The use of UAVs for landslide disaster risk research and disaster risk management: a literature review

On a global scale, from 2005 to 2019, there were 275 high-magnitude, low-frequency disasters that involved 14,172 fatalities and four million affected people. Similar patterns have taken place during longer periods of time in recent decades. This paper aims to analyse the contribution of the international landslide research community to disaster risk reduction and disaster risk management in reference to the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in a literature review. The first section notes the relevance of disaster risk research contributions for the implementation of initiatives and strategies concerning disaster risk management. The second section highlights background information and current applications of drones in the field of hazards and risk. The methodology, which included a systematic peer review of journals in the ISI Web of Science and SCOPUS, was presented in the third section, where the results include analyses of the considered data. This study concludes that most current scholarly efforts remain rooted in hazards and post-disaster evaluation and response. Future landslide disaster risk research should be transdisciplinary in order to strengthen participation of the various relevant stakeholders in contributing to integrated disaster risk management at local, subnational, national, regional and global levels.