Recent applications of unmanned aerial imagery in natural resource management

Unmanned aerial vehicles have become popular platforms for remote-sensing applications, particularly when spaceborne technology, manned airborne techniques, and in situ methods are not as efficient for various reasons. These reasons include the temporal and spatial data resolutions, accessibility over time and space, cost efficiency, and operational safety. Given that most commercial developers tend to focus on the hardware development of unmanned aerial systems, less attention is paid to the development and evaluation of their data processing techniques. Therefore, critical reviews of previous studies are required to describe the current state of research using data from unmanned remote sensing platforms. Accordingly, this article presents the results of a comprehensive review of applications of unmanned aerial imagery for the management of agricultural and natural resources. This review attempts to demonstrate that developing robust methodologies and reliable assessments of results are significant issues for successful applications of unmanned aerial imagery.