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Unmanned Aerial Vehicles are Now Used in the Everyday Work of LVM Forestry

JSC “Latvia's State Forests” (LVM) forest infrastructure specialists have started to use unmanned aerial vehicles or drones more widely to perform their daily work duties. The company uses more than a total of 170 drones in various structural units, highly appreciating the benefits and support that they provide, for example, in the course of monitoring of large nests, collecting forest inventory data, planning forestry work and for performing other tasks. Last summer, drones were also an invaluable asset in surveying the damage caused by the devastating storms.

When accepting forest road construction works, a forest infrastructure specialist can use a drone to quickly and conveniently check the compliance of the forest infrastructure facility built with the construction design. Until now, the best assistants were a tape measure, a laser rangefinder and mathematical knowledge of bisectors and other laws of geometry.

“Thanks to drones, we can fly over a newly built road and photograph the road even before the construction works are put into operation and accepted. The photos are then processed to obtain a single orthophoto map, where measurements of road elements can be made, such as radii of exits, lengths of culverts, road width, and more. It also provides an opportunity to walk the road in a 3D model,” says Jānis Buņkis, Head of LVM Forest Infrastructure Planning.

More than 170 drones are now used by LVM every day at eight different structural units – starting with the LVM Forestry unit, where the operation of drones was first started, and ending with the newest users of drones – Forest Infrastructure and Real Estate Administration.

LVM's unmanned aircraft operation manager Kārlis Linde mentions the option to survey territories and make decisions about the execution of work remotely as the main benefits of using drones. It is because this way employees do not need to physically go to the territory themselves thus allowing to save time and physical effort.