Potentialities of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Hydraulic Modelling : Drone remote sensing through photogrammetry for 1D flow numerical modelling

In civil and environmental engineering numerous are the applications that require prior collection of data on the ground. When it comes to hydraulic modelling, valuable topographic and morphology features of the region are one of the most useful of them, yet often unavailable, expensive or difficult to obtain. In the last few years UAVs entered the scene of remote sensing tools used to deliver such information and their applications connected to various photo-analysis techniques have been tested in specific engineering fields, with promising results. The content of this thesis aims contribute to the growing literature on the topic, assessing the potentialities of UAV and SfM photogrammetry analysis in developing terrain elevation models to be used as input data for numerical flood modelling. This thesis covered all phases of the engineering process, from the survey to the implementation of a 1D hydraulic model based on the photogrammetry derived topography The area chosen for the study was the Limpopo river. The challenging environment of the Mozambican inland showed the great advantages of this technology, which allowed a precise and fast survey easily overcoming risks and difficulties. The test on the field was also useful to expose the current limits of the drone tool in its high susceptibility to weather conditions, wind and temperatures and the restricted battery capacity which did not allow flight longer than 20 minutes. The subsequent photogrammetry analysis showed a high degree of dependency on a number of ground control points and the need of laborious post-processing manipulations in order to obtain a reliable DEM and avoid the insurgence of dooming effects. It revealed, this way, the importance of understanding the drone and the photogrammetry software as a single instrument to deliver a quality DEM and consequently the importance of planning a survey photogrammetry-oriented by the adoption of specific precautions. Nevertheless, the DEM we produced presented a degree of spatial resolution comparable ...