Estimating Area and Water Volume of Rural Reservoirs Using Drones

Quantifying the area and volume of artificial reservoirs is critical to the monitoring of this aquatic environment, but often proves logistically challenging. In the case of remote rural reservoirs, complex field logistics and limited accessibility can make frequent, accurate measurement unfeasible. The advent of remote sensing technologies such as drones has provided new solutions to these problems and reduced the level of field effort required. The present study aimed to test a new methodology for calculating the area and volume of artificial reservoirs in rural areas, comparing data obtained with a drone with field measurements. The two methods showed an average variation of 8.5%, with a correlation (between area and volume measured with drone) of over 94%.