Riverbed Surveying Pilot Project to Launch This Month

Starting March of next year, drones will be put to full-scale use in investigating rivers and surrounding topography as well as monitoring their conditions.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport is establishing basic river plans targeting national and local rivers nationwide in accordance with the River Act, and drones are scheduled to be utilized in river surveying operations such as river topography surveys and riverbed change surveys next year.

To this end, a riverbed surveying pilot project will be launched starting this month, and the field applicability and utility of the standard execution procedures and cost estimates currently under development will be verified.

The pilot project will be conducted across 7 sections of the main channels and tributaries of the Han River, Nakdong River, Geum River, and Yeongsan River by each of the 5 regional Land and Infrastructure Administration offices.

As a result of holding competitions last year to evaluate the feasibility of drone application in river surveying following the mandate for regional Land and Infrastructure Administration offices to conduct riverbed change surveys (held in Nov. '16 and Jun. '17), technological capabilities exceeding the required accuracy of digital maps (1:1,000) were proven.

Additionally, drones developed by domestic companies have been confirmed to be competitive with foreign-made drones in areas such as flight time (90 minutes) and cruising distance (80 km).

When drones are fully utilized starting March next year for basic river plan establishment and other purposes, a new public sector market of approximately 32 billion won annually is projected to be created, comprising basic river plan establishment (10 billion won), periodic riverbed change surveys (2 billion won), river monitoring (10 billion won), small stream management (10 billion won, by local governments), and the like.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport plans to actively support the utilization of drones not only in river surveying but also in related services such as water quality monitoring, emergency photography of flood-affected areas, and safety management of facilities such as dams and levees.

An official from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport stated, "Drones are a core field of the Fourth Industrial Revolution that creates new added value in existing industries, and it is expected that economical and efficient task execution will become possible in the river sector as well."

Furthermore, Professor Kim Dong-soo from Dankook University projected that "through securing a leading position in the drone service market for rivers, even occupying just 1% of the entire water industry market would generate economic effects of 6 billion dollars."