disastrously wrong.
One participant expressly stated their concerns and wanted to have reassurances from their
organisation’s legal team with regards to any potential liabilities:
“I did seek legal advice …about the prospect of using drones and there didn’t appear
to be anything in principle that would mean we couldn’t be involved in some way.”
Several participants found these limitations frustrating and decided to pursue a professional
drone operating license. However, the licensing process has significant bureaucratic and
cost implications, and these individuals intended to recoup these costs by operating drones
commercially. Whether these individuals would then be prepared to provide their services
for free for community use awaits to be seen. Yet, even with all these regulatory
constraints, and the fears and frustrations expressed by participants, participants were
involved in over 80 hours of drone flying, involving both training and missions, within 11
distinct localities. This demonstrates that there is still significant scope for drone
deployment within highly urbanised landscapes.
Associated with regulatory concerns are the technical challenges. Most participants found
the technical challenges initially overwhelming. Starting with the purchase of a drone and
associated accessories with a limited budget, many participants were bewildered by the
choices available. Even choosing a product from a single company such as DJI involved a
comparison between six different models below the price of £1000. Once the drone was
purchased, training participants to operate the drone actually turned out to be the most
straightforward part of the pilot project. With the development of a checklist to go through
before take-off, and the use of apps that pre-program missions, actually undertaking a
survey is not a challenging task, as long as everything runs smoothly. However, there were
many occasions where the apps monitoring the mission stopped working halfway through a
survey, and manual control was required. This almost always resulted in the controls
frantically being handed over to more experienced operators. Once again, these initial
difficulties were overcome by those participants that were willing to persevere. What
proved to be crucial was the growing number of experienced individuals that could motivate
and provide advice for those that lacked confidence.
The analysis of the imagery also proved to be very challenging for participants. Even the
simplest task, which was to edit a short video illustrating the role Heathpark Wood has in
protecting Windlesham village from pollution, required IT skills that many participants did
not have. When advanced software skills were present, the resulting analysis showed that
some outputs were of limited use, as in the digital elevation models produced in the
flooding case study. There is therefore an urgent need for developing more user-friendly
and accurate software applications in order to make drone imagery more useful to decision
makers. Initiatives such as OpenStreetMap have the potential to make drone surveys
become available to the general public and is clearly a tool to watch closely in the
immediate future. The current alternative for more advanced drone deployment and
imagery analysis is to employ a commercial drone company. But, as the quote for the
undertaking the flood risk assessment demonstrates, the fees would be completely out of
reach of the majority of community groups. With rapid advancements in software

35
development, it is almost certain that the tools will become more user-friendly and cheaper
and/or open source.
One of the objectives of the pilot project was to explore the establishment of a social
enterprise to take forward community eco-drone initiatives. In discussion with participants,
four key areas have emerged which could provide the foundations for a social enterprise:

 Training: drone deployment is clearly not a straightforward ‘out-of-the-box’ solution.

Community initiatives contemplating potential drone use may benefit from training
workshops summarising the lessons learnt in this three-month pilot project while
providing hands-on practical experience before community groups commit
themselves to purchasing a drone, and all the other associated commitments.
 Services: a community-based social enterprise could provide services to statutory
agencies while providing skills training to disadvantaged groups. The most proficient
drone operators proved to be teenage kids and this might be an opportunity for
them to engage in a promising career in an emerging market. However, at least
initially, the social enterprise would need to generate income through grant funding
in order to subsidise the costs of engaging, training and supervising operators from
disadvantaged groups.
 Emergencies: drones have been used to support the emergency services during
major incidents, such as large-scale floods and earthquakes. Public crowdfunding
could be used to rapidly generate the funds to support a drone mission in a
humanitarian emergency. Drone deployment is more than just technical skills and a
community-based social enterprise would have the capacity to engage with
community participants in order to respond more effectively within emergencies.
 Research: as the technology advances, regulations become clearer, and the public
becomes more familiar with drone use, there is a need to further investigate the
opportunities and limitations of community-based drone deployment. This pilot
project is one of the first of such initiatives in the UK, and therefore has the potential
to become the basis for ongoing research, which could be supported by a social
enterprise.
The next steps in this research are therefore to build on the enthusiasm of participants and
further extend the actual and potential case studies. Crucially, a priority focus needs to be
on developing and implementing a community-based organisational model for drone
deployment, in order to add to the current uses dominated by individual hobbyists, private
commercial interests, and state-supported operations.

36
Acknowledgements
This pilot project has significantly benefited from advice provided by Dr Les Levidow, Senior
Research Fellow at The Open University and an expert in Inclusive Innovation. Les
contributed to the development of the initial scenarios, helped to facilitate one of the
community workshops and critically reviewed this report. The spatial analysis in the flood
risk case study was patiently carried out by Dr Harvey Rodda, director of Hydro-GIS Ltd.
Harvey also helped to explore potential income generating activities for the social enterprise
through his network of contacts. Finally, a special thanks to all the participants of this pilot
study who dedicated their spare time and enthusiasm to this joint Action Research effort.
This research was funded by an £8000 grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences
Research Council, UK.

37
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