Drone stockpile volumes and inventory in France: quarries, landfill cells, recycling yards and year-end accounts

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November 2026latest revision of this guide

• Primary sources: Légifrance, EUR-Lex.
• Every figure linked to its source, dated in the last chapter.
• Dated updates: you always read the latest version.

Who it is for

• Quarry, aggregate transfer and crushing plant operators in France who must keep their annual plan and product stocks up to date
• Operators of non-hazardous waste landfills (ISDND) who assess the remaining capacity of their cells every year
• Managers of recycling, sorting and waste transfer yards (metals, wood, plastics, non-hazardous waste) who must prove their storage areas, volumes and heights
• Finance teams, controllers and auditors of French subsidiaries who must support a bulk stock figure at year end
• Survey firms and drone operators, French or foreign, who deliver these volumes on French sites and want a report that holds

In pictures

Illustrative photos, published by their authors under free licences.

Contents of the complete guide

1. Volume, capacity, inventory: three questions, three readers (free extract below)
2. The volume method: point clouds, surfaces and the reference plane
3. Accuracy, tolerance and uncertainty in %: calculate it before promising it
4. French ICPE categories: what each regime requires you to measure
5. Landfill cell (ISDND): remaining capacity and remaining life
6. Quarry: annual plan, extracted volumes and product stocks
7. Recycling yards and transfer stations: areas, volumes and heights
8. Year-end inventory: from volume to book stock, with the statutory auditor
9. Comparing two surveys over time without comparing two methods
10. Ordering, accepting and archiving the deliverable
11. Five templates to copy
12. Sources and consultation dates

Included: 18 checklist items and 13 decision or reference tables.

Introduction

A volume measured by drone is rarely challenged on the day it is delivered. It is challenged six months later: when the inspector asks why the remaining capacity of a landfill cell fell twice as fast as the tonnage received, when the statutory auditor wants to know what base the sand stockpile was calculated against, when this year's survey can no longer be compared with last year's because the contractor changed software, or when a yard discovers that a stockpile is higher than its permit allows. In each case it is not the drone that is missing. It is the written method: which reference surface, which boundary, which uncertainty, which density, which comparison rule.

This guide gives that method to those who order the measurement and those who deliver it, on sites in France. It starts from what French texts actually require of a quarry, of a non-hazardous waste landfill and of a transfer or sorting yard, then from what the French Commercial Code and the French auditing standard require for a stock at year end. It explains how a volume is calculated, how to put a percentage on its uncertainty before promising it, how to assess the remaining capacity of a landfill cell, how to move from volume to tonnage and then to the book inventory, and how to compare two surveys without comparing two methods. It ends with five templates: specification, volume survey report, variance table against the book stock, deliverable check sheet and annual report outline.

Two French terms recur. ICPE (installation classée pour la protection de l'environnement) is the French system of classified installations: each activity falls under a numbered category of a national nomenclature, with a regime of authorisation (A), registration (E), declaration (D) or declaration with periodic inspection (DC). ISDND (installation de stockage de déchets non dangereux) is a non-hazardous waste landfill.

The guide is up to date as of 6 November 2026. The ministerial orders cited were read that day in their consolidated version, on Ineris's AIDA database, which reproduces the versions published on Légifrance, and the nomenclature in its February 2026 version. The worked examples are recalculated in the text so you can rerun them with your own figures. Read it in order the first time; after that, chapter 3 (uncertainty), the chapter for your type of site and the templates are enough for each campaign.

Volume, capacity, inventory: three questions, three readers

Three figures that answer different questions

On the same site, the same drone flight can serve three purposes that have neither the same reader, nor the same unit, nor the same tolerance.

The volume survey answers "how much material, or empty space, lies between two surfaces?". It is expressed in cubic metres. This is the technical object: a digital model of the site surface, a reference surface, a boundary, a difference.

Capacity answers "how much can I still receive, extract or store, given what I am permitted?". It is expressed in the unit of the administrative act: mass of waste for a landfill cell, tonnes per year for a quarry, area or "volume likely to be present" for a transfer yard. Its reader is the operator first, the environmental inspectorate second.

Inventory answers "what quantity of stock exists at the closing date, and what is it worth?". It is expressed in tonnes, then in euros. Its reader is the finance team and, through it, the statutory auditor (commissaire aux comptes).

The practical consequence is simple: a volume report that does not say which question it answers will be misread. The same 12,000 m³ can be correct as a volume, insufficient as a capacity (if it forgets the thickness of the final cap on a landfill cell) and wrong as an inventory (if it is converted with a textbook density).

What a drone measures, and what it does not

A drone measures a surface: photogrammetry rebuilds a point cloud and a digital surface model (DSM) from highly overlapping photos; a LiDAR sensor does the same with laser pulses. Everything else is calculated.

• It does not measure the underside of a pile: the base of a stockpile on natural ground is an assumption, unless the pad was surveyed empty.
• It does not measure mass: going from cubic metres to tonnes needs a density, which varies with moisture, compaction and grading.
• It does not see under a canopy, inside a silo or inside a closed building.
• It does not measure value: product quality, grading and write-downs remain the operator's decisions.

What published measurements say

Three studies give honest orders of magnitude. A team from Perm National Research Polytechnic University and BOKU Vienna (Filkin, Sliusar, Huber-Humer, Ritzkowski and Korotaev, Waste Management, 2022) compared a consumer drone and a survey-grade drone on dumps and landfills: the difference from ground surveys was about 1% even with a minimal number of ground control points, rising to about 5% with no control points and cloud processing (doi:10.1016/j.wasman.2021.12.029). On stockpiles carried by barges, He, Chen, Zeng and Huang (Sensors, 2019) found a deviation of about ±2% from traditional manual measurement, without ground control points (doi:10.3390/s19163534). Finally, Raeva, Filipova and Filipov (ISPRS Archives, 2016), comparing GNSS and drone on an open-pit quarry stockpile, note that mining regulations in many countries require ±3% accuracy on the total volume (doi:10.5194/isprs-archives-xli-b1-999-2016).

These figures concern the geometric volume under study conditions. They say nothing about the reference surface under a pile on sloping ground, or about density. Chapter 3 shows how to calculate your own uncertainty, site by site.

Five minutes to classify your need

1. Who will read the figure first: operations, the inspectorate, finance, a customer or a third party in a dispute?
2. In what unit does that reader expect it: m³, tonnes, m², height in metres, euros?
3. On what date must the figure be true: closing date, plan anniversary, calendar year end for the annual declaration?
4. Is there a comparable earlier survey (same boundary, same reference, raw data archived)?
5. What will the figure be reconciled with: incoming and outgoing weighings, declared tonnages, book stock?

With these five answers, template 1 (specification) is straightforward to fill in and the contractor knows what to deliver.

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Frequently asked questions

What does “Drone stockpile volumes and inventory in France: quarries, landfill cells, recycling yards and year-end accounts” contain and how much is it?

For €39 VAT included (€32.50 excl. VAT), you get drone stockpile volumes and inventory in France: quarries, landfill cells, recycling yards and year-end accounts: 11 chapters online, about 34 printable A4 pages and 5 ready-to-copy templates, to have a volume measured by drone on a French industrial site, and defend it afterwards: choose the reference surface and the boundary, work out the uncertainty in % before promising it, assess the remaining capacity of a landfill cell, know what each French classified-installation category (quarry, non-hazardous landfill, waste transfer and sorting) requires you to measure, move from volume to the year-end book inventory with the statutory auditor, and compare two surveys over time without comparing two methods.

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