The use of drones in China to follow up on environmental inspections seems like it should be science fiction, but is an evolving reality (SCMP post article). Amazon are developing drones, Walmart too for inventory management (though they seem a long term loser to Amazon); Easyjet have thought about them for inspections and maintenance of planes.

"Dongguan, one of the world’s biggest manufacturing hubs, is home to more than 300,000 factories making everything from shoes to smartphones, and all crammed into a region about the size of Hong Kong. About 200 environmental inspectors oversee the plants’ emissions.

The use of pollution-detecting drones has helped the city identify and punish tens of thousands of polluting factories, and cut the number of smoggy days to just 12 last year from 104 in 2015, when the devices were introduced as part of an environmental clean-up campaign, according to the local environmental protection bureau.

In the past, residents would regularly don face masks on the streets to protect themselves from the smog. But the practice has since waned as the city’s air quality is now ranked among the best in China. The average PM2.5 level – the small polluting particles deemed most harmful to health – is 35 micrograms per cubic metre, close to that of downtown Paris."

"With the help of drones, any resident can now pick up their phone and stop pollution within hours." From the SCMP post article. There are wider implications, but it is a sign of how technology might be used in ways unexpected to combat our problems.

It is impacting agriculture too:

"Another major application for drones is in agriculture. Liu Jun, a farmer from the village of Dongan, Yanshou county, in northern China’s Heilongjiang province, said that this summer it was almost impossible to cross a field without hearing the buzzing of drones.

“That wasn’t the case last year. Then, boom, there were drones everywhere. And they’re doing all the dirty and harmful work such as spraying crops with pesticides and disease prevention drugs,” Liu said.


“Overnight, their performance [in the agriculture sector] has changed farmers’ suspicions of new technology. Now almost every farming family in our village has either bought or hired a drone.”

Heilongjiang, which spans more than 13 million hectares of flat, fertile farmland, churns out more agricultural products than any other province in China. According to government statistics, its annual food output is enough to feed everyone in China for nearly two months.

As in many other parts of China, however, Heilongjiang’s agriculture sector is facing a growing labour shortage as young people head to the city in search of better pay and less physically demanding work.

“Drones are saving us,” said Liu, who helped set up Dongan’s “drone squadron”. More than 20 young people in the village are training to become professional drone pilots this year. Last year, the number was just one, he said...."

From what I can tell - supposedly many other industries are being persuaded by the cost and safety benefits of drone-based data as well. In transportation, American railroad BNSF is partnering with the Federal Aviation Administration to test drones for remote track and bridge inspection and air quality monitoring. Network Rail in the United Kingdom is using drones as part of its ORBIS project to digitize the country’s rail network in 3D, to enable better planning of track maintenance and renewal.

Miner, Rio Tinto is using drones to survey equipment and mining pits in Australia. Industrial machinery company Caterpillar is exploring the use of drones for fleet vehicle management in the field, while drones are important in Komatsu’s “Smart Construction” service, which can fully automate bulldozers and excavators.

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