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The Oil and Gas Earth Observation group (OGEO) is an initiative, supported by ESA, of representatives from the oil and gas industry and service providers in the earth observation business, to encourage and support their interaction.

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

After a successful workshop in 2010 the interest group continues to be active to promote the use of remote sensing in the O&G industry and started to liaise with formalized O&G bodies. The 2011 OGEO objectives were to: * Review progress with respect to the 2010 Action Development Plan * Organize a 2011 workshop * Present work initiated to implement the 2010 Action Development Plan * Present relevant EO applications to the Oil and Gas sector, with special focus on Oil spill response * Establish closer links between the Geology/Mineral EO communities and the Oil and Gas companies.

WORKSHOP OVERVIEW

The 2011 OGEO workshop was composed of four sessions:

  • Session 1: OGEO status and achievements
  • Session 2: Data access, quality and standards
  • Session 3: EO for Oil spill detection, mitigation and response
  • Session 4: EO applications for the Oil and Gas sector

The workshop program is given in Annex A. The individual presentations in the separate sessions that have been cleared for public release are provided at http://earth.eo.esa.int/workshops/grsg2011/index.php?page=224&type=s

The combined OGEO/GRSG workshop was attended by 185 external participants from all around the world.

WORSKSHOP FINDINGS

This workshop report (2011_OGEO_workshop_report_final.pdf) contains a summary of main observations made during the individual presentations and panel discussions.

This report does not contain details on technical discussion in relation to individual presentations. See the abstract booklet for specifics. All 21 presentations – from the OGEO day – have been made available by the authors and can be downloaded from the website

Workshop Presentations

FULL REPORT AVAILABLE AT
2011_OGEO_workshop_report_final.pdf

Starting in February 2011 an information center has been functioning within the “Transparent World” structure. It is intended for provision of operational information and resource GIS/RS support on current nature protection issues of public importance.

Requests, received from different concerned parties (stakeholders), are being processed: citizens, representatives of environmental NGOs, strictly protected nature reserves, public nature protection agencies and commercial companies.

Information center objectives:

  • Accumulation of received requests and related information on current nature protection issues, for which solution the application of GIS\RS technologies is a challenge;
  • Real-time requests processing;
  • Distribution of results obtained using GIS and RS technologies;
  • Wide application of server products as a basis for integration, analysis and visualization of spatial data;
  • Fine-tuning of possibility to introduce approaches using space imagery and GIS into the system of public control;
  • Organization of two-way data exchange with stakeholders to the benefit of the Society (with regular presentation of activity results on public resources);

*Interaction with stakeholders for the purpose of development and promotion of the Information Center.

Salmon fishery monitoring on Sakhalin Island

The Information Center started to operate in February 2011. Full support is lent by ScanEx RDC traditionally paying much attention to social projects.

Within the first year of operations the specialists of the information center processed over 70 requests: from consultations on GIS-software and space images to information support about the situation on sites.

GIS-tasks arising before the organizations may now be resolved by the specialists of the Environmental Watch of the Sakhalin (Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk), Gebler Ecological Society (Barnaul), and Astrakhan State Natural Biosphere Reserve (Astrakhan).

For example, an employee of the regional public organization “Environmental Watch of Sakhalin” completed the training at the Information Center for skills enhancement and getting new knowledge on working with GIS-RS data. As a result, the borders of the Sakhalin Region protected natural area of regional significance were mapped, schemes of Sakhalin Region forestry procedures were created; data of Landsat 5/7 satellites and Terralook Aster products for 2009-2011 were received from open sources and prepared for usage; Sakhalin island fishery areas borders were mapped. 2010 archived SPOT 4/5 data, provided by ScanEx RDC, was analyzed for Pacific Salmon fishing gear installations. Out of 59 fish traps identified on space images, 24 were installed with violations of rules: the length exceeded the max limit, “the rule of perpendicular” was not observed, fish trap were installed closer to the river estuary than allowed. Demo report about the application of the satellite monitoring of fish traps, prepared based on 2010 space images, was submitted in early 2011 to the Sakhalin Region Fishery Agency, Sakhalin-Kurils Fisheries Department, Sakahlin Interregional Nature Protection Prosecutor’s Office and became the item of a serious talk with representatives of companies, whose fish traps in 2010 exceeded the specified length or had other violations of the fishing rules. During the 2011 salmon fishing season the satellite-based monitoring of the Pacific Salmon offshore fishery was conducted for the first time in the world practice by ScanEx RDC and the Sakhalin Environmental Watch.

The purpose of the project is the search and fine-tuning of an operational and efficient method of monitoring of abidance by the fishing rules for the Far Eastern fishery basin when installing fishing traps. The satellite monitoring is carried out based on analysis of optical high and middle resolution images from EROS B satellites (resolution – 0.7 m), SPOT 5 (2.5 m, 10 m) and SPOT 4 (10 m), as well as Landsat 5/7 and Terralook Aster images received from the archive of the US Geological Survey (http://glovis.usgs.gov/).

Application of highly detailed EROS B and SPOT 5 images became possible thanks to operational multiple imagery of the areas in July-September 2011 carried out by ScanEx RDC company. With respect to 55 dragnets and 59 fish traps of 36 legal entities with detected violations based on satellite data the authorities initiated inspections and revisions.

Space imagery for protected natural areas of Altai-Sayansky eco-region

In May 2011, the workshop-training was held for the employees of the Altai-Sayansky eco-region in the town of Abakan, dedicated to the remote sensing data application for monitoring changes in ecosystems of protected territories. The workshop organizers addressed to the NGO “Transparent World” for help in supplying space images. The Information Center employees selected the images, prepared narrations and recorded data to disks. As a result, each of the 12 protected natural areas of the region received archived multi-temporal optical space images at the workshop (Azas, Altai, Katun, Kuznetsky Alatau, Sayano-Shushensk, Khakassk, Tigereksk, Ubsunursk basin and Stolby nature reserves, Shorsky and Shushensky pine forest national parks, “Ergaki” nature park).

Monitoring water diversion in Dauriya

Water diversion of Hailar river into Dalai lake in trans-border Dauriya (Internal Mongolia, China) is not enough open to the public. Exchange of required data between Russian and Chinese parties is complicated. In this situation space images are one of the most unbiased and operational data sources about the condition within the water diversion area. In June 2011 the Information Center specialists prepared schematic maps based on SPOT 4 and Landsat 7 images for April-May 2011 covering the canal construction region for water diversion to Imin River. The information was given to the “Dauriya” International nature reserve employee and then used by the Russian delegation headed by the Deputy Head of the Water Resources Federal Agency V. Nikanorov during the official visit on June 13-15, 2011 to the town of Manjouli (China) to review the system of run-off flow diversion from Hailar river to Dalai lake.

Territorial disputes of the “Utrish” nature reserve

Starting June 2011 the Decree of the RF Ministry of Natural Resources from April 4, 2011 №196 came into effect. According to this decree the Provision on “Utrish” State Nature Reserve is amended in the part of its boundaries description. The Information Center specialists analyzed the introduced changes and created the schematic maps of the nature reserve. It turned out that according to the boundaries description the territory of the nature reserve is not in form of a single block – the reserve is split into 4 plots and a number of territories is excluded (the unique juniper-pistachio forest; 150 m wide corridors of approach roads to planned recreation activity sites, including the so-called “fire-protection forestry road”; riverside strip east of the Maly Utrish village). It was detected that part of roads, including this “fire-protection forestry road”, runs outside the limits of the specified corridors thus passing through the territory of the nature reserve (fig.1). The official conclusion of the NGO “Transparent World” specialists with illustrating the situation schematic maps of the nature reserve based on detailed SPOT 5 image, was handed in to the Greenpeace Russia and after that used in claim documents of the organization on contestation of the Ministerial Decree through the RF Supreme Court.


Fig. 1. Territory of the “Utrish” nature reserve, according to Attachment 1 to the Provision on State Nature Reserve “Utrish” (as amended as per RF Ministry of Natural Resources Decree from April 4, 2011, №196)

RS and GIS data as a source of unbiased information

Over 40 of other received and processed by the Information Center requests were FYIs: determination of the situation on the sites based on space images, change detection analysis of events and phenomena followed by handing in the results to interested parties to further use.

Very often it was about remote and hard-to-reach areas. For example, analysis of fire in “Ukok Rest Place” natural park, which is included in the UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites as “Golden Mountains of Altai”, was performed (fig. 2); assessment of gold mining legality on the territory of the World Heritage Site “Virgin forests of Komi” was made (fig. 3), preparation and participation in inspections of Greenpeace of Russia on the sites of oil spills in the Republic of Komi and in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area was carried out, etc.


Fig. 2. “Ukok Rest Place” natural park. Area passed by fire and planned route of the “Altai” gas pipeline


Fig. 3. “Yugyd va” national park, Republic of Komi. Borders of the cadastral sites and main mining facilities

In some cases the use of RS and GIS data was required for analysis of the situation near large settlements, for example, Moscow (public monitoring of toll roads construction in Moscow and Moscow Region; analysis of reclaimed lands construction in Moscow Region; analysis of nature protection value of forests between Nikolsko-Arkhangelsky and Dzhershunsky micro-districts , conducted upon the request of local inhabitants due to multi-storey quarter construction planning project on the territory of the forest, etc.).

In most cases the need to use RS and GIS data was caused by the fact that construction projects were not duly coordinated and discussed with citizens and public organizations and no full presentation of project activities was made officially, or there were cases with no or incorrect information delivered, restriction of access for citizens to up-to-date data. Space images gave impartial and modern information about the construction status, helping to understand the “big picture” of a project.

The mission of the NGO “Transparent World” Information Center is to increase the transparency in the activities of the nature resources users and in support of nature protection organizations applying GIS and RS tools.

More information about the projects, implemented by the Information Center, is available by studying the materials, represented on the thematic map: http://maps.kosmosnimki.ru/api/index.html?EDW8L. Requests from citizens and organizations are accepted to the following e-mail address: info@transparentworld.ru (attn of: “Information Center”).

by Е.Tsybikova1
1 Specialist, NGO “Transparent World”, www.transparentworld.ru, e-mail: tsybikova@biodiversity.ru

(27 March 2012) Astrium’s teams have successfully completed the in-orbit delivery of the SSOT satellite system, which launched from the European spaceport in French Guiana on 16 December 2011.

In accepting delivery, the Chilean Air Force (FACh) confirmed that the conditions for the handover of the satellite, FASat Charlie, have been met in full within three months of its launch, thanks to its exceptional performance.

“Astrium is proud to have developed and delivered Latin America’s most powerful Earth observation satellite to the Chilean authorities and to have done so in optimum conditions, with performance matching perfectly the requirements and even exceeding the customers’ expectations” said Astrium CEO François Auque, who is in Chile for the FIDAE International Air and Space Fair. “This is a defining moment in Astrium’s long collaboration with Chile, which began in 2000. Far from marking its culmination, it is a stage in what we hope will become a wider and more intense partnership.”

The SSOT programme comprises a satellite and an operational ground segment based in Santiago, Chile. The satellite has a panchromatic resolution of 1.45 meters, representing unprecedented performance for a satellite weighing only 117 kg.

The 20 Chilean engineers operating it were trained at the Astrium site in Toulouse, where the system and satellite were developed and built.

SSOT is the latest satellite system to be exported by Astrium, the world’s leading exporter of Earth observation satellite systems.

“Astrium is the world’s third-largest space company and the number one in Europe. Our expertise encompasses all space activities, from launchers to satellite systems, the manufacture of the most sophisticated Earth observation, scientific and telecommunications satellites, as well as related telecommunications and image-processing services and applications designed to benefit our customers” added François Auque.

“We are delighted to have had the opportunity to demonstrate our capabilities and consolidate our position as world leader in the Earth observation market. We are keen to continue working with the Chilean authorities and, beyond that, with the authorities of other countries in the region to help them identify the space solutions that are best suited to their needs.”

Astrium is playing an active role at FIDAE 2012, which is currently taking place in Santiago, participating in conferences on space that have brought together, under the auspices of the Chilean Air Force, representatives from space agencies across Latin America.

About Astrium

Astrium is the number one company in Europe for space technologies and the third in the world. In 2011, Astrium had a turnover close to €5 billion and 18,000 employees worldwide, mainly in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain and the Netherlands.

Astrium is the sole European company that covers the whole range of civil and defence space systems and services.

Its three business units are: Astrium Space Transportation for launchers and orbital infrastructure; Astrium Satellites for spacecraft and ground segment; Astrium Services for comprehensive fixed and mobile end-to-end solutions covering secure and commercial satcoms and networks, high security and broadcast satellite communications equipment and systems, and bespoke geo-information services, worldwide.

Astrium is a wholly owned subsidiary of EADS, a global leader in aerospace, defence and related services. In 2011, the Group – comprising Airbus, Astrium, Cassidian and Eurocopter – generated revenues of € 49.1 billion and employed a workforce of over 133,000.

(source: Astrium)

(26 March 2012) DigitalGlobe, a leading global provider of high-resolution earth imagery solutions, today announced two licensing agreements with Microsoft.

The first agreement more than doubles the volume of high-resolution imagery DigitalGlobe delivers to Microsoft for use in its Bing Maps service. The imagery, delivered on a quarterly basis, will provide refreshed content covering millions of square kilometers of the earth’s surface, including up-to-date imagery for the world’s highest-density urban areas.

“We’ve chosen to expand the use of DigitalGlobe satellite imagery to provide broader global coverage in Bing Maps,” said Steve Stanzel, general manager at Microsoft. “With this increase and our continued work with DigitalGlobe for the collection of high-definition aerial imagery, we are improving our maps worldwide to offer a more comprehensive, consistent and functional mapping experience.”

The second agreement enabled Microsoft Studios to extensively feature DigitalGlobe imagery in the recently launched Forza Motorsport 4 racing game for the Xbox 360. The Forza Motorsport series is one of the world’s most realistic and successful racing franchises. The latest installment, Forza Motorsport 4, features the first-ever combination of DigitalGlobe satellite and Microsoft aerial imagery into a seamless gaming experience, resulting in unprecedented, true-to-life detail.

Forza 4 game designers selected many high altitude and low altitude images for each track region featured in the game and combined them into a seamless animation sequence, using advanced memory management techniques. The result gives players the experience of travelling across the globe in Forza Motorsport 4’s World Tour mode.

Both agreements took effect in the fourth quarter of 2011.

“We are proud to know that DigitalGlobe content plays a valuable role in helping Microsoft achieve its business objectives and deliver a superior, photo-realistic experience for its end-users,” said Rafay Kahn, senior vice president at DigitalGlobe. “We look forward to a successful, ongoing relationship with Microsoft in order to support the millions who use their products and services every day for insight, understanding and entertainment.”

About DigitalGlobe

DigitalGlobe is a leading global provider of commercial high-resolution earth imagery products and services. Sourced from our own advanced satellite constellation, our imagery solutions support a wide variety of uses within defense and intelligence, civil agencies, mapping and analysis, environmental monitoring, oil and gas exploration, infrastructure management, Internet portals and navigation technology. With our collection sources and comprehensive ImageLibrary (containing more than two billion square kilometers of earth imagery and imagery products) we offer a range of on- and off-line products and services designed to enable customers to easily access and integrate our imagery into their business operations and applications.

(source: DigitalGlobe)

(23 March 2012) For decades, working as an archaeologist meant being, as Jason Ur, the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences, puts it, “the guy with the muddy boots.”

Ur and researchers like him may soon be able to avoid some of that mud, however, thanks to a system he developed that uses computers to scour satellite images for telltale clues of human habitation. Already, he said, the system has uncovered thousands of potential ancient settlements that might reveal clues to the earliest complex human societies.

As described in a paper published March 19 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Ur worked with Bjoern Menze, a research affiliate in MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, to create software that uses a series of factors — including soil discolorations and the distinctive mounding that results from the collapse of mud-brick homes — to identify ancient settlements.

Armed with that profile, Ur examined satellite images of a 23,000-square-kilometer area of northeastern Syria, and turned up approximately 9,000 possible settlements, an increase of “at least an order of magnitude” over what had previously been identified.

A comparison of the results of the ASTER classification (top) and the distribution of surface artifacts (bottom) at Tell Brak, northeastern Syria. The analyses show a remarkably close correspondence. (courtesy: Bjoern Menze and Jason Ur)

“I could do this on the ground,” Ur said, of the results of the computer-aided survey. “But it would probably take me the rest of my life to study an area this size. With these computer science techniques, however, we can immediately come up with an enormous map which is methodologically very interesting, but which also shows the staggering amount of human occupation over the last 7,000 or 8,000 years.

“Working in this area is particularly important,” Ur added, “because these parts of northern Iraq and northeast Syria were home to some of the earliest complex societies in the world. We are extremely interested in these places because they can help us answer questions about the origins of urbanism, settlement patterns and demographic shifts, and how people exploited their landscape.”

Though traditional archaeology does an excellent job of describing how people lived in the past, it is simply too small-scale to address issues that demand a wider area of focus, Ur said.

“The way we get at these issues is not through excavation,” he explained. “We do this by surveying. The traditional way of doing that has been to go out and walk around. We can find these locations based on surface manifestations. In the Middle East they have a different colored soil, the result of the decay of centuries of mud brick houses, as well as people burning things and people going to the bathroom. But the real kicker is that you can see these soil discolorations — you don’t have to walk across it, you don’t even have to get close to it — you can see it from space.”

To get that view from space, Ur until recently relied on hundreds of declassified 1960s-era spy satellite photographs. As a research tool, however, the images are less than perfect. Because they predate digital photography, Ur was forced to study each image by hand — a painstaking process ultimately dependent on his subjective view of what is or isn’t an ancient settlement. In addition, he said, the images are in black and white, making the identification of sites even more challenging.

Ur’s latest project, however, takes advantage of far newer images, produced by NASA’s ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer) satellite.

“The innovation of this project has been to take advantage of satellite imagery that sees beyond what the human eye can see,” Ur said. “ASTER can see red and green, but it can also detect the near-infrared and a number of subsequent wavelengths.

“In addition, ASTER images are born digital,” Ur continued. “That allows us to develop a profile based on places that we know are archaeological sites, then use software to identify places that have similar signatures.”

Working with Menze, Ur used approximately 160 images of a region he’d previously surveyed in precise detail to develop a program that can scour digital images and produce a probability map that identifies areas likely to be ancient sites. Neither, however, expected the software to come up with some 9,000 possible sites.

“It’s a bit breathtaking to think of those numbers,” Ur said. “It instantly makes this area one of the best-known archaeological areas in the world.”

Though the software does appear to be a quantum leap forward in finding ancient sites, Ur said its results do come with one major caveat.

“This process can tell us what is likely to be an archaeological site, but what it cannot tell us is when that site was occupied by humans,” he said. “For that, we have to visit these places and find artifacts that allow us to date the site. The satellite cannot do that for us.”

In his next project, Ur plans to use the technology to study settlements in northern Iraq, but said he hopes other researchers will also take advantage of the technique as a way to make their fieldwork more effective by reducing the time needed to find sites worth studying.

“This doesn’t replace me, but it makes my job easier, and it makes my results a lot better,” he said. “Field work is expensive – we have limited time, and this allows us to focus our work so we can begin to recover these places and do the collection of artifacts that allows us to say when people were here. What’s more, anyone who comes back to this area for any future survey would already know where to go. There’s no need to do the initial reconnaissance to find sites. This allows us to do targeted work, so it maximizes the time we have on the ground.”

(source: Harvard University)

(21 March 2012) Recent studies show that satellite radar data can be exploited to map forest height, 3D forest structure and their natural or anthropogenic disturbance with high spatial resolution and accuracy.

Since forests assist in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, this could prove to be an important tool for assessing carbon stocks and monitoring our planet’s resources.

Polarimetric InSAR – or Pol-InSAR – is a remote sensing technique based on polarimetric information in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images.

With this technique, a radar sends polarised pulses towards the target, and the information in the signals backscattered from Earth can be used to infer properties of the target area.

By using two polarimetric SAR images over the same area, acquired from slightly different angles, information on the 3D structure of the area can be extracted.

By deriving information on the tree canopy height and vertical structure, forest biomass can be estimated. The biomass of places like tropical forests are crucial for storing carbon, and large areas could be mapped very accurately using this technology.

In recent years, the potential of Pol-InSAR techniques for the estimation of forest structures has been addressed, developed and matured through various ESA-funded research and development studies.

In the Pol-InSAR Mission and Applications Study, scientists addressed the performance issues critical to the evolution of forest product generation to a pre-operational level using Pol-InSAR.

Scientists first assessed the performance of Pol-InSAR over tropical forest environments on the Indonesian island of Borneo.

Tropical ecosystems have enormous ecological importance owing to their ability to store carbon and subsequent effect on the carbon cycle. Mapping these forests in 3D is important for assessing carbon stocks and monitoring our planet’s resources.

By comparing tree height calculations derived using Pol-InSAR techniques to the results from ground measurements, the scientists found that the former technique can provide estimations within 90% of a given area’s biomass.

Another result of the study was the validation of the Pol-InSAR technique’s ability to estimate a forest’s top height at high spatial resolutions.

Forest height maps of southern Germany’s Traunstein forest were produced using Pol-InSAR data from both 2003 and 2008. Comparing the two maps, changes were evident. The maps clearly showed areas where the logging of individual tall trees occurred, while damage caused in January 2007 by the hurricane Kyrill, which blew down large parts of the forest, were visible. Forest growth was also evident.

(source: ESA)

(19 March 2012) DigitalGlobe, a leading global provider of high-resolution earth imagery solutions, today announced that China’s most influential internet search portal, Baidu.com, has signed a subscription for DigitalGlobe high-resolution imagery covering 344 cities in China.

This agreement will enable Baidu to provide its end-users with a more robust online mapping experience in Baidu Maps and its third-party developers with increased functionality in its Baidu Maps application programming interface (API) for location-based services.

Baidu is the world’s largest Chinese search engine and is China’s largest online advertiser, with 80 percent market share and over 50 percent year-over-year growth.

“Baidu is excited to enter into a new relationship for DigitalGlobe imagery as we continue to grow and expand our online location-based services,” said Dongchen Zhang, head of business development at Baidu. “With this agreement, Baidu can offer new ways for users to engage with the Internet while continuing to solidify Baidu’s presence at the heart of China’s Internet ecosystem.”

DigitalGlobe’s industry-leading ImageLibrary offers customers over 85 million square kilometers (km2) of highly accurate imagery in China, and over two billion km2 of imagery worldwide.

“China is one of DigitalGlobe’s most strategic geographic markets, and establishing this relationship with Baidu is an important step in strengthening our position in the Chinese consumer segment,” said Rafay Khan, senior vice president at DigitalGlobe. “Our ever-growing ImageLibrary continues to outpace our competition, and gives us a considerable edge in rapidly changing countries like China.”

About DigitalGlobe

DigitalGlobe is a leading global provider of commercial high-resolution earth imagery products and services. Sourced from our own advanced satellite constellation, our imagery solutions support a wide variety of uses within defense and intelligence, civil agencies, mapping and analysis, environmental monitoring, oil and gas exploration, infrastructure management, Internet portals and navigation technology. With our collection sources and comprehensive ImageLibrary (containing more than two billion square kilometers of earth imagery and imagery products) we offer a range of on- and off-line products and services designed to enable customers to easily access and integrate our imagery into their business operations and applications. In China, DigitalGlobe imagery is distributed through Siwei WorldView Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd.

About Baidu

Baidu, Inc. is the leading Chinese language Internet search provider. As a technology-based media company, Baidu aims to provide the best way for people to find information. In addition to serving individual Internet search users, Baidu provides an effective platform for businesses to reach potential customers. Baidu’s ADSs, each of which represents one Class A ordinary share, are currently trading on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “BIDU.”

(source: DigitalGlobe)

(14 March 2012) An ESA-funded project to model sea ice dynamics using archived radar data from the Envisat and ERS missions has released its first validated datasets for the Arctic winters of 2004–11. Mapping sea ice displacement is key for climate research.

Sea ice profoundly affects the exchanges of heat, water and momentum between the ocean and atmosphere, and plays an important role in oceanic convection and deep-water formation.

The €1 million GlobIce project, which began in 2005 with a consortium of eight partners led by University College London (UCL), measures sea ice motion for use in climate modelling and research.

In support of the Climate and Cryosphere project of the World Climate Research Programme, GlobIce validates sea ice motion, deformation and ice flux.

Radar images of ice displacement, which is determined at intervals of a few days, are used to generate a large number of high-resolution products useful for climate research, such as sea ice velocity maps.

GlobIce products provide Arctic-wide sea ice dynamics data at more than ten times the resolution of any other wide-area satellite-derived products currently available.

“The data which the GlobIce system can provide is essential to understanding the dynamics of the rapidly changing sea ice cover in the Arctic,” said Dr Seymour Laxon, GlobIce project scientist from the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at UCL.

“GlobIce can also be used to interpret other critical data, such as the ice thickness measurements now being provided by CryoSat.”

Although the GlobIce project primarily focused on developing operational products for the Arctic region, it has recently been prototyped to generate products over the Antarctic. Sample products of the Antarctic are now available for August and September 2010.

Owing to the different characteristics of south polar sea ice, which makes it difficult to monitor from many low-resolution sensors, there is very little sea ice dynamics data available. GlobIce could be used to fill this gap in the future.

“The increasing complexity and resolution of climate models lead to a demand for comprehensive datasets against which to test them,” said Dr Jeff Ridley, climate scientist at the UK Met Office.

“With GlobIce, we finally have a sea ice dataset which will endure and provide for model evaluation now and in years to come.”

Source

Earth observation (EO) technologies are exceptionally useful in monitoring polar regions: EO can capture imagery over a broad geographic area as well as revisit the same areas at reliable intervals for frequent repeat captures.

Summary

The technology provides tools for operations in ice-prone waters: a large number of current satellites have the ability to map and characterise sea ice and icebergs. Satellite synthetic aperture radar (SAR) in particular is a natural fit for this task, as it can provide images day or night, through cloud or fog, and in various meteorological conditions. SAR data can be supplemented with low and high resolution electro-optical data to fill in gaps and aid interpretation.

Project Background

More than four decades of earth observation has accumulated a very significant archive of satellite data that can be used to assist characterisation of the ice environment. Since 1995 C-CORE has been analysing the value that EO technologies and derived data can bring to its oil and gas clients and has evolved a suite of EO-based services. With the industry’s increased focus on Arctic resources, C-CORE has seen a significant increase in uptake of these services, resulting in increased understanding of Arctic environments, increased confidence and reduced risk for clients operating in ice-prone waters.

Issues and Needs

More than four decades of earth observation has accumulated a very significant archive of satellite data that can be used to assist characterisation of the ice environment. Since 1995 C-CORE has been analysing the value that EO technologies and derived data can bring to its oil and gas clients and has evolved a suite of EO-based services. With the industry’s increased focus on Arctic resources, C-CORE has seen a significant increase in uptake of these services, resulting in increased understanding of Arctic environments, increased confidence and reduced risk for clients operating in ice-prone waters.

Solution

Satellite SAR mapping of ice has been available since the 1970s, although routine satellite SAR monitoring of ice has only been possible since 1992, with the launch of the European satellite ERS-1. This satellite also heralded an era of large-scale archiving of radar data. In addition to information available through various national ice centres, an archive of almost 20 years of raw SAR data can be used to create highly detailed historical maps of ice and icebergs to aid in the design process.

Many existing and almost all of the new SAR satellites are ‘operational’, in that they provide data in near-real-time, with imagery available via the internet within hours of acquisition. In the near term, the latest generation of SARs (scheduled for launch within the next few years) are specifying imagery delivery times of less than one hour; an investment in a ground station facility can allow data provision within minutes of acquisition.

With these capabilities, SAR can be used effectively by the oil and gas industry to facilitate Arctic resource development. The increasing prevalence of SAR, along with decreasing data costs and more flexible data policies, will lead to increased use of EO technologies and derived data by this sector into the future.


ice and iceberg chart from West Greenland based on an ENVISAT ASAR Image. Analysis © C-CORE (2010)

Results and Perspectives

Over the last four years, C-CORE has conducted sea-ice and iceberg studies for clients in the Barents Sea, the Beaufort Sea, West Greenland, South Greenland, Baffin Bay, the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and the Falkland Islands. These studies have been conducted using archives and new acquisitions from RADARSAT-2, ENVISAT, Landsat, TerraSAR-X and Cosmo Skymed. These studies have been conducted in regions where little to no knowledge existed about sea ice and iceberg conditions. The availability of satellite data for these regions has provided a reliable, cost-effective alternative to the difficult and expensive gathering of equivalent information from ground or airborne-based sensors. Ice surveys using vessels and aircraft over extended periods can cost millions of dollars, while satellite studies cost one or two orders of magnitude less. Furthermore, satellite data archives provide ice information over long periods, yielding statistically relevant information. Confidence regarding ice conditions is increased, freeing E&P operators from the need to be overly conservative in structural design and operational resource planning. The cost savings realized using satellites facilitates accelerated exploration plans and improved structure design.

About C-CORE
C-CORE’s mission is to be a world leader in the development and application of advanced engineering principles to solve operational challenges in the natural resource sectors and other target markets. Through responsiveness, excellence in service, continuously advancing technology, and understanding clients’ needs, C-CORE will be the organization of choice for providing innovative services and products. C-CORE will conduct applied research and development with a motivated, highly qualified team working in a framework of sound business principles.
Contact: Desmond Power.
Captain Robert A. Bartlett Building, Morrissey Road, St. John’s, NL, Canada A1B 3X5
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GIS/Geospatial industry worldwide growth is forecast to slow to 1%, down from 11% in 2008 and a whopping 17.4% in 2007 according to a just released study by Daratech, Inc., a Cambridge, Massachusetts market research firm.

However, industry CEOs interviewed by Daratech were unanimous in their belief that growth consistent with the robust 11% compound annual growth rate of the past six years would return in 2010. North America has not been as adversely affected by the downturn as the rest of the world due to the on-going needs of homeland security and continuing investment in GIS, by the public sector. Growth in North America is forecast by Daratech to top 2.1%, more than twice the growth in Asia Pacific and five times the growth in Europe where investment in GIS/Geospatial technology has been hurt more severely by the current downturn as many European governments have cut back their geospatial technology purchases in anticipation of lower tax collections.

Perhaps the most dramatic slowdown in 2009 was in the private sector, which is forecast to shrink to $1.4 billion, down 0.7% from 2008. This downturn echoes the general pull back of the private sector from major additional investments in new IT technologies. At the same time public sector sales are expected to grow 4.1% to almost $957 million in 2009 reflecting this sectors continuing deployment of GIS technologies to all the services it offers. In the Traditional GIS segment ESRI continues to have a dominant 30% market share, up from 29% in 2008 according to Daratech.

Lead by its iconic president Jack Dangermond, ESRI has been a benchmark for new GIS technologies, philosophies and direction for the entire industry for more than 20 years, and indications are that it will continue to be so, says Daratech. Intergraph, the second largest player in the traditional segment is forecast by Daratech to have a 16% market share in 2009, up from 15% in 2008. Intergraph is remaking its entire business around a GIS philosophy, and as a GIS service provider Intergraph is likely to become even stronger in the years ahead. Third ranked is GE Energy, which is the market leader in the utilities market where it is forecast to have a 24% market share. In the larger GIS/Geospatial market that includes data, geo-enabled engineering, GPS, photogrammetry and remote sensing MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) has a leading 21.8% share of the market. MDA’s strength in the GIS/Geospatial markets is in geospatial data and engineering services for imaging, GIS, geology, weather and defense. ESRI, is second with a 15.7% share and Bentley Systems, the leading supplier of GIS/Geospatial AEC market software and services (where it has a 42.1% market share) is third. Bentley has frequently made the running in the geo-enabled engineering applications market and continues to demonstrate strong leadership in this area.

However, Bentley can expect stronger competition from Autodesk, Intergraph and ESRI in the coming years, as this segment of the market may show greater than average growth.

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