Unmanned aircraft systems for protected areas: Gadgetry or necessity?

Journal for Nature Conservation 64 (2021) 126078 The ease of use and availability of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) recently pervaded a wide range of topics and applications. In nature conservation and for the management of protected areas (PAs), UAS are still not an established approach compared to other methods such as satellite-based remote sensing, although several research articles have already discussed their use. In this context, UAS are even denoted as conservation drones, suggesting that their use is beneficial in terms of accomplishing various tasks such as land-cover mapping, vegetation monitoring, biomass estimation, and animal detection. However, although disturbance of wildlife or other issues caused by UAS are debated and guidelines for the use of UAS in wildlife studies suggest precautionary measures, the implications of the use of UAS in PAs has not been analysed in detail yet. Therefore, by reviewing research articles, the present paper aims to show whether the use of UAS in PAs is relevant or irrelevant for the PA management in terms of biodiversity conservation, considers a controversial debate of the potential threats, and investigates whether the type of PA concerned matters in this context. We showed that a majority (73 %) of selected articles (89) report the use of UAS in PAs as relevant for the PA management in terms of biodiversity. However, most of these studies did not consider impacts of UAS on wildlife or the environment. The possibility of disturbances was discussed in 15 (approx. 17 %) of the reviewed works, of which most concluded that the effects were negligible or non-existent. Only in three articles (approx. 3 %) an impact has been demonstrated. While most research studies discussing UAS in PAs do not report nor mention any impacts, UAS are banned in many PAs. Therefore, the use of UAS in PAs as conservation drones’ and the related pros and cons need to be carefully considered by the PA managers and stakeholders concerned.《自然保护杂志》(Journal for Nature Conservation) 2021年第64卷第126078号论文 近年来，无人航空器系统（unmanned aircraft systems, UAS）的易用性与可得性使其渗透至众多研究主题与应用场景。在自然保护与保护地（protected areas, PAs）管理领域，尽管已有多篇学术论文探讨了无人航空器系统的应用，但相较于卫星遥感等其他技术手段，其尚未成为成熟的主流方法。在此背景下，无人航空器系统常被称为保护无人机，暗示其在完成土地覆盖制图、植被监测、生物量估算以及动物探测等各类任务中具备应用价值。 然而，尽管无人航空器系统对野生动物的干扰及其他相关问题已引发学界讨论，且野生动物研究领域的无人航空器使用指南已提出预防性措施，但目前尚未有研究对保护地中使用无人航空器系统的潜在影响展开详细分析。因此，本文通过梳理相关学术文献，旨在明确三个核心问题：其一，保护地内使用无人航空器系统是否对以生物多样性保护为目标的保护地管理具有实际意义；其二，如何看待其潜在威胁的争议性讨论；其三，所涉保护地的类型是否会对该议题产生影响。 研究结果显示，在筛选出的89篇文献中，多数（73%）认为保护地内使用无人航空器系统对生物多样性保护导向的保护地管理具有实际价值。但此类研究大多未考量无人航空器系统对野生动物或环境的影响。仅有15篇（约17%）综述文献探讨了干扰的可能性，其中绝大多数研究结论为该影响可忽略不计或不存在；仅3篇文献（约3%）证实了其影响确实存在。 尽管多数探讨保护地内无人航空器系统应用的研究未提及或报告任何相关影响，但许多保护地已禁止使用无人航空器系统。因此，保护地管理者与相关利益相关者需审慎考量“将无人航空器系统作为保护无人机”的应用场景及其利弊得失。