The Project for the creation of Digital Orthophoto map for part of the territory of Bulgaria on the base of VHR satellite images was successfully finished. The Project was financed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. After an open international tender the project was awarded and fulfilled by a consortium with the Agency for Sustainable Development and Eurointegration – ECOREGION as a leader with its specialized center Remote Sensing Application Center - ReSAC. Partners in the consortium are the major European representatives of the companies which deliver satellite images - EUSI, EURIMAGE и SPOTIMAGE. The Bulgarian survey company Dian Zlatev-98 was also part of the consortium.
The Project is of extreme importance for the membership of Bulgaria in the EU regarding the Common Agricultural Policy - CAP (LPIS/IACS) and was fulfilled respecting all specifications and recommendations of the DG JRC.
The Satellite Digital Orthophoto Map with very-high resolution (0.7 – 1 m) is ready derived from the QuickBird and Ikonos satellites for 33,364 sq. km. for the territory of southern Bulgaria. The satellite images are from the years 2003-2005. The digital elevation model used for the orthorectification is Reference 3D product from SPOTIMAGE, which is the first use of this high-quality DEM used at a country scale for the LPIS purposes.
The Project, containing mainly the processes of orthorectification of satellite images, is unique with the short terms for its fulfillment – 3.5 months, and with the introduction of a new methodology, specific for its tasks. First raw images were delivered on 10th of April and final orthorectified products were finished on 25 of July.
With the accomplishment of the Project Bulgaria joins the countries with proved high-tech and scientifically-applicable capacity in the processing and use of satellite images for the purposes of agriculture, environmental issues, monitoring of natural disasters and emergencies as well as security.
The processed satellite images in the frame of the project are the base for the creation of the Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS), which is directly related with the provision of the agricultural subsidies from EU. The digitalisation of the physical blocks of the agricultural land and creation of the LPIS is done by a specialised group in the frame of the Agency for Soil Resources/MAF.
With the completion of this project ReSAC and partners successfully finished the cycle of projects related with all aspects of the implementation of satellite data in the CAP:
Control of the agricultural subsidies with remote sensing (Isperih Region 2004-2005)
Development of Land Parcel Identification System (Isperih Region 2004-2005), Assenovgrad Municipality 2005)
Creation of the Orthophotomap for the LPIS purposes (Southern Bulgaria 2006).
In Bulgaria, the preparation of the country toward the accession in the EU is related with the readiness of the administration to meet the requirement for technical and operational capacity to manage and control the agriculture subsidies. After the successful implementation of the Pilot Project for Control with Remote Sensing /CwRS/ of the Agricultural Subsidies, financed by JRC in 2005, and Second Pilot Project on Preparation of the LPIS for Bulgaria, financed by MAF, ASDE/ReSAC continues to provide technical, operational and methodological assistance to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, responsible for the establishment of IACS/LPIS.
An important prerequisite for the preparation of the LPIS and provision of enough data to farmer during the declaration process, is the production of high-accurate orthophoto/orthoimage coverage of the entire country.
For this purpose the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry opened an international tender for delivery and production of orthoimages on the base of VHR satellite data. The project was awarded to an international Consortium led by the Bulgarian organization Agency for Sustainable Development and Eurointegration (ASDE) and the major European satellite providers - European Space Imaging GmbH (representing also INTA Space Turk), Eurimage S.p.a., SPOT Image. As a local geodetic company in the Consortium was included Dian Zlatev Ltd.
Eurimage, EUSI and SPOT Image perform their activities of data delivery and satellite products generation. The VHR data is derived from IKONOS and Quickbird; the DEM is provided by SPOT Image.
The orthorectification, image processing and quality control is done by ASDE, through its specialised unit ReSAC. The final product is in scale 1:10.000. The initial area covered by the project is 32 985 km2. and is covering 10 regions of Southern Bulgaria. The work should be carried out until the end of June 2006.
For more information please visit the Newsletter of the European Association of the Remote Sensing Companies (EARSC).