Advanced Division of Search Areas for Missing Persons in Non-Urban Environments

Dividing large areas into smaller sub-areas is a common practice across many disciplines, with specific requirements determined by their intended use. This study focuses on preparing search sectors for locating missing persons in non-urban environments. In such settings, search teams must be assigned sufficiently large yet homogeneous sectors that allow visual orientation even without GNSS. While general search strategies differ in their approach to area coverage, rural and wilderness environments pose unique challenges that demand a systematic method to ensure both navigability and efficiency. To address this, we propose a land-use-based approach that incorporates the artificial extension of linear geo-features to subdivide large polygons. The methodology was first applied to regions of the Czech Republic in 2020 and refined with advanced settings in 2023. Introducing the step for subdividing extensive homogeneous polygons significantly improved outcomes, allowing the method to generate search sectors of the desired size for 86% of the territory in 2020 and 91% in 2023. The main limitation lies in the reliance on cartographic data, which may omit fine details critical for field navigation.