An Assessment of the Possibility of Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to Identify and Map Air Pollution from Infrastructure Emissions
Agata Jaroń (),
Anna Borucka,
Paulina Deliś and
Aleksandra Sekrecka
Additional contact information
Agata Jaroń: Doctoral School, Military University of Technology, 00-908 Warsaw, Poland
Anna Borucka: Faculty of Security, Logistics and Management, Military University of Technology, 00-908 Warsaw, Poland
Paulina Deliś: Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geodesy, Military University of Technology, 00-908 Warsaw, Poland
Aleksandra Sekrecka: Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geodesy, Military University of Technology, 00-908 Warsaw, Poland
Energies, 2024, vol. 17, issue 3, 1-15
Abstract:
Sustainable development and the creation of smart, green cities requires cooperation in many scientific fields, including those related to ecology, mobility, or sustainable management, among others. Environmental protection is a particularly important element here. Atmospheric pollution, due to air movements, spreads over very large areas; therefore, air quality monitoring is crucial to ensure protection from harmful substances. One of the most severe sources of air pollution, accounting for as much as approximately 25% of total annual emissions within the EU, is road transport. Therefore, the European Union has set an ambitious target to reduce total emissions to 55% for cars and 50% for vans by 2030. In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become increasingly popular in many scientific fields, including environmental protection and photogrammetry. The use of UAVs to identify harmful pollutants allows them to gain an advantage over conventional detection methods, due to the possibility of remote (therefore safe for humans), faster, and area-based measurements. Given the ever-expanding scale of the use of this technology, this paper presents the possibilities of using UAVs to identify and visualize (map) pollution. The examples presented in the foreign literature, as well as our own research, in imaging the altitude distribution of air pollutants; gaseous pollutants: C 6 H 6 , HCHO, SO 2 ; and particulate matter: PM 1 , PM 2.5 , PM 10 demonstrate the validity of such measures. This research was carried out in the area of one of Poland’s key A4 highways. The maps obtained allow for an area-wise and altitude-wise presentation of one of the significant air pollutants in the EU. In addition, they can be a valuable source of information for the implementation of future projects and the improvement of road infrastructure, thus contributing to the reduction of air pollution and the creation of so-called “green cities”.
Keywords: intelligent air pollution measurement; air pollution mapping; drones in environmental protection; sustainable development; environmental protection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/3/577/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/3/577/ (text/html)
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:17:y:2024:i:3:p:577-:d:1325986
Access Statistics for this article
Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao
More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().