BIO

Hi! I'm Amelia McNish from West Palm Beach, a student pursuing a dual degree in International Affairs and Environmental Science & Policy. I am also pursuing a certificate in Emergency Management and Homeland Security! I'm grateful for the amazing opportunity to work with David Merrick and more on this project through UROP!

Development of a Remote Sensing and Unmanned Aircraft Systems Handbook for Disaster Response

Abstract

GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and UAS (Unmanned Aircraft Systems) are important technological tools that have emerged in the last 30 or so years, with many potential and groundbreaking uses in emergency management. Emergency management is a broad and emerging field that tends to have differing standards of operation and techniques based on region and location. The purpose of this research was to compile some of these new techniques in differing areas of emergency management and create new standardized workflows from them through a combination of literature reviews of case studies and other guidebooks, and an analysis and test of these methods through expert experience. This is all used by the team to create a multi-dimensional handbook to include each potential method of disaster response using UAS and GIS technologies. The primary contributions to this research included analyzing academic papers on the subject, identifying the necessity of standardized disaster response methodology, and writing workflows to be embedded into the final handbook. The research was split between the applications of GIS & UAS in both hazmat and urban search and rescue situations on top of generalized Emergency Management.

Keywords: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Geographic Information Systems, Urban Search and Rescue, Remote Sensing, Disaster Response