Partners Involved in French-Bulgarian project BulgaRisk: SPOT Image, SERTIT, DDSC, ReSAC, Infoterra, Boost Technologies Bulgaria is highly exposed to natural and man-made hazards, as evidenced by repeated flooding and pollution in the Danube river basin, earthquakes, fires, and pollution in the Black Sea.
As Europe is working to organize the security and defence of its populations and monitor the environment through the GMES programme, the increasingly frequent disasters that Bulgaria is experiencing, and their human and economic costs, are motivating a concerted drive within the country to improve hazard management. Government decisions, legislation, Bulgaria’s international presence and the allocation of funding to support crisis management and reconstruction are all part of this effort.
BulgaRisk is a French-Bulgarian project, finance by the French Government, aiming at the integration of satellite imageries in the operational procedures of risk management in Bulgaria. Main beneficiaries are the Bulgarian State Agency for Information Technologies and Communications – SAITC and Agency for Sustainable Development and Eurointegration – ASDE. Authorised users will be the National Fire Safety and Protection of Population Service – Ministry of Interior, Aerospace Monitoring Center and National Civil Protection Service – Ministry of State Policy for Disasters and Accidence, Ministry of State Administration and Administrative Reform, National Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology – BAS, Institute for Oceanology – BAS, and some regions and municipalities.
The project is lead by Spot Image (France) with partners from SERTIT, DDSC, Infoterra, Boost Technologies. The Bulgarian partner in the project is ReSAC.
The specific objectives of the project are defined as:
• To create a report for the status and the needs of the governmental institutions in Bulgaria for geographic data during all stages of disaster management – prior, during and after their occurrence.
• To demonstrate to the decision makers and to other interested parties the usefulness of satellite imageries as a source for natural hazards information and as a key instrument for their management for whose purpose to present the most resent achievements in this field and to create 3 data base prototypes for 3 pilot regions for 3 types of disasters (floods, forest fires and water pollution).
• To list the recommendations for the creation of the Bulgarian Information Center for Disaster Management and for the integration of satellite imageries and new information and communication technologies in the development of national data base for the disaster management (database content, human and material resources, necessary for the creation and support of the database).
The project started in June 2007 and is planned to finish in October 2008.
On the 6th and 7th of March 2008 in the SAITC, the first of the training workshop series related to the BulgaRisk project was held.
The seminar was opened by Mr.Petar Iliev – Director of the Network Integration and Planning Directorate, SAITC. The lectures and exercises were prepared and presented by lecturers from the Bulgarian partner ReSAC and the French company SERTIT. The main topics discussed during the training workshop were: remote sensing, GIS technologies, image processing, including radar data for natural hazard risk assessment, such as forest fires, floods etc.
The participants were experts from State Forestry Agency, Center for Aerospace Monitoring at MSPDA, NFSPPS at MIn, NIMH/BAS, IO, Municipality of Rousse and Basin Directorate – Pleven at the Ministry of Environment and Water
For more information
Remote Sensing Application Center – ReSAC