Water Quality Index Classification of Panchor River using UAV-Assisted Water Sampling System

Abstract

Advances in drone technology have brought to the application of a drone-assisted water sampling system. In this study,
UAV is attached to a water sampling tool that is used to collect water samples from different points in Panchor River,
Johor. The UAV can also map the location of sampling points including its coordinates and preferred location site area
with the help of phone applications (DJI GO and Pix4Dcapture) and software to process images from the UAV
(Pix4Dmapper and Global Mapper). The collected water samples were measured for water quality index parameters
that include pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), total suspended solids (TSS), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical
oxygen demand (COD) and ammonia nitrogen (AN). The results show that the water quality of Panchor River was
classified as slightly polluted (Class II). This study demonstrated the development of a water sampling method that is
easy, simple, and quicker than the traditional techniques. This method enables to solve the issues of remote access to
water bodies, risk of accessing difficult and danger sampling point.