Video production, forest fire prevention, fine dust monitoring… Gyeonggi-do, drone use budget reduction

Gyeonggi-do is saving billions of won in budget every year through administration using drones, an unmanned aerial vehicle. It is explained that it has increased work efficiency by using its own drones for forest fire prevention and evolution, traffic and fine dust monitoring, agriculture, and video production.

On the 6th, the province announced that it saved 2.23 billion won last year in drone video production related to policy work. Since May 2018, the province has hired four qualified experts and is operating a spatial information drone team in charge of drone photography in the Land Information Division.

Last year, the team contributed 605 videos. 192 cases of business site management, 112 cases of cultural property management, 76 cases of deliberation materials by various committees, 76 cases of illegal crackdowns, 75 cases of cadastral field, and 74 cases of promotional materials. Considering that the service cost of drone videos is 1 million to 5.45 million won per case, Do explained that more than 2.2 billion won in service costs were saved in producing and editing 605 videos.

The province also operates a ‘drone space’ that collects data taken by drones in one place. A provincial official said, “This year, we will provide drone video focusing on urban regeneration projects, management of the 3rd new city project site, and disaster/disaster situations to help with policy decisions.”

In addition to video production, the province is already using drones for diagnosis and surveillance. Drones were also used to crack down on emergency ultrafine dust reduction measures that took effect at 6 a.m. on the same day. When the concentration of ultrafine dust exceeds 50 μg/m3, surveillance drones are launched to inspect industrial complexes.

The Provincial Southern Autonomous Police Committee prepared a traffic improvement plan using drones in 21 sections with habitual commuting for 140 days from August of last year. Based on the video prepared in this way, traffic engineering experts and others provided 330 improvement plans, including optimizing signal operation. A provincial official said, “Transportation benefits alone due to reduced travel time will exceed 7.6 billion won per year.”

In the case of the Gyeonggi Digital Agriculture Promotion Team, in December of last year, it introduced cultivation technologies such as direct seeding and rice field management using drones while proposing digital agriculture conversion to reduce production costs.

The area in which the most outstanding achievements have been made is forest fire monitoring and response. During the forest fire prevention measures from the 1st of this month to the 15th of May, the province invested 28.4 billion won in facilities and equipment such as firefighting helicopters, including 15 thermal imaging drones. In the event of a forest fire, the province will fly a drone along with a command and extinguishing vehicle to determine the speed of the fire’s spread.

The cities of Seongnam and Icheon, which are affiliated with it, are also making remarkable achievements in the use of drones. Seongnam City has put the inspection of heat transport pipes on track using a thermal imaging camera along with forest fire surveillance activities using drones. In Icheon City, pest control work using drones is being implemented to enhance agricultural competitiveness.

Suwon Seongnam Icheon = Reporter Oh Sang-do [email protected]

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