Can drone surveying be used for embankment management? 5 conditions to keep in mind

Table of Contents

• Can drone surveying be used for embankment management?

• Reasons why drone surveying is attracting attention in embankment management

• 5 Requirements for Using Drone Surveying in Embankment Management

• Workflow for Using Drone Surveying in Embankment Management

• When Drone Surveying Is Suitable and When It Is Not

• Common failure points

• Summary

Can drone surveying be used for embankment management?

To conclude, drone surveying can be used for embankment management. Moreover, when site conditions and operational procedures are appropriate, it makes it easier to capture a wider area in a shorter time than conventional methods, and it provides an effective way to visualize changes in as-built shape, increases or decreases in soil volume, and construction progress. In embankment management, it is essential to verify where and how much soil has been placed, whether heights and shapes match the plan, and whether there are any issues with the slope faces and the crest. When you want to understand these matters not just in parts of the site but across the entire area, drone surveying is a very well-suited method.

However, what must not be misunderstood here is that simply flying a drone will not automatically make embankment management successful. Embankment management is not merely taking photos from above. You need to clearly define the object you want to manage, determine the required level of accuracy, establish a state in which repeated comparisons can be made using the same criteria, and translate the results into outputs that can be used on site. In other words, it is practical to view drone surveying not as a cure-all for embankment management, but as a method that only demonstrates its effectiveness when the necessary conditions are met.

Many of the people who actually search for "can it be used for embankment management" are less concerned with whether drone surveying itself is feasible than with whether it will genuinely help on-site management tasks, how far it can replace traditional verification methods, and what to watch out for to avoid failure. In particular, for projects such as land development, road construction, residential land development, grading of development sites, and the management of soil acceptance and removal, where the movement of soil and height control change daily, interest is growing in methods that make it easier to capture the amount of change.

Drone surveying is a method well suited to meet those expectations. Because it can capture conditions from above across an area, it allows you to view the entire construction site rather than measuring only a part of it. By recording the current terrain and re-surveying at regular intervals, it also makes it easy to compare differences before and after construction. As a result, it becomes easier to link multiple management tasks—such as monitoring embankment progress, assessing earthwork volumes, verifying as-built conditions, preserving records, and sharing with stakeholders—within a single workflow.

On the other hand, there are cases where drone surveying alone is insufficient. At sites where trees or structures are abundant and the ground surface is hard to see, sites that are narrow and subject to strict flight conditions, situations that require extremely high point-level accuracy, or when you need to directly verify layer-by-layer compaction control, it is necessary to combine on-the-ground checks with other measurement methods. Earthfill management is part of construction management and cannot be completed with surveying results alone.

That's why it's important not to think of it as a binary question of "usable or not," but to clarify which conditions need to be met to make it easier to use. This article clearly organizes, from the practitioners' perspective and centered on five conditions to be met, what to keep in mind when applying drone surveying to embankment management. It is intended to be useful not only for those considering adoption, but also for those who are already using it in part yet feel they are not leveraging it for management as much as they'd hoped.

Why Drone Surveying Is Gaining Attention in Embankment Management

A major reason drone surveying is gaining attention in embankment management is that it makes it easy to capture site changes across an area in a repeatable way. In embankment construction, the terrain changes with daily work. Areas that were low yesterday may be built up today, haul road alignments change, and the positions of slope shoulders and slope toes shift little by little. It is not easy for a small crew to grasp such changes over a wide area. With conventional methods alone, you can check the necessary cross-sections and points, but it can take time to get an overview of the whole site at once.

In that respect, drone surveying is well suited to capturing the overall picture because it can acquire information over a wide area in a short time. If current terrain data and image data are prepared, it becomes easy to compare conditions before and after construction and to check progress on a daily or weekly basis. This is especially true for embankments, where vertical changes as well as planar area are important, so the ability to handle surface information acquired from above in three dimensions is a major strength.

Also, accountability is important in embankment management. There are occasions when you need to convey construction progress and conditions to multiple parties, such as project owners, construction managers, partner companies, neighbors (for briefings), and internal stakeholders. In these cases, being able to share the current situation visually speeds up understanding more than explaining with words alone. Images and terrain comparison materials obtained from drone surveying are easy for people unfamiliar with the site to understand and have the advantage of reducing discrepancies in perception.

In addition, embankment management requires knowing earthwork volumes. There are many situations in which you need to understand how much has been placed, how much remains, and how it differs from the plan. While the volume calculation itself depends on condition settings and how reference surfaces are defined, having a way to capture the terrain as a surface helps quantify changes. Especially on long-duration sites, accumulating interim results makes it easier to verify construction progress with data rather than by feel.

It is also drawing attention for safety. At embankment construction sites, heavy equipment frequently operates, and workers sometimes need to enter areas with poor footing or unprepared ground. If it can partially reduce the burden of having personnel walk around on the ground to check conditions in detail, this will also contribute to improved work safety. Of course, safety management of the flight itself is necessary, but the potential to reduce human entry into hazardous areas is highly significant for the worksite.

However, these advantages do not mean that all embankment management can be replaced by drone surveying. If it is not used in a way that matches the site's objectives, you often end up with attractive images that cannot be used for management. For example, simply flying on a regular schedule without ensuring consistent coordinates and reference points each time reduces the reliability of comparisons. If you begin operations without defining the required accuracy, you may later find that this data cannot be used to make decisions.

In other words, there are certainly reasons for the attention, but delivering results requires a deliberately designed operational framework. At the core of that design are the five conditions explained below.

5 Conditions for Using Drone Surveying in Embankment Management

Condition 1: Decide the management objective in advance

The first thing to establish is a clear purpose for using drone surveying. This may seem basic, but on-site it often becomes surprisingly ambiguous. If the method—drone surveying—takes precedence and people adopt a “let’s just capture it from the air for now” approach, the resulting outputs won’t have defined uses later and won’t tie into management.

There are several broad objectives to consider in embankment management. Whether you want to compare terrain before and after construction, monitor daily progress, track changes in soil volume, use it to verify as-built conditions, or use it for explanatory materials, the required acquisition methods and deliverables will differ. For example, if progress monitoring is the primary objective, it is important to acquire the same area under the same conditions each time to make comparisons easier. On the other hand, if the usage is closer to as-built verification, you need to more rigorously specify the required accuracy, reference surfaces, and comparison methods.

If management objectives remain unclear, the coverage, update frequency, and processing requirements will not be determined. As a result, only the effort involved in flights increases, and the information returned to the site becomes incomplete. Conversely, when the purpose is clear, it becomes easier to decide the necessary frequency. Whether daily is needed, whether once a week is sufficient, or whether only major process milestones need coverage becomes apparent, making it easier to avoid both excessive and insufficient operations.

In embankment management in particular, care is needed because construction management, quality control, as-built management, progress management, and quantity management tend to become mixed. What drone surveying is good at is grasping and comparing current conditions over a wide area and visualizing changes. Conversely, it cannot directly handle other management items, such as checking compaction status layer by layer or verifying the material properties themselves. It is important to delineate what will be captured by drone surveying and what will be verified by other methods.

An approach that reduces the risk of failure on site is to start by focusing on a single management objective and then broaden its application once you can see results. If you try to do everything from the beginning, operations become complicated and, in the end, everything tends to be half-baked. For example, begin with weekly progress checks and visualizing the extent of fill, then expand to earthwork volume comparisons and verification against drawings — doing so makes it easier for the practice to take hold on site.

Condition 2: Determine the required accuracy and comparison criteria

The second condition is to determine in advance the accuracy and comparison criteria required for embankment management. One common misconception when using drone surveying is the belief that if three-dimensional data are obtained, anything can be compared accurately. In reality, however, if the required accuracy is not defined, you cannot assess whether the collected data can be used for management decisions.

What you need to check in embankment management is not simply whether the terrain has been captured, but how reliably you can detect differences from the plan or from the previous survey. For example, the requirements change depending on whether you want to discuss height differences on the order of a few centimeters or to understand increases and decreases as an overall trend. If this is unclear, even processed data that looks plausible may be weak as a basis for decision-making.

Comparison criteria are also extremely important. In embankment management, there are multiple comparison patterns, such as comparison with the pre-construction terrain, comparison with the design surface, and comparison with the previous measurement. In such cases, if each dataset is not aligned to the same coordinate system, the same reference surface, and the same methodology, it becomes difficult to determine whether the differences are truly changes caused by construction or simply the result of positional shifts or differences in processing conditions. Especially when considering continuous operation, it is essential to establish the standards at the initial stage.

Also, when quantifying the volume of embankment fill, it is necessary to make clear which surface is being compared with which to derive the quantities. Whether you compare the pre-construction ground surface with the current topography, look at the incremental change since the previous survey, or check the difference from the design geometry, the implications differ. Being able to produce numbers is not the same as having those numbers usable for management decision-making. On site, you need to organize and clarify which numbers to look at and what judgments to make based on them.

As an approach to ensuring accuracy, it is important to consider flight conditions, the handling of reference points, imaging methods, processing conditions, and verification methods as a continuous whole. Even if you focus on only one element, overall quality control will not be stable unless the entire workflow is consistent. Because embankments change their terrain as construction progresses, you must be careful about how you select comparison targets. Keeping locations that should not have changed as checkpoints can help identify positional shifts and processing errors.

As on-site personnel, you don't need to overcomplicate the required accuracy, but at the very least you should share with stakeholders "how much comparative reliability is required for this application." If you don't, data that was being used on-site as a reference may, before you know it, be used for strict management decisions, which could lead to discrepancies later.

Condition 3: Develop a shooting plan that enables continuous operation

The third requirement is to create an imaging plan that can be operated continuously. In embankment management, there is more value in repeatedly verifying progress in line with project stages than in measuring just once and finishing. Therefore, instead of a one-off flight, an operational design that can continuously acquire data at the same quality is necessary.

For example, if you want to monitor the progress of an embankment on a weekly basis, it becomes easier to compare if you keep the flight timing as consistent as possible each time. Conditions such as just after rain, days when surface conditions have changed significantly, or time periods when heavy machinery is operating intensively also affect how the acquired data appears. If shooting conditions vary each time, it becomes difficult to tell whether observed changes are due to construction progress or differences in acquisition conditions. That is why it is important to decide in advance at which stage and at what timing to conduct flights.

It is also desirable to keep the flight area, altitude, overlap, and shooting direction as consistent as possible each time. In embankment management, comparability is extremely important. If you fly different areas each time or capture the edges unevenly, the assumptions for change detection comparisons and earthwork volume calculations will be undermined. The busier the site, the more tempted you may be to change how you fly based on on-the-spot judgment, but if you are using the data for management purposes you should prioritize reproducibility.

One thing that is often overlooked in ongoing operations is formalizing on-site rules. If it isn't decided who will make the flight decision, what to check before a flight, where to save the acquired data, what names to use for management, and at what point to share with stakeholders, the first attempt may succeed but subsequent ones will not be sustained. Especially in embankment management, where processes are long and personnel turnover is common, it's important to establish a system that does not rely on individual know-how.

Furthermore, in ongoing operations it is necessary to consider responses to weather and on-site conditions. On days with strong winds, rainfall, or conditions that make flight impossible, it is more practical not to push through and to have alternative dates or contingency measures available. Because it is difficult to fly under exactly the same conditions every time, having operational rules — including how much deviation will be tolerated — can prevent confusion.

Ultimately, the value of drone surveying in embankment management lies not in having captured a single clean dataset, but in being able to make continuous comparisons in line with the construction process. That is why it is important to have a plan that can be sustained. Only when you combine a frequency that is reasonable for the site, easily reproducible conditions, and procedures that are easy to share will it become established within routine management operations.

Condition 4 Align the ground reference and the on-site reference

The fourth requirement is to align the ground reference with the site reference. This is a particularly important point in embankment management. This is because on site, drawings, design elevations, construction standards, the existing terrain, and as-built verification must all refer to the same locations to be meaningful. Even if data obtained from drone surveys exist independently, they become difficult to use for management unless they are tied to the design and site references.

What you really need to know in embankment management is what state the current terrain is in when judged against the site's management criteria. For example, whether the elevation is deficient or excessive compared with the planned elevation, which areas are ahead and which are behind, or whether there is any bias in the slope shapes can only be determined by overlaying the on-site criteria. A simple three-dimensional model or images alone may lack the contextual meaning required for on-site decision-making.

For that, it is essential to ensure alignment with the control points, coordinates, and design data used on site. If each set of measurement results is not referenced to the same datum, comparisons with previous measurements and with the design will be difficult to trust. This is not something that can be fixed later in software; it is a condition that should be considered from the very start of on-site operations.

Also, because the ground surface at embankment construction sites changes with the work, it is necessary to distinguish between locations that can be used as reference points and those that cannot. Treating places that change each time as reference points will make comparison results unstable. Securing unchanged surrounding areas, known points, or positions that can be continuously referenced on site will help stabilize operations. This is both a data-processing issue and a site-management issue.

Aligning site standards also serves to align stakeholders’ understanding. If the criteria viewed by construction, surveying, and management personnel differ, they may interpret the same data differently. For example, if one person regards it as progress documentation while another believes it can be used for as-built verification, their evaluations will diverge. It is important to establish a common understanding of which criteria will be used to assess drone survey results and to what extent they will be applied.

When these conditions are met, drone surveying transforms from a mere recording method into a management tool that can be used for on-site decision-making. Conversely, if they are ambiguous, the outputs may look good but tend to be difficult to use for decision-making and will not be adopted on site.

Condition 5 Convert outcomes into deliverables that can be used on-site

The fifth condition is to translate the acquired data into deliverables that can be used on-site. This is the final condition, but it would not be an exaggeration to say it is actually the most important. Drone surveying does not end with simply flying the drone, nor does it end with merely creating three-dimensional data. It only becomes meaningful when field personnel can look at the results and use them to inform their next decisions and actions.

In embankment management, outputs that are easy to use on-site include, for example, progress comparison charts, visualizations of current conditions, diagrams that show height differences, materials that convey before-and-after construction changes, and current-condition data for sharing with stakeholders. The important thing is not to hand over specialized processing results as-is, but to present them in a way that makes it clear to anyone what has changed. On-site personnel must make daily decisions, and materials that require complex操作 or interpretation tend not to be used.

In embankment management in particular, because it is often a race against time, the speed from data acquisition to sharing is also important. Even if measurements are taken, if the results are returned late the site may already have moved on to the next phase and the data cannot be used for management. That is why it is necessary to decide in advance what level of processing will be done, how far it will go, and by when and to whom it will be shared. In practice, delivering results continuously in a form that meets the site’s timing can be more effective than performing advanced processing in full every time.

How results are presented also requires careful thought. What managers want to know is not the three-dimensional data itself, but where things are on schedule and where attention is needed. Therefore, expressions that convey the meaning of comparison results and differences, and presentations that facilitate on-site conversations, are required. Not only should these be viewable on-screen, but preparing them in a format that is easy to use in reports and meetings will broaden their applicability.

It is also important to have a focus on accumulating results. Because embankment construction can change significantly at each milestone of the process, the management value increases when comparisons with past data are possible. If you keep records in a form that can serve as a construction history, they will be useful if explanations are required later. This is also effective from the perspectives of quality control and internal sharing.

Turning outputs into results that can be used on site does not imply something technically advanced. Rather, it means creating a state in which the necessary information reaches the people who need it. Only when this is achieved does drone surveying begin to have practical value in embankment management.

Workflow for Using Drone Surveying in Embankment Management

In real-world sites, when using drone surveying for embankment management, it is easier to organize if you consider the entire process from introduction to operation as a single workflow. The first thing to do is to set the management objectives. Decide whether it's for progress monitoring, volume verification, or design comparison. Once this is decided, the acquisition frequency, required accuracy, and how to present the results become clearer.

Next, we organize the reference standards. We confirm the design information used on site, known points, comparison targets, and the scope of management so they can be handled with the same approach each time. In embankment management, if the reference shifts, the comparisons themselves become difficult, so it is important to work through this carefully during the initial setup.

After that, you establish a flight plan. Decide which area to capture, at what timing, and under what conditions. In practice, it is often easier to adopt an operational routine of periodic acquisitions aligned with the milestones of the project. For example, deciding in advance the timings you want to compare — such as before construction starts, after primary earthfill completion, at intermediate stages, before finishing, and at completion — makes management easier.

The acquired data is used to understand the current situation, to compare differences, and, when necessary, to quantify amounts. At this stage, it is important to apply the same approach to each processing run. If processing conditions change significantly partway through, consistency in comparisons is easily lost. What matters on-site is not performing the most advanced analysis once, but being able to continuously compare using the same criteria.

Finally, package the results in a form that can be used on site and share them. If you organize them with the intended uses in mind—progress meetings, construction reviews, explanations to the client, internal reports, etc.—the results will be less likely to be overlooked. Once this workflow becomes established, drone surveying will function not as a one-off event but as part of routine embankment management.

Situations Where Drone Surveying Is Suitable and Not Suitable

Drone surveying is effective for earthfill management, but there are situations in which it is suitable and situations in which it is not. It is suitable when you need to quickly grasp current conditions over a wide area, compare changes before and after construction, check trends in increases or decreases in soil volume, or prepare explanatory materials for stakeholders. In particular, for development sites or large construction yards, the advantage of being able to capture the entire site as an area is especially significant.

Also, it tends to be especially well suited to sites where the terrain changes day to day. On sites where you want to continuously track changes—such as embankment progress, locations of delivered soil stockpiles, and the condition of slope shaping—being able to keep records in a comparable form is a key advantage. Even on sites that are too burdensome for people to check on foot, being able to assess them from above is a major benefit.

On the other hand, there are situations where it is unsuitable. For example, when the ground surface is difficult to see, it becomes hard to obtain the expected information. Under trees, in areas shaded by obstacles, or in locations that are extremely narrow and where flight conditions are constrained, the quality of data acquisition can be unstable. In addition, some management items cannot be assessed solely by airborne terrain acquisition, such as verifying the compaction state of each layer or confirming the quality of the materials themselves.

Furthermore, in situations that frequently require extremely precise verification of point elevations, it is safer not to rely solely on drone surveying but to combine it with ground-based checks. In practice, separating strengths and weaknesses—using drone surveying for areal assessment and alternative methods for precise verification of points or local areas—ultimately improves overall management quality.

Common Pitfalls

A common pitfall when using drone surveying for embankment management is a disconnect between the objectives and the operational practices. It's not uncommon to fly drones just to collect data, only for nobody to end up looking at it. This stems from a lack of clarity about what needs to be managed and who will use the data and how.

Also, there are many failures caused by acquisition conditions varying each time, making comparisons impossible. If flight range, altitude, and timing are not consistent, it becomes difficult to interpret the differences. If you plan to operate continuously, you need to create rules with reproducibility in mind.

The lack of unified standards is also a major problem. Data that is not tied to on-site design or existing standards may look good, but it becomes difficult to use for management. If the basis for comparison is not aligned, judgments will vary even when there are numbers and diagrams.

Furthermore, if the method for producing results is too difficult, it will not be used on-site. If the data remains in a format that only specialists can read, it will be difficult for construction management to adopt. If it is to be used on-site, it is important to organize it so that changes and points of caution are clearly communicated.

Finally, having excessive expectations of drone surveying can also be a cause of failure. Trying to solve all aspects of embankment management with a single method will create discrepancies with reality. It is important to limit its use to applications in which it excels and to combine it with other verification methods when necessary.

Summary

Drone surveying is a well-suited method for embankment management. It makes it easy to capture large areas comprehensively, and because it facilitates visualization of changes before and after construction, progress, and trends in increases or decreases of soil volume, it contributes to more efficient site management and easier information sharing. However, whether it can be used is determined not by the presence of equipment but by whether the operational conditions are in place.

The conditions to keep in mind are: decide the management objectives first; define the required accuracy and comparison criteria; develop an imaging plan that can be sustained in ongoing operations; align ground control with on-site references; and convert results into deliverables that can be used in the field. When these five elements are in place, drone surveying is not just aerial photography but a practical management tool for embankment management.

Especially in embankment management, the topography changes as construction progresses, and the importance of sharing information with stakeholders and preserving records increases. That is why it is essential to have a system that allows you to efficiently understand, compare, and clearly explain wide areas. Drone surveying is a promising option for this, but when introducing it you need to consider alignment with site standards and the ease of ongoing operation.

Also, to improve the accuracy and reproducibility of embankment management, it is essential not only to collect data from the air but also to secure stable ground-based positioning references. To make site condition assessment, as-built verification, and progress sharing more reliable, it is important to adopt an approach that effectively links ground and aerial information.

In that respect, if you want to make on-site location information easier to handle and streamline routine positioning, recording, and verification tasks, considering the combination of an iPhone-mounted GNSS high-precision positioning device like LRTK can also be effective. By linking the area-based overview provided by drone surveying with high-precision on-site position checks, embankment management operations become even easier to integrate into day-to-day work. Those who want to visualize the entire site while ensuring they accurately cover the necessary locations should consider these measures as well.