Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for quantifying natural disaster damages in crops of Alberta

The agriculture sector is one of the major pillars in the Canadian economy based in cereal, pastureland for cattle, and biofuel (wheat, canola and barley), and was estimated to be a $7 billion industry in 2015 in Alberta. It is also one of the most economically risky activities since the value of the yield is affected by market fluctuations and it is often affected by extreme weather episodes, especially hail storms in the summer, that provoke important yield losses. These yield losses cause important economic burden not only to farmers but also to the Canadian government and public taxpayers, since agriculture is subsidized. Moreover, adjusters are generally overwhelmed with claims after a hail storm. In 2015 alone, there was $1.2 billion in loss payouts and thousands of crop insurance claims were processed by the provincially backed insurer. In this scenario, drones arise as an efficient tool for supporting the evaluation of damages in crops caused by weather inclemency by reducing time and field adjusting costs of inspection and providing accurate estimations of yield losses. TO BE CONT’D

Faculty Supervisor:

Arturo Sanchez-Azofeifa

Student:

Virginia Garcia Millan

Partner:

Skymatics Ltd

Discipline:

Geography / Geology / Earth science

Sector:

Agriculture

University:

Program: