Drones and the Environment
Prior to its commencement, every tourism development project requires an essential stage consisting of the revalidation of its feasibility. This process involves, among other actions, a review of the project concept, characteristics, and construction parameters from an environmental, legal, economic, and financial perspective. Such critical analysis includes reviewing the regulations applicable to land use and tourism development of the property, as well as the environmental conditions of the area.
To carry out this assessment, it is necessary to have a multidisciplinary team composed of cartographers, biologists, urban planning specialists, surveyors, legal advisors, botanists, and other professionals who, collectively, determine the project’s feasibility and accurately identify potential challenges that the tourism development may face. Based on these results, the team can also provide solutions on how to address such challenges.
Although this methodology is valid, it may still be imprecise when dealing with large areas of land or properties with difficult access. However, the implementation of new technologies, such as drones—unmanned aerial vehicles—has assumed a fundamental role in this evaluation process, which may ultimately determine whether a tourism project can be carried out or not.
In fact, having access to high-resolution images captured by these devices and analyzed with specialized software is extremely useful, as they allow for the verification of every centimeter of a property, the preparation of environmental inventories, and the identification of soil types. Additionally, through an accurate analysis of the results, it is possible to determine soil moisture, plant density and height, soil characteristics, elevations, among other relevant factors.
With all these elements, an appropriate zoning process is carried out to identify developable areas and areas of interest for tourism investors, taking into consideration environmental conditions and legal land-use restrictions. In this regard, technology provides a different perspective—from above—to the decision-making process involved in planning a tourism project.
In the information age, the availability and accessibility of technology continue to be remarkable. The application of these devices in environmental project assessment processes will make traditional methods increasingly obsolete while allowing the development of projects with such a high level of accuracy that even their legal feasibility and approval conditions can be more reliably determined.
Validation of Land-Use Regulations and Monitoring
The use of drones is also particularly valuable for verifying the accuracy of existing tourism land-use maps and territorial planning instruments, in order to compare them with actual environmental conditions and assess the applicability of land-use provisions at a specific time and location for project development. This is achieved through the use of drones for highly precise mapping, which enables the validation of applicable regulations and, when necessary, provides sufficient technical arguments to request authorities’ consideration regarding their applicability in a specific area.
The application of this technology in the environmental field is virtually unlimited. Environmental monitoring and quality control represent one of its most significant contributions, not only through imagery but also through information collected by different sensors capable of detecting radiation or emissions of polluting gases. Likewise, these aerial vehicles are already widely used in agriculture, the wine industry, and forestry to determine soil conditions, irrigation requirements, the presence of weeds, or other factors affecting crops.
This technology, available in the Dominican Republic, plays an essential role in project development planning, particularly during the pre-conceptualization stage, by providing the appropriate tools to prevent legal and/or environmental obstacles that could affect project implementation.
