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Presentation of recent results of the CoastColour and SeaSWIR projects at the CoastColour and SeaSWIR User Consultation Meeting.


CoastColour and SeaSWIR User Consultation Meeting successfully conducted

From the 09th – 10th of May 2013, the CoastColour and SeaSWIR User Consultation Meeting – co-organized by Brockmann Consult and belspo – was held at the EUMETSAT premises in Darmstadt.

The recent results of the CoastColour and SeaSWIR projects were communicated to the scientific and broader coastal user community.

About 50 participants have contributed to vital discussions and have given valuable input for gathering recommendations for future scientific work, the requirements for new sensors and for the exploitation of Earth Observation data for coastal zones.

We would like to thank all attendees for their interest and active participation.

Presentation of recent results of the CoastColour and SeaSWIR projects at the CoastColour and SeaSWIR User Consultation Meeting.

The meeting co-organised by Brockmann Consult and belspo takes place from 09th – 10th May, 2013 at the EUMETSAT premises in Darmstadt.

The recent results of the CoastColour and SeaSWIR projects will be communicated to the scientific and broader coastal user community. Feedback from coastal scientists, managers and other stakeholder will be gathered, and future possibilities with the upcoming Sentinels will be discussed. Recommendations for further scientific work, requirements for new sensors and for exploitation of Earth Observation data for coastal zones will be formulated. These will be addressed to the Space Agencies and research funding organisations.
Source: EUMETSAT

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The staff of BMT ARGOSS in Atyrau, Kazakhstan have been recognised by their customer, Agip KCO, for their delivery of HSE activity, and in particular, the prompt reporting of SAFE-R cards/reports. Agip KCO is committed to ensuring safer working practices for their staff and partners.

Each month, the company awards prizes to those companies that have helped the company achieve its safety goals. This is the second time that BMT ARGOSS has been recognised by Agip KCO for their positive contribution to the scheme whilst providing them with metocean expertise.

Almagul Berkumbayeva (BMT ARGOSS administrator in Atyrau) is in charge of HSE policy within the Atryau office, due to here efforts BMT was awarded this prize for the best SAFE-R card.

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The Guyana Forestry Commission together with Indufor Asia Pacific Ltd aimed at creating a REDD+ MRV system for the detection and reporting of national forest change in Guyana mainly based on RapidEye high-resolution imagery. AAM, RapidEye’s distributor in Australia and New Zealand, managed the supply of the imagery for this project.

History:

Guyana possesses one of the largest tracts of untouched rainforest in South America. In 2009, the Governments of Norway and Guyana embarked on one of the first national-scale REDD+ initiatives to preserve Guyana’s forests. The bilateral agreement sets out how the two countries would work together to achieve the objective of Guyana conserving its forest stocks and helping reduce global carbon emissions.

The aim was to create a REDD+ MRV system with a solid methodology for the detection and reporting of national forest change. Potentially, the methods employed could serve as model that could assist other countries to progress their REDD+ MRV initiatives off the ground. Initially, the Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) found the wall-to-wall mapping and monitoring program to be a major undertaking, due to the size of the country (~215,000 km2). It has since found a way to effectively establish processes to streamline operations and standardize outputs that enables annual reporting of forest change.

The Challenge:

Until 2009, the only cost-effective and reliable source of imagery to accomplish the goals of this project was Landsat. Forest degradation was impossible to assess from the first year dataset due to the low resolution of the Landsat imagery. As a result, the degradation estimates for the first measurement year (2010) were based on the assumption that forest degradation radiates from deforested sites for a distance of 500 meters. In order to maintain continuity and improve the quality of the detection the GFC and Indufor team considered using RapidEye imagery.

The GFC and Indufor team decided that high resolution imagery was required to improve the detection of small-scale degradation events. A methodology was developed using five meter RapidEye imagery. The method adopted considered the visual characteristics of degradation including, size, proximity and its spectral characteristics. In 2011, RapidEye imaged 60% of Guyana over a four month period. In 2012, this was expanded to the entire country.

An Eye on Results

Guyana has established an annual, nation-wide MRV system. The historical analysis (1990-2009) has shown that the country lost about 0.02% of its forest area every year. The incorporation of RapidEye and improved forest change routines into the MRV system have resulted in improved detection and classification of both deforestation and degradation events.

In 2011, the RapidEye constellation was tasked over a four month period to collect approximately 12 million hectares (120,000 km2) of new imagery over all previously identified year one (2009-2010) forest loss areas. Using the higher resolution RapidEye imagery as opposed to strictly Landsat, a higher level of accuracy in the mapping was achieved. This is particularly apparent in determining the cause and the extent of both forest loss and degradation.

While the overall change identification process was consistent from year 1 to year 2, modifications were made to accommodate the shift from 30 m Landsat to 5 m RapidEye imagery. The most notable change was the two stage evaluation approach that was implemented for year two.

For the first stage, a grid the size of a RapidEye tile (25 × 25 km) was used to manually screen for change. The second stage used a combination of automated and manual processes to detect change. Each change event was systematically evaluated by casting a 1 × 1 km grid over the image. The outcome showed that changes could easily be identified in stage one, while accurately quantifying and attributing a cause to the change was carried out in stage two.

Proven Results

Since 2010 an independent in-country validation of the forest change estimates has been conducted by the University of Durham, England. The review process evaluates the accuracy of the mapping by scrutinizing the methodology and developing a statistical sampling approach to verify the results. Their audit concluded that the estimation of the 2011 forest loss was the same as reported by the GFC and Indufor team’s analysis. The overall map accuracy (for both deforestation and forest degradation) was 99.2%.

The University of Durham attributed the extremely high accuracy rate to the manual multi-stage methods when validating forest loss, the five meter high resolution RapidEye imagery and the meticulous work of the GFC and Indufor team.

In the University’s recommendations and comments, they strongly suggested that RapidEye data be used to image the entire country of Guyana in future years, as it is “of excellent quality and ideally suited for the task”. They also stated that RapidEye data was “…of sufficient spatial resolution to identify deforestation and the main drivers of deforestation.”

The Guyana Forestry Commission and Indufor team have already received RapidEye coverage over all of Guyana for 2012. This data will also be used to continue the REDD+ MRV assessment of forest loss and degradation. These measurements are used to prove that Guyana has met or exceeded the forest management benchmarks established with the government of Norway that trigger incentive payments.


Figure 1. RapidEye Imagery of Guyana

About RapidEye for REDD+
As part of its effort to assist participating countries in becoming “REDD-ready”, RapidEye offers an extensive and very recent archive of imagery, which can provide users with a wealth of information. Maps can be created showing current land use or land cover in regions, while multiple coverages can show changes that have happened to an area over time.
Whether identifying which areas are forested or tracking the change of forested land over multiple years, RapidEye is the perfect partner. Wall-to-wall coverages of most REDD countries are available in the RapidEye archive for National REDD+ initiatives. Contact redd@rapideye.com for more information.

MC International Imaging (DMCii) has signed an agreement with Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT) that will increase the volume of imagery acquired and the speed in which it can be delivered. The new facilities in Svalbard have allowed DMCii to receive 30% more data from day one, with the scope for significant further expansion in the future.

Under this agreement, KSAT will deliver a complete ground station service to DMCii, including the provision of hardware, and delivery of data to DMCii’s headquarters in the UK. The Svalbard ground station is uniquely placed near the North Pole to provide maximum downlink opportunities from polar-orbiting satellites, such as those operated by DMCii. Whilst an antenna near the equator might get 2 or 3 passes of a satellite over it in a day, antennas at Svalbard get 14 passes a day so satellite data can be downlinked every 90 minutes. A high speed data link between Svalbard and DMCii headquarters will speed up the delivery time of satellite imagery.

Dave Hodgson, Managing Director of DMCii, said: “Timeliness of information is of vital importance to our customers and is a key differentiator of our imagery services. The improved downlink has significantly upgraded data delivery times and has already made 30% more imagery available, further improving capability for change detection applications. This will become more important as the capacity of our satellites to acquire data expands in the near future.”

Rolf Skatteboe, President of KSAT, said: “Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT) is pleased with the opportunity to work together with DMCii and deliver an efficient and flexible ground segment for DMC series of satellites; reducing the latency for DMCii customers from the largest ground station in the world for polar orbiting satellites.”

“This is a strong Anglo-Norwegian partnership that we expect to continue with future missions such as the UK’s forthcoming NovaSAR mission. The combination of timely deliveries of Earth Observation data and operational marine monitoring services is important for KSAT marine situational awareness services.”


Svalbard Ground Station, SvalSat © KSAT- Kongsberg Satellite Services

About DMC International Imaging Ltd

DMC International Imaging Ltd (DMCii) is a UK-based supplier of remote sensing data products and services for international Earth Observation (EO) markets. DMCii supplies programmed and archived optical satellite imagery provided by the multi-satellite Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC). DMCii’s data is primarily used in a wide variety of commercial and government applications including agriculture, forestry and environmental mapping, which benefit from reliable high temporal resolution optical imagery.

In partnership with the UK Space Agency and the other DMC member nations (Algeria, China, Nigeria, Turkey and Spain), DMCii works with the International Charter ‘Space and Major Disasters’ to provide free satellite imagery for humanitarian use in the event of major international disasters such as tsunamis, hurricanes, fires and flooding.

DMCii was formed in October 2004 and is a subsidiary of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL), the world leader in small satellite technology. SSTL designed and built the DMC with the support of the UK Space Agency and in conjunction with the other DMC Consortium member nations listed above.

DMC International Imaging Ltd is not affiliated in any way with Intergraph Corp., Z/I Imaging Corp., or their registered trademark DMC.

About Kongsberg Satellite Services AS

Kongsberg Satellite Services AS (KSAT) is a commercial Norwegian enterprise, uniquely positioned to provide ground station and earth observation services for Low Earth and polar orbiting satellites. Locations in Tromsø at 69°N, Svalbard at 78°N and Antarctic TrollSat Station at 72°S furthermore owned and operated stations in Hartebeesthoek, Dubai, Singapore, Mauritius, Grimstad and Jan Mayen. KSAT operates over 60 antennas optimally positioned and support more than 75 satellites.

The Tromsø Network Operations Centre is staffed 24/7-365 days, and remotely operating facilities around the world as one single interconnected network.

DMCii and long-term partner Spacemetric, have successfully delivered an image from satellite to end-user in just 11 minutes, as part of a demonstration at the European Space Agency’s ‘Big Data from Space’ conference, where industry experts discuss how to distribute large volumes of data from space to the people that need it.

An image of Rome (where the event is being held) was acquired at 09:17 UTC on Wednesday the 5th June and it was processed and made available by 09:28 UTC the same morning.

Adina Gillespie, DMCii’s Product Development Manager said: “Delivering images from space to users usually takes at least a day, so demonstrating that it’s possible to capture Rome, download the image and process it in just 11 minutes is hugely exciting and proves that an age where civil users can tap into near real time data from space is just around the corner.”

DMCii specialises in the fast delivery of images for time-critical applications such as monitoring crop growth and monitoring disasters where imagery has a shelf life of about 24 hours, after which it ceases to be useful. Operating a multi-satellite constellation means that DMCii has more “eyes in the sky”, acquiring huge volumes of data every day. The company has already increased the speed of delivery with its direct downlink service that downlinks data directly to the user, and is planning an ‘always on’ service will cut delivery times for satellite imaging by continuously imaging the Earth without the need to command the satellite and wait for the image to be acquired.

The live demonstration of rapid image access is using the latest capabilities developed within the NGI project (Near Real-Time Geo-annotated Imagery) for the European Space Agency by Spacemetric


Screenshot of the processed UK-DMC2 image of Rome that was delivered in just 11 minutes at the ‘Big Data from Space’ conference in Frascati

About DMC International Imaging Ltd

  • DMC International Imaging Ltd (DMCii) is a UK-based supplier of remote sensing data products and services for international Earth Observation (EO) markets. DMCii supplies programmed and archived optical satellite imagery provided by the multi-satellite Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC). DMCii’s data is primarily used in a wide variety of commercial and government applications including agriculture, forestry and environmental mapping, which benefit from reliable high temporal resolution optical imagery.
  • In partnership with the UK Space Agency and the other DMC member nations (Algeria, China, Nigeria, Turkey and Spain), DMCii works with the International Charter ‘Space and Major Disasters’ to provide free satellite imagery for humanitarian use in the event of major international disasters such as tsunamis, hurricanes, fires and flooding.
  • DMCii was formed in October 2004 and is a subsidiary of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL), the world leader in small satellite technology. SSTL designed and built the DMC with the support of the UK Space Agency and in conjunction with the other DMC Consortium member nations listed above.
  • DMC International Imaging Ltd is not affiliated in any way with Intergraph Corp., Z/I Imaging Corp., or their registered trademark DMC.

Satellite imagery provided by DMCii is helping to plan the attempt to break the land speed record by the BLOODHOUND Project.

BLOODHOUND product sponsor DMCii has provided regular imagery to monitor test track conditions on the Hakskeen Pan in the Northern Cape of South Africa. During the rainy season (from October to March) the desert pan floods regularly, making it extremely flat and smooth and therefore an ideal surface to run BLOODHOUND’s supersonic car at speeds up to 1,050 mph. However, the track must be completely dry before use, as only then does the surface have the right load-bearing capacity to support the car and ensure a safe run.


UK-DMC2 image of the Hakskeen Pan, South Africa, captured on the 25th April 2013 © DMCii

The rainy season is unpredictable and the pan does not dry consistently across the whole area. DMCii’s 22m multispectral imagery provided an objective and highly accurate means of quantifying the flooding, understanding the drying out process and analysing the surface irregularities, highlighting the areas that require close monitoring before carrying out a test.

The latest image, taken on the 25th April, after heavy flooding in March, showed that the pan will take just weeks to dry out instead of the months previously thought. This information is vital to the team who are planning a wheel test on the pan as early as the beginning of May.

Andy Green, RAF fighter pilot and BLOODHOUND project driver said: “Having used satellite imagery to locate our test site, it was an obvious choice to use it to analyse the conditions on the Hakskeen pan. The 20 million m² area of cleared track roughly equates to an A road from London to Moscow. Once this huge remote area is flooded, it becomes inaccessible from the surface and regular monitoring is virtually impossible.”

“DMCii’s regular imagery has helped us understand more about the environment we are working with, identifying potentially problematic areas in the surface of the pan which we can factor in to ensure all our runs are safe. Our own tests have shown that DMCii imagery gives an exact picture of the conditions on the ground, which will give me great confidence when I step into the driver’s seat of the world’s fastest car.”

Dave Hodgson, Managing Director of DMCii said: “We’re proud to be supporting such an exciting project, that not only sets out to break several world records, but is also helping to encourage the next generation of scientists and engineers through their work with STEM. We’re very excited for Andy and the BLOODHOUND team and wish them the best of luck with their supersonic car.”
“Our 22m wide-area imagery has been perfectly suited to help them analyse their test track and it has been particularly effective at showing how the water is lying when the pan is flooded, allowing the detection of potentially problematic surface topographical issues.”

About DMC International Imaging Ltd

  • DMC International Imaging Ltd (DMCii) is a UK-based supplier of remote sensing data products and services for international Earth Observation (EO) markets. DMCii supplies programmed and archived optical satellite imagery provided by the multi-satellite Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC). DMCii’s data is primarily used in a wide variety of commercial and government applications including agriculture, forestry and environmental mapping, which benefit from reliable high temporal resolution optical imagery.
  • In partnership with the UK Space Agency and the other DMC member nations (Algeria, China, Nigeria, Turkey and Spain), DMCii works with the International Charter ‘Space and Major Disasters’ to provide free satellite imagery for humanitarian use in the event of major international disasters such as tsunamis, hurricanes, fires and flooding.
  • DMCii was formed in October 2004 and is a subsidiary of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL), the world leader in small satellite technology. SSTL designed and built the DMC with the support of the UK Space Agency and in conjunction with the other DMC Consortium member nations listed above.
  • DMC International Imaging Ltd is not affiliated in any way with Intergraph Corp., Z/I Imaging Corp., or their registered trademark DMC.

About BLOODHOUND SSC

  • The world land speed record of 763 mph is held by Thrust SSC, a UK team lead by BLOODHOUND’s Project Director Richard Noble and driven by Andy Green.
  • Components for BLOODHOUND SSC are being manufactured by specialists across the UK and delivered to the BLOODHOUND Technical Centre in Bristol for assembly throughout 2013.
  • The BLOODHOUND team scoured the globe to find the perfect desert to run the car on, it needed to be at least 12 miles long, two miles wide and perfectly flat. The Hakskeen Pan, Northern Cape, South Africa was selected.
  • At full speed BLOODHOUND SSC will cover a mile in 3.6 seconds, that’s 4.5 football pitches laid end to end per second.
  • BLOODHOUND has three power plants, a Rolls Royce EJ200 jet from a Eurofighter Typhoon, a custom designed hybrid rocket and a 750 bhp Cosworth F1 engine that drives the rocket oxidiser pump. Between them they generate 135,000 equivalent hp, equal to 180 F1 cars.

Why protesting if you can do the testing? A system for public monitoring from space to establish a dialogue with the authorities at the highest – orbital – level is being created in Russia. Together with its partners ScanEx RDC has plans to develop and open access to system called “Space Patrol” in 2013.


This system is the socially significant initiative and is aimed at the shaping of a new quality culture of interaction between the authorities and the society; a comprehensive socio-economic development of Russia and improvement of activities in the environment and nature protection, education, development and introduction of technology innovations, corruption reduction within governmental and commercial structures and citizens’ self-consciousness level increase. Regular operational updating of the coverage of the Russian territory with space images is planned within the frames of the project implementation and data posting on an open web portal. Based on space images, as well as additional geospatial data available at the portal (cadastre division, borders of protected natural areas, protected forests, water protection areas, forestry subdivisions and forest rides), the users will get the possibility to conduct complete monitoring of current activities. In case of detecting violations the information accompanied with visual evidence and illustrations, indicating the coordinates, will be sent to the respect regulatory and controlling agencies.

Based on this data each user can become “on duty” in the country and not just to watch what is happening on his land, but to report to relevant agencies “if someone somewhere is doing something wrong”. This is exactly the purpose of this project, believes ScanEx’s Director Olga Gershenzon

“Make our lives transparent and teach each student, senior citizen, any person who does care where and how we live, to control the government authorities  - in the best sense of this word. So that we could use space data processing and application methods to identify problem areas or the government’s actions. But we want to make this process not against the government, but in the dialogue with it instead”

The quality of roads repairs, construction terms, land use, ecology, nature conservation, mining, logging, fishing regulations abidance, routes of movement – they see everything from above, including the abuse of those who feel themselves to be on top as well. In legal terms, however, space images do not solve all the problems yet. They have no legal effect, but they may raise the moral courage to convict can raise, warns Olga Gershenzon:
“We have a precedent of using space-based information in the court. Both the Investigation Committee and the Prosecutor’s Office apply to us for assistance. Of course, there are officials who do not want to take these data into consideration, referring to the fact that it is legally illegitimate. But if we attract attention of both the civil society, and the government in the framework of this all-Russian project, and perhaps of a global one, because it is a matter of concerns in many countries, not only in Russia, then it will be easier for us to change the regulatory framework as well”.

ScanEx decided nowadays to bring the satellite capabilities from space down to earth. The company specializes in forwarding space data for more than two decades. The Center has been creating, maintaining and developing the orbital data reception stations operating with different satellite systems. It does business with the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Federal Forestry Agency, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Natural Resources and with federation constituents (sub-regions). It’s the ScanEx’s project “Kosmosnimki – Fires” that turned into the online TV-series about the fire spots in Russia.

But the dream of Olga Gershenzon, as she claims, lies in the fact that even a schoolboy could open the site, choose his/her own “piece” of Russia and control it:
“Unlike Google or Yandex, where images obtained two years ago are updated once a year for the megacities only, we would like, ideally, to update biweekly the images on the most active emergency spots or once a day, when a special event, for example, fishing and nets installing is ongoing at the places of salmon entering a rivers for spawning. There were many such projects. For example, they rescued baby-seals on ice when they are just born and the icebreakers ride over them. We want it to be not only the prerogative of the federal or regional authorities, but also would like to involve civil society”

“Space Patrol” is no special troops. It is rather  the people’s guard. Besides, it is a good graphic orbital illustration of the fact the state can be governed from space can not only by a cook, but even by a child. The main thing is for the state to be ready for this.

Illustration: UniScan™ – ground station for X-band data reception from polar-orbiting remote sensing satellites developed at the “R&D Center ScanEx”

Sources:

What is the extent of real loss to the Russian forest during fire season? In recent years, the issue has been causing permanent conflicts between environmentalists and representatives of public authorities at both federal and regional levels. ScanEx RDC company believes that it is possible to accurately count our losses already today.

The main problem is that the data of environmentalists and government officials would not match.  Moreover, this data differs a lot – in some region severalfold. Environmentalists keep telling that forest fires cause ten times more damage to nature than it can be judged according to official statements. The increasing serious distrust to official information, which is referred to by forest agencies, gave birth to space images. Thanks to the global Internet, and technical achievements of Americans in the expensive exploration of space, images of our planet became publicly available today. Environmentalists affirm that satellite images taken by U.S. satellites indicate that there is a catastrophic understatement of forest fires areas in Russia. In response, the authorities allude to the lack of professionalism of environmentalists, far from the art of satellite images interpretation.

To understand the problem, we decided to address to the ScanEx Research & Development Center, where Earth remote sensing data is processed in a professional manner . It is difficult to accuse of bias the independent commercial entity – ScanEx company, which announced democratization of remote sensing data as its primary mission.
Head of the Operational Monitoring Department Artem Nikitsky patiently explained me all the nuances, which are constantly faced by the experts involved in the analysis of data coming from space.

How long ScanEx deals with the problem of forest fires?

Since 2002, approximately. We were partially working with this even earlier. Most information about fires comes from two U.S. satellites – Terra and Aqua, which take low spatial resolution images. This information is available worldwide. But if we have an interest in some specific area, the error in determining the fire area can be significant because of the low resolution of images. Images are acquired  frequently – twice a day by each of the satellites. In other words, any spot on the planet can be analyzed in terms of fire four times per day. Of course, if there are no clouds. Prior to the launch of the first Terra satellite in 1999, the images of the Earth were taken by weather satellites with a lower sensitivity and a poor ability to determine the size of forest fires. A new page in the forest fire monitoring was opened thanks to the active application of Terra and Aqua satellites. It is important that the survey and data from satellites are transmitted  in direct broadcasting mode. If you have a ground station, you can receive the data free of charge. Another way – to download them from the Internet, where they are also available for free public access.

Do all thermal spots on satellite images indicate fires? In other words, are there problems with decoding data from satellites?

Of course, there are problems. We must remember that the satellite provides information covering a huge area. The detection is carried out by the images, one pixel corresponds to one kilometer. When a thermal spot is detected we can confirm that there is a fire site within this area. But we cannot determine neither its size nor location with a 100% percent accuracy. If, for example, we have a fire within 10 pixels, it is clear that, most of all, this whole area is on fire. When we face a small fire, then we cannot determine its size and strength for sure. In other words, we can determine with a reasonable degree of accuracy the fires that cover a really large area. But the error may reach about 30 percent due to the ragged outline of a fire. Illustration 1: Thermal spots in the “Kosmosnimki – fires” interface

Another thing, affecting the accuracy of the area detection: we can have only one edge burning, instead of the whole area. Consequently, we will see a set of thermal spots. If we ignore the burnt area, which is within this edge, the area of the fire will dramatically reduce. This is a question of who counts fires and how. There is a method, according to which only the burning edge is taken into account, but what has already burned out is not considered. Accordingly, long-term fire that has spread on a large area, we will get a multifold understatement of burnt areas.

Can a campfire be interpreted as fire?

No, we do not see a campfire. A satellite can detect small ground fire under the forest canopy, by rough estimates, ten to one hundred meters. If a fire is on the areas one hundred by one hundred meters, then the satellite will surely recognizes it. Crown fire is determined, even if it is 20 to 20 meters. Theoretically, there is a danger to confuse the fire with burning flares , which are mounted on the oil rigs. But we have data on most of  the stationary flare stacks, so we ignore such thermal spots. A strongly heated Earth surface can be misleading in our interpretation. For example, the highly-heated 1×1 km black arable land spot can be taken for fire. Similar errors can be with the peats. Glare on the shallow ponds or overheated sandy surface can also be misleading for the automatic equipment. Clouds may also become a major obstacle to obtaining reliable information.

Imagine small ragged clouds within a few kilometers. The fact is that the edges of the cloud can produce the effect of burning surface, but actually there is no fire down there. The fire detection algorithms provide a mechanism for elimination of error sites, but, unfortunately, it is not 100 percent accurate as well.

It’s all part of the 30-percent error?

Good question. The problem is that we have a weak feedback. Ideally, the data obtained from space, should be verified by area ground survey. In this case we would have an impartial picture of how much we can trust the satellite images. But we are not able to organize such a large-scale data verification, whereas the regions do not hurry to report the results of their surveys. We are working very closely with the Emergency Ministry, for example, in such issues as peat fires. Technology is as follows: we are sending information about a potential fire, it is being forwarded to the region, but we very rarely get any feedback on whether it was a real fire or it was a mistake.

In other words, technically you cannot double-check the information received from the satellites?

That’s right. When huge forested areas are burning in Yakutia, it is obvious that it is a fire without any field surveys. The error may be in identification of a specific area, but the fact that it is a fire indeed leaves no doubts. Another thing, when we face with a stand-along small fire, especially in the European part of the country.

In recent years the debates about real areas of forest fires intensified. Ecologists blame the authorities for a substantial, sometimes multi-fold, understatement of the area of fire. What do you feel about this kind of accusations? What is the probability that they really conceal the actual scales of the disaster from us?

I am inclined to think that, of course, much more is actually burning than it is reflected in official statistics. It’s difficult to say what is the realistic extent of underreporting. To do so, we need to count in details the actually burnt area with respect to each and every fire. We have been doing the studying of burned area in the Republic of Komi. We found that as a result of the analysis of higher resolution images the area covered by fires is by 35-40% more than what was initially detected. As to how local foresters were reporting, I can only guess. There is another nuance. The official statistics of forest fires include only data on forest fund lands. But the fire can spread to forest areas, which are not officially regarded as forest fund lands. It can be, for example, overgrown agricultural land. To get a more impartial picture one needs to have an accurate map of forest fund lands and overlay it with the map, which shows the burnt area. There is another fundamental question of how to account for the huge fires in forest areas within the area of satellite monitoring. We must understand that those are difficult-to-reach forests, where there is no infrastructure, no roads, no towns, no social facilities. Naturally, no one extinguishes fires over there. I think that it is the fires within the area of space monitoring that give main differences between the data of environmentalists and the official statistics.

How does the space, from your point of view, can help in obtaining an impartial, independent on the desire or unwillingness of authorities, information? Is there a mechanism that allows you to bring our “lame” on both legs statistics to reality?

These satellite images should certainly be verified. Most operators launch satellites to take images in the visible and near infrared bands. Such images give no unbiased information about the fires. A special shortwave middle infrared band is required. Those images that are now acquired by satellites are best suited for the determination of the burned areas. But they are no good for high-quality real-time monitoring of the fire situation.

Illustration 2: UK-DMC2 image of fires burning in California © DMCii, 2013. Smoke is clearly visible rising from the dark burnscar caused by the fires.

It looks like we have a great opportunity to obtain reliable information about the real damage done to our forests? Is anyone using this chance?

Periodically we receive requests of this kind from the regions. However, they do not always reach the implementation stage. Sometimes in the regions come to the conclusion that it is cheaper to calculate the actual damage applying  ground survey. But we have executed some of such orders. Science and space technology is developing rapidly. I am convinced that it will become increasingly difficult with every new year to withhold information on the areas of forest fires. This is an objective process that cannot be stopped. By the way, a lot of issues of satellite images application, including fire situation monitoring will be discussed at the International Conference Earth from Space:the Most Effective Solutions to be held in October 1-3 in Moscow Region. We are pleased to invite the editors and readers of the “Russian forest news” to take part in it.

Sources:

Illustration 1: Thermal spots in the “Kosmosnimki – fires” interface
Illustration 2: UK-DMC2 image of fires burning in California © DMCii, 2013.
Smoke is clearly visible rising from the dark burnscar caused by the fires.

Gisat is responsible to design and develop a web based analytical platform for European Territorial Monitoring System within ESPON programme.

The European Territorial Monitoring System (ETMS) aims at supporting policy makers and practitioners at all levels in their practical work with factual information on trends related to European regions, cities and types of territories. By reading and interpreting the quantitative statistical information in the light of policy objectives and aims related to territorial cohesion, the results of this project may help policy makers to identify development opportunities and territorial challenges, as well as better understand the diversity and position (benchmarking) of cities, regions and territories in the European context.

The project is led by MCRIT (Spain) and the ETMS consortium consists of 4 additional partners: Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain), Department of Geography and Environment of Université de Genève (Switzerland), Nordic Centre for Spatial Development (Sweden) and Gisat (Czech Republic). All partners have experiences in developing monitoring systems at European, national and regional levels and disseminate their activities regularly across Europe. They are also experts in different scientific and policy fields concerned and they are familiar with different territorial contexts in the frame of ESPON space.

ETMS will be an operational system, providing to users, policy-analysts and policy-makers useful policy-support related information, focused on most important spatial policy objectives. Appropriate indicators relevant to territorial development trends in accordance with policy objectives related to Territorial Cohesion (in particular the EUROPE 2020 Strategy and the Territorial Agenda 2020) will cover thematic content of the ETMS. More information on the ETMS is provided on project portal

Gisat is responsible for designing and development of web based analytical platform, which will provide the ETMS users possibility to view, analyze and use information on territorial state and development in an user friendly and effective way. Interactive and interconnected components including maps and charts, as well as description of indicators and their significance or links to relevant policy debates and news will be incorporated in the platform. Access to the information will be ensured via multiple entry-points including selection of territorial type of topic. The platform will enable interactive selection and comparison of different spatial units of interest or time periods. Technical solution for export of regular reports will be also incorporated to the platform. Open source software solutions are used for the platform development.

Gisat provides wide range of geoinformation services based on Earth Observation technology. It focuses on operational application of satellite mapping to monitor various aspects of our environment and development of dedicated web based platforms for geoinformation analysis and assessment.
Web: www.gisat.cz E-mail: gisat@gisat.cz Tel: +420 271741935 Fax: +420 271741936

Gisat has been awarded a contract with the European Space Agency to develop a prototype system that integrates varying snow products and in-situ information.

ISTAS project aims to explore and demonstrate the full potential of currently available EO data and products in snow monitoring, including ESA’s DUE GlobSnow, for regional hydrology prognosis. Snow remote sensing monitoring is an important element of the Earth Observation to evaluate water resources. Snow is monitored to evaluate risk of spring floods from snow-melt runoff. The requirement is to provide timely and complete information for operational service.

The snow services developed within different existing projects rely mostly on one type of input data source; it can be high or medium resolution optical data, active SAR or passive microwave data and on the other hand purely in-situ data. Snow mapping by optical data suffers mostly from cloud cover during winter season.

Optical data are provided by number of sensors with varying spatial and temporal resolution. Active SAR snow mapping, which is not affected by cloud cover, can detect only wet snow, while passive microwave is used for snow water equivalent retrieval of dry snow.

The full potential of Earth Observation in snow monitoring was not yet explored in terms of data integration. As different data sources can have largely diverse interpretation the integration needs to be done with dedicated approach that includes uncertainty analysis. The aim of the ISTAS project is to develop prototype system that integrates snow products from varying sensors and in-situ component into one cloud-free, full coverage and potentially seamless, product that suite best the user requirements.

This integration process is necessary to be performed via uncertainty analysis, while mapped areas of higher uncertainty should be replaced by sources of lower uncertainty. In the simplest example the cloud cover gaps from optical data (100% uncertainty) can be replaced by probabilities of snow occurrence from in-situ measurements as already tested in FLOREO project. Integration of high temporal acquisitions of optical data, for instance MSG Seviri with 15’ repeating frequency, or combination of optical and SAR data are the main challenges to be approached by ISTAS. The potential of the integrated snow monitoring will increase with coming operational Sentinels (1, 2, 3 and MTG).The enhanced snow monitoring products will be injected into snow-melt runoff model with error propagation analysis. The task is to demonstrate the uncertainty propagation to the end application and evaluate improvements of the integrated snow products over single sensor approach.

While the ISTAS project setup is focused primarily on the application areas serving hydrological community monitoring activities in the Czech Republic, the results and developed framework will be applicable to support snow remote sensing service application in general.

ISTAS project is supported by ESA under the Czech Industry Incentive Scheme. More information can be found at GISAT

Gisat provides wide range of geoinformation services based on Earth Observation technology. It focuses on operational application of satellite mapping to monitor various aspects of our environment and development of dedicated web based platforms for geoinformation analysis and assessment.
Web: www.gisat.cz E-mail: gisat@gisat.cz Tel: +420 271741935 Fax: +420 271741936