One application, that is often overlooked, and not commonly mentioned in current literature, is the use of aerial photography in emergency management. The reason may be that emergency management is a vast field itself, where aerial photography is only one of many components. This paper will attempt to address different applications related to emergency management and will attempt to highlight its advantages, as well as limitations. Most of the applications presented here have arisen from the authors personal knowledge of the field of emergency management, as planning consultant ti a number of local municipalities in his home country, Norway. The term aerial photograph, or simply air photo, describes a photograph taken from above the earths surface, as opposed to ground photographs, where the photographer is operating on the earth's surface.
Aerial photography denotes the process of taking photographs from above the earth's surface.
Usually this is done from aircrafts, meaning airplanes, but other means can also be used, such as helicopters, airships or remotely controlled airships, often called blimps. Even pictures taken from a high structure, such as a television tower, can bear the term air photo. Depending on the orientation of the camera's optical axis with respect to the earth's surface, air photos are classified as vertical or oblique. Vertical air photos present relatively undistorted overhead views of the landscape and are essential for accurate mapping and photo interpretation. It can be assumed that the vertical air photo represents a true record of angles between ground objects, but horizontal measurements are dependent on the variation of the ground surface and flight altitude.