Signal Program, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative; Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America.
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2020 Feb 5;15(2):e0227808. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0227808. eCollection 2020.
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones have been used by disaster relief organizations in the United States since 2005. However, their place in the disaster response ecosystem-the standardization, utility, ethical, and legal challenges of drone use-remains largely unstudied. This case series describes how UAVs were used by two teams of responders for damage assessment purposes during the 2017 southeastern US Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Data streams ranged from social media, direct observation, participant-observation and semi-directed interviews. Qualitative analysis was performed for thematic content derived from field observation and from post-hoc interviews. Outcomes of the qualitative analysis emphasize the barriers to deploying drones in the disaster context, their tactical implementation, programmatic integration, and ethical and legal challenges. These observations lay the groundwork for both future research on the utilization of drones and the prudent and ethical implementation of programs that employ drones in post-disaster settings.
自 2005 年以来，美国的救灾组织就开始使用无人机（UAVs）或无人驾驶飞机。然而，它们在灾难应对生态系统中的地位——标准化、实用性、道德和法律挑战——在很大程度上仍未得到研究。本案例系列描述了在 2017 年美国东南部的飓风哈维和艾尔玛期间，两组救援人员如何将无人机用于损害评估目的。数据流包括社交媒体、直接观察、参与式观察和半定向访谈。对现场观察和事后访谈得出的主题内容进行了定性分析。定性分析的结果强调了在灾难环境中部署无人机的障碍、它们的战术实施、项目整合以及道德和法律挑战。这些观察为未来关于无人机的利用以及在灾后环境中使用无人机的谨慎和道德的项目实施的研究奠定了基础。
