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UAVs-Unmanned Aerial Vehicles- also known as drones, are an emerging geospatial technology that can facilitate data acquisition at various temporal and spatial scales. Notwithstanding, the wide application of UAVs globally, its wider application is found to be growing in Nepal as well. For instance, precision agriculture, forestry, topographical surveying, etc. It seems that there is a correlation between efficient use of UAVs in these sectors and the legal frameworks that regulate the use of UAVs. Therefore, it seems necessary to obtain holistic national view of UAVs regulations. Aligning with this necessity, this paper provides insight on existing legal provisions for UAVs in Nepal by highlighting the importance, impact, and limitations of UAV regulations. The criteria used in the framework to capture the present holistic legal dimension from literature in the web of science database are a) applicability b) technical requirements c) operational requirements/ limitations d) administration procedure e) human resource requirements and f) implementation of ethical constraints. The adopted methodological approach consists of exploratory case studies, systematic reviews of the concerned literature on UAVs regulations and the workshop on “Flight 4 Purpose” in which various UAVs application were discussed. The results show that the existing legal framework has both strengths and weaknesses for its use to capture the spatial data. The way forward is to harmonize the soft and hard regulations so that such geospatial technology can be applied for overall development and ultimately for the societal benefits.

Over three decades, the Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) concept has evolved significantly exploiting information technology to assist decision maker in a variety of fields of research, development, and practice. With the communicative turn in planning, which emphasizes public participation in all levels of planning and decision making, these technologies have further matured to support participatory planning by means of supporting diverse stakeholders in the decision making process. However, for multiple reasons, SDSS are still in the domain of expert, largely failing to incorporate general citizens in its use and applications. On the same note, citizen science as a method of inquiry is gaining much attention in recent years to engage general citizens in the scientific research, thereby also empowering them to participate in the decisions of the issues affecting them. As such, it seems likely that citizen science shows great promise for advancing SDSS for achieving broad citizen engagement in planning and decision-making. This paper discusses the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats (SWOT) of integrating citizen science with SDSS by analyzing existing literature on SDSS and citizen science. In particular, we explore the integration of aspects of citizen science in Interactive Planning Support System (PSS), as one form of SDSS to support wider citizen engagement.

The forest biomass is one of the most important parameters for the global carbon stock. Information on the forest volume, coverage and biomass are important to develop the global perspective on the CO2 concentration changes. Objective of this research is to estimate forest biomass in the study area. The study area is Hangal sum, Bulgan province, Mongolia. Backscatter coefficients for vertical transmit and vertical receive (VV), for vertical transmit and horizontal receive (VH) from Sentinel data and Leaf Area Index (LAI) from Landsat data were used in the study area. We developed biomass estimation approach using ground truth data which is DBH, height and soil moisture. The coefficient α, β, δ, γ were found from the approach. The output map from the approach was compared with VV and VH, LAI data. The relationship between output map and VH data shows a positive result R2 = 0.61. This study suggests that the biomass estimation using Remote sensing data can be applied in forest region in the North.