A specialised team from the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) has successfully completed its contribution to the Cyclone Pam damage assessment in Vanuatu, using unmanned aerial vehicles or drones.
The technical assessment team was deployed to assist with the Vanuatu Government’s damage assessment in April, tasked with determining damage to infrastructure and buildings, coastal inundation and three-dimensional shoreline change.
The team from SPC’s Geoscience Division included one expert flown in from Germany with a copter drone (which flies using eight rotating blades), financed by the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) with assistance from GIZ.
Using SPC’s own fixed-wing drone and the copter drone, the team was able to employ the latest techniques to conduct mapping surveys of affected areas, including 10 villages in north-east Efate and seven villages and settlements in south-east Tanna. Having returned to Suva in May, the team has since been analysing the data and sharing it progressively with the Vanuatu Government and other partners involved in the post-disaster assessment.
“Overall, the mission went well as we collected a range of information not only important for the Post Disaster Needs Assessment directed by the Vanuatu Government, but also for medium and longer term coastal management initiatives,” the SPC Team Leader of the mission, Herve Damlamian, said.
“Using two drones, we were able to collect high resolution topography data within the coastal zone and compare it with previous data gathered before the cyclone. This comparison is providing great insights into how the beach responds to large waves produced by cyclones.
“The use of drone technology in post-disaster settings is still relatively new. We need to capitalize on the lessons learnt from this survey so that the deployment of drones to assess disaster-related damage can increasingly contribute to quick impact assessments, particularly in remote areas.
The use of two drones complemented the damage assessment carried out by SPC with satellite image data from Digital Globe and enabled surveys of areas for which no cloud-free space born image data were available. The SPC team also was equipped with survey-grade GPS employed for ground control points in centimetre precision, which is important for calibrating data collected from the drones.
Mr Damlamian explained that the fixed-wing drone can cover large areas within a short period of time, whereas the copter drone can be deployed faster and requires minimal clearance area for take-off and landing. The copter is also capable of viewing objects from different view angles which potentially provides better information.
Category five Cyclone Pam struck Vanuatu in March this year with devastating force, and also impacted Tuvalu and Kiribati. For more on SPC’s support, visit: http://www.spc.int/cyclone-pam-response/ .