Nepal Flying Labs Uses Drones and 3D GIS for Resilience Planning

Nepal is a landlocked country in South Asia, known for its adventurous, seemingly mystical terrain. Cities and villages rise, sprawling across steep mountain landscapes, creating both beauty and risk. This region is especially prone to natural disasters. Earthquakes, floods, and landslides frequently devastate communities by destroying homes, livestock, and infrastructure. In disaster-prone regions like Nepal, location data derived from geographic information system (GIS) technologies plays a critical role. It helps strengthen resilience, inform recovery strategies, and guide long-term planning.

Following a massive earthquake in 2015, humanitarian agencies deployed drones to capture post-disaster imagery of the affected areas. Recognizing the long-term value of drone technology for disaster response and recovery, the Nepal Flying Labs initiative was launched. Its goal was to localize drone training and access in Nepal along with other disaster-prone countries from the Global South. Nepal Flying Labs became the first of its kind—providing training and access to drone technology for decision-making, recovery, and resilience planning.

Landslides are often a dangerous aftereffect of severe earthquakes. In a region like Nepal—where large amounts of the population live in mountainous terrain—landslides can be deadly. Over the past 29 years, more than 4,351 landslides have been recorded in Nepal, demonstrating the real and pervasive risk posed to residents.

In 2017, Medair, a humanitarian organization focused on post-disaster reconstruction, had the idea to use drones to survey areas impacted by Nepal’s oldest and largest landslide on record: the Ghyapche landslide. This massive landslide area runs through hills and valleys with extreme elevation changes ranging from 488 m to 2,080 m. Settlements near the Ghyapche landslide had already suffered damage from recent earthquakes, and visible cracks were beginning to emerge in the area. In response to discoveries like these, Medair partnered with WeRobotics, a technology nonprofit specializing in drone solutions, and Nepal Flying Labs, to conduct a drone-based joint risk-assessment mission of the historic landslide.

It’s worth noting how drones served as a unique solution for accessing and capturing imagery of the landslide. Terrain like this is difficult and dangerous for humans to reach on their own. Even so, the drones themselves experienced challenges with the steep landscape—the Nepal Flying Labs team admits to crashing two drones during initial mission attempts!

Despite these setbacks, the 2017 project earned the Nepal Flying Labs team the AUVSI XCELLENCE Humanitarian Award and inspired the group to conduct further landslide investigations. These efforts included a crucial drone mapping strategy. One of the team’s primary goals would be to use its drone mapping imagery to inform local and regional leadership of the scale and danger of landslides in the area. The imagery would also support future planning and building efforts.

To achieve this goal, the team needed tools to analyze its drone imagery and generate compelling visual presentations that could quantify the existing risks to settlements nearby.

In 2023, Nepal Flying Labs received a microgrant from WeRobotics, which was used to fund continuing research on the Ghyapche landslide. In partnership with the Institute of Himalayan Risk Reduction (IHRR), the Nepal Flying Labs team set out to study change analysis and debris volume calculations by capturing new drone imagery of the area. They also conducted community engagement and collected on-the-ground data, such as soil samples.

The team managed its high-resolution orthophotos of the landslide, built terrain models, and ran change detection analysis using ArcGIS Pro—Esri’s desktop GIS software for advanced spatial analysis, 2D and 3D mapping, and data visualization. These features helped the team extract meaningful insights from the drone missions, where understanding the landslide’s features was crucial to the research.

To enhance its analysis, the team also used the ArcGIS Image Analyst extension in ArcGIS Pro, which provides advanced features for visualizing, interpreting, and analyzing imagery. This extension helped the team capture and recognize subtle terrain shifts in its imagery, a critical discovery that could help predict landslide dangers before they happen.

Nepal Flying Labs GIS team lead, Dinesh Lamichhane, explained the value of integrating its drone imagery from the Ghyapche landslide with a GIS platform.

“These maps enabled accurate volume calculations, crack detection, terrain modeling, and monitoring of changes over time,” said Lamichhane. “More importantly, they translated complex geospatial data into understandable visuals, bridging the gap between science and community awareness. For both technical analysis and public communication, the drone-based maps proved indispensable.”

After the initial research and analysis process, Nepal Flying Labs needed to create visualization material to communicate the scale and severity of the Ghyapche landslide dangers. The team used ArcGIS 3D Analyst, an extension for ArcGIS Pro, to enhance its analysis of the area and tell a compelling story. ArcGIS 3D Analyst is a powerful tool that enables users to conduct 3D visualization, analysis, and surface modeling, helping users to better understand spatial relationships and terrain characteristics in complex environments.

3D Analyst also allowed the team to understand debris volume and how elevation changes within the landslide area influence risk of further damage. The 3D mapping capability provided an immersive experience of the Ghyapche landslide, allowing the team to move beyond static 2D representations and begin asking spatial questions in a dynamic new dimension. It also allowed them to organize critical layers of information in a system of record.

Approaching the Ghyapche landslide project in 3D proved to be essential for Lamichhane and his team accomplishing their goal, as he explained, “Given the site’s steep topography—ranging from 488 to 2,080 meters in elevation—conventional 2D maps were insufficient to capture the full extent of ground displacement and slope failure.”

After analysis, Nepal Flying Labs used its 3D maps of the Ghyapche landslide to share its research and discoveries with local leadership in the affected region. According to Lamichhane, the added visual dimension of these 3D maps helped leaders and residents profoundly connect with the landslide’s impact.

“The visual and interactive nature of the maps—especially the 3D models and side-by-side comparisons of drone imagery over time—played a crucial role in raising awareness among local leadership,” said Lamichhane. “Unlike traditional reports, these visuals conveyed the magnitude of the landslide’s impact instantly and intuitively.”

Additionally, because these 3D maps were designed in a GIS, the drone imagery offered more visual appeal—they contained layered geospatial data that enriched the understanding of the terrain.

“The 3D maps allowed stakeholders to observe changes in terrain, track expansion trends, and understand how cracks and debris flow threatened infrastructure and households,” Lamichhane added. “In stakeholder meetings, these maps often became focal points that guided discussions and sparked concrete commitments.”

Insights are powerful when they move people to action. By using ArcGIS Pro, the Nepal Flying Labs team transformed drone imagery into 3D maps that clarified the scale and urgency of disaster preparedness.

According to Lamichhane, these maps “fostered a deeper sense of urgency around reconstruction priorities, relocation planning, and community-based preparedness.”

The drone mapping software and features in ArcGIS Pro enabled Nepal Flying Labs to expand its research and extract critical insights from the Ghyapche landslide.

This is a story about the power of integrating drone imagery with GIS to advocate for resilience planning in communities vulnerable to natural disasters. After conducting its research, Nepal Flying Labs created a digital story, using ArcGIS StoryMaps, of their drone landslide mapping work, and won the Humanitarian and Disaster Response award in Esri’s 2024 StoryMaps Competition. Nepal Flying Labs continues its mission to localize drone technology in its region, deploying a geographic approach to drone data collection, management, and analysis.