Elsevier

Biological Conservation

Volume 236, August 2019, Pages 521-531
Biological Conservation

Review
Environmental guidelines for operation of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS): Experience from Antarctica

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2019.05.019Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) can disturb animals, causing stress or harm, and yet impacts are poorly understood.

  • To minimize disturbance to wildlife the Antarctic Treaty parties adopted precautionary environmental guidelines for RPAS use.

  • The guidelines recommend pre-flight preparations, on-site and in-flight protocols, and post-flight actions and reporting.

  • The guidelines could provide a model for application elsewhere in the world.

Abstract

Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS), or drones, are increasingly being used in close proximity to wildlife. RPAS can disturb animals in their natural environment, potentially causing stress or harm. However, research on the potential impact of RPAS on wildlife is preliminary and remains poorly understood. RPAS offer many benefits for research applications and other purposes, and can also help reduce wildlife disturbance that might otherwise occur. The Antarctic Treaty Parties recognised a need to develop environmental guidelines for RPAS use as a means to help avoid and/or reduce disturbance to wildlife in Antarctica while allowing for their beneficial use. To do so, a framework based on the Pressure – State – Response model was developed to provide a systematic means to consider relevant influences on RPAS and wildlife interactions. This framework was used as an aid to draft comprehensive environmental guidelines for RPAS use in Antarctica, which were adopted by the Antarctic Treaty Parties in 2018. The guidelines include recommendations for pre-flight preparations, on-site and in-flight protocols, and for post-flight actions and reporting. The guidelines were based on examples developed elsewhere in the world, on available scientific evidence for environmental impacts from RPAS, and through consultation among governments and scientific and technical bodies operating in Antarctica. The environmental guidelines adopted for RPAS operations in Antarctica could provide a model for application elsewhere in the world where there is a need to manage interactions between RPAS and wildlife and to avoid or reduce potential impacts.

Introduction

The use of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS), or drones, is relatively new and growing rapidly. RPAS offer new capabilities for deployment of sensors for a wide range of applications, including science, logistics, education, reportage and recreation. Many of these applications are carried out in areas where wildlife is present, or in sensitive environments. Indeed, wildlife itself is often a subject of interest for RPAS use, for example for animal census (Vermeulen et al., 2013; Chabot et al., 2015; Moreland et al., 2015; McClelland et al., 2016; Borowicz et al., 2018; Callaghan et al., 2018; Canal and Negro, 2018; Hodgson et al., 2018), wildlife protection (Mulero-Pázmány et al., 2014; Sandbrook, 2015), or for recreational photography.

RPAS can disturb animals in their natural environment (Ditmer et al., 2015; Smith et al., 2016; Rümmler et al., 2018; Mulero-Pázmány et al., 2017; Weimerskirch et al., 2017; Barnas et al., 2017; Lyons et al., 2018), potentially causing stress, changes in behaviour, and/or impacts on breeding performance. In some cases, animals may be injured or killed by collisions with aircraft. On the other hand, deployment of RPAS may be safer and reduce or avoid environmental impacts that could be caused through more invasive methods of data collection such as personnel deployment to inaccessible field sites, or the use of manned helicopters or airplanes (Harris, 2005). Moreover, some studies have shown that wildlife counts using RPAS can improve survey accuracy compared to ground counts, at the same time as reduce potentially greater disturbance by ground surveys involving incursion into colonies (Ratcliffe et al., 2015; Hodgson et al., 2018). A number of researchers (e.g. Vas et al., 2015; Hodgson and Koh, 2016; Mulero-Pázmány et al., 2017) have suggested guidelines for RPAS operations to mitigate the potential for impacts on wildlife in a number of contexts globally.

The Antarctic Treaty Parties (Resolution 2 (2004)) adopted guidelines for the use of large conventionally piloted aircraft near birds in Antarctica in recognition that best-practice guidance was of great practical utility to pilots for operations (Harris, 2005). Concerns about the growth in RPAS use coupled with their potential to cause environmental impacts, especially on wildlife, led the Antarctic Treaty Parties to initiate a process to develop environmental guidelines for use of RPAS in Antarctica (e.g. Germany, Government of, 2016, Germany, Government of, 2017, Germany, Government of, 2018; New Zealand, Government of, 2017a, New Zealand, Government of, 2017b; Poland, Government of, 2016, Poland, Government of, 2017a, Poland, Government of, 2017b; United States, Government of the, 2014, United States, Government of the, 2015, United States, Government of the, 2017). Practical guidelines to address the operational and safety aspects related to RPAS were prepared by the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs (COMNAP, 2016), although these lacked detailed consideration of environmental aspects. The Antarctic Treaty Parties recognised the many benefits of RPAS for research, logistics and other purposes, and sought to ensure that potential impacts are minimized. This process involved several years of work considering the nature of the technology and how it is being used, examination of evidence for the type and magnitude of impacts of RPAS on wildlife (e.g. Rümmler et al., 2015, Rümmler et al., 2018; Weimerskirch et al., 2017; Mustafa et al., 2018), and considering the policy and legal context for regulating their use. Scientific, technical and logistics bodies were consulted through the process (COMNAP (Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs), 2017a, COMNAP (Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs), 2017b; IAATO (International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators), 2015, IAATO (International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators), 2016; SCAR (Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research), 2015a, SCAR (Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research), 2017b, SCAR (Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research), 2017a, SCAR (Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research), 2017). A conceptual model was developed to organise and systematically consider the factors most likely to be influential in whether environmental impacts occur as a result of RPAS operations. This model, and the practical experience gained in the Antarctic context, may have more general application to RPAS operations elsewhere in the world. This may particularly be the case where there are also needs for practical guidelines to assist environmental managers, regulators and RPAS operators minimize the potential environmental impacts from RPAS.

Antarctica is remote, extremely cold, subject to persistent and often strong winds, and has rugged and sometimes dangerous terrain. As such, the Antarctic represents one of the most challenging environments to operate RPAS. In these extremes RPAS may often be operating at or near performance limits, which increases the risk of unanticipated events, system failures, and aircraft loss. Thus, guidelines developed for practical operation of RPAS in this environment may represent a ‘worst-case’ scenario against which to consider adaptation of guidelines for use in other parts of the world.

A wide range of terms and acronyms have emerged to describe remotely piloted aerial vehicles and systems, such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS), among others as well as drones. The term Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) is used in this paper because it is consistent with terminology adopted by the International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO) (2015), which defined RPAS as “A remotely piloted aircraft, its associated remote pilot station(s), the required command and control links and any other components as specified in the type design”. A Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) is “An unmanned aircraft which is piloted from a remote pilot station”.

RPAS may be divided into three broad types: fixed wing, rotary and hybrid. Fixed wing RPAS usually have one pair of wings and may vary widely in size and shape; rotary RPAS may employ from two (traditional helicopter format with one main and one tail rotor) up to eight rotors (tricopters, quadcopters, hexacopters and octacopters, generically known as multicopters). Hybrids combine the Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) capability of rotary aircraft with the more aerodynamically efficient design of fixed wings. RPAS may also be classified in accordance with whether they are propelled by electric or combustion engines, the latter often capable of greater height and range although typically generating more noise. RPAS are thus highly diverse, with many hundreds of both military and civilian manufacturers from >64 countries and around 2650 models catalogued in Wikipedia (2018). More details on RPAS technology and models are available in Wich and Koh (2018).

Section snippets

Environmental impact of RPAS

A wide range of elements and interrelationships comprise RPAS activities and operations, so we designed a framework to structure our analysis and guideline development (Fig. 1). This framework organises important elements related to RPAS use into a model that indicates potentially causal interrelationships and pathways. The model aims to help develop systematic approaches to consideration of these factors both in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process prior to practical applications

Interactions between RPAS and environmental values

Several recent papers have reviewed literature on RPAS and animal interactions (Smith et al. 2016; Korczak-Abshire et al. 2016; Borrelle and Fletcher, 2017; Mulero-Pázmány et al. 2017; SCAR 2017b; Mustafa et al. 2018), and rather than repeat reviews in extensis the principal findings from these papers will be summarised.

Borrelle and Fletcher (2017) identified 11 studies that used RPAS to observe colonial-nesting bird species, and reviewed whether and how they evaluated the impact of RPAS on

Environmental guidelines for operation of RPAS

A Committee for Environmental Protection (CEP) is established under the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (the Environmental Protocol) for the purpose of providing advice and formulating recommendations on environmental matters to Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings, which are held annually. The Antarctic Treaty Parties began formally considering environmental aspects of the operation of RPAS at the CEP in 2014 (Germany/Poland 2014; United States 2014). COMNAP

Discussion

The guidelines adopted are intended to apply mainly to RPAS operations within Visual Line of Sight (VLOS) and using small to medium sized aircraft (≤25 kg), which are likely to account for the majority of non-military RPAS activity taking place. RPAS operations Beyond VLOS (BVLOS) and with larger aircraft (>25 kg) pose additional risks, and while most of the guidelines may apply, these operations are in need of additional specific environmental and safety management measures. For example,

Conclusion

Given the preliminary nature of research into disturbance of wildlife by RPAS, the difficulties of assessing actual levels of stress being experienced by animals, and the uncertainties over the significance of consequential impacts for individual animals and populations as a whole, it is particularly important that a precautionary approach is taken to RPAS operations. Mulero-Pázmány et al. (2017) noted that recreational uses of RPAS are rising rapidly, and that some authorities have already put

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge all comments made on drafts of the Environmental Guidelines for operation of RPAS in Antarctica, which were received from a wide range of scientists and policy makers throughout the development process. We particularly thank the three anonymous referees for their excellent and constructive suggestions.

Role of the funding source

Funding for the work presented in this paper was provided by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. All authors were engaged in study design. CH designed the conceptual framework and was lead author on the manuscript with reviews by HH and FH; the decision to submit the paper for publication was made by the funding agency represented by HH and FH.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors have no conflicts of interests to declare.

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