Role of Drone Technology in Sustainable Rural Development: Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

Climate change and local weather conditions have caused several issues in the farming sector. The rapidly expanding global population is an issue that must be addressed to secure food and water supplies through the use of information technology in precision agriculture and smart farming. These technical advances in precision agriculture are represented by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). UAVs or DRONEs help in agriculture by counting the number of plants, visual inspection of the crop field, water management, erosion analysis, plant counting, soil moisture analysis, crop health assessment, irrigation scheduling, analyzing plant physiology, and yield forecasting. Drones can be used to facilitate development by reporting and collecting data in rural development in terms of agriculture land boundaries, water resources and their surface area, village boundaries, monitoring forest area, observation of hilly and tall plant regions, and soil condition in terms of water content, moisture, electrical conductivity, pH, and temperature. Repetitive collection of image and video data helps to analyze changes in rural development. Rural development aims to improve rural communities’ physical infrastructure and basic services. Delay in detecting problems associated with rural development may further deteriorate soil and water resources making them more vulnerable. This paper focuses on various opportunities and challenges in sustainable rural development and the application of UAVs in almost every aspect of human life, allowing people to make significant advances in human life support.