Participation in MIRAMAP Project

In the beginning of August 2007, the team of ReSAC participated in an international remote sensing experiment focused on the soil conditioning and soil moisture as well as infiltration levels and the application of most resent technological solutions. As a result of the planned flight operation of AeroCommander 500, mounted with 4 sensors for simultaneous measurements of the visible and infrared as well as the cm-wide-bands of the electromagnetic spectrum, a thematic map, as well as 3D imagery of portion of the river valleys of Yantra and Rusenski Lom Rivers, were created.

The unique instrumentation and technology for such soil measurements was developed in Russia, while the European Space Agency has assisted in aircraft's installations. During the experiment the skills and expertise of teams from Bulgaria, Russia, Holland, USA and Ukraina were utilized, which have started their scientific collaborations years ago.

The experiments were carried out as of the initiative and assignment upon the State Agency for Information Technology and Communications, and with the active collaboration of the municipality of Rousse as well as other state and private institutions. The results are meant for easy and comfortable usage by specialists and experts, involved in decision making.

BulgaRisk: Integration of Satellite Imagery in the Operational Procedures of Hazard Management in Bulgaria

Funded under: French Ministry of Economy and Finance

Duration: 2007.06 – 2009.01

Project manager: SPOT Image - France

Participants: SERTIT, DDSC, ReSAC, Infoterra, Boost Technologies

In recent years, Bulgaria has been severely and increasingly affected by natural disasters and man-made disasters, including forest fires, earthquakes, landslides, floods, snow blizzard and glaciations, oil pollution that has caused many human casualties and material damage. On the one hand, many measures have been identified at Government level to improve the full cycle of risk management. On the other hand, the Bulgarian government has set itself the objective of introducing modern risk management tools, in particular the creation of a national geographic information management center. In this context, SPOT Image, together with its French and Bulgarian partners and the support of the French Ministry of Economy and Finance, started the implementation of this project.

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 leading partner is Spot Image (France) with partners from SERTIT, DDSC, Infoterra, and Boost Technologies. The Bulgarian partner in the project is ReSAC.

The specific objectives of the project are defined as:

• Training of experts from the State Administration and institutes for the use and adaptation of satellite information in making management decisions in the field of prevention of natural disasters and accidents and assessment of the damages from them;
• 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).

Тhe movie about the Bulgarian-French project BulgaRisk

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JRC Formosat-2

Participants: ReSAC, JRC, SPOT Image, Spacemetric.

ReSAC along with SPOT Image and Spacemetric participated in a thorough research of JRC on the orthorectification accuracy of FORMOSAT-2. The aim of this study was to finalise the analysis on the potential of the FORMOSAT-2 satellite as a backup sensor for the CwRS Campaigns, which are carried out on a yearly basis over the EU member states. Essentially, the research consisted of consecutive orthorectification of an image with gradually increasing, in a strict order, number of GCPs. The test was performed on two distinct study areas – one over Sozopol in Bulgaria and another over Mausanne in France. Furthermore, for each site two different incidence angles were evaluated for their effect over the orthorectification products' positional accuracy.

Development of Fast-Track Maps of the Major Fires in the Country for the Period July 10-29, 2007, Based on Spot-5 and DMC-II Satellite Images

Participants: ASDE, ReSAC, National Service Fire Safety and Civil Protection

The State Agency for Information Technologies and Communications (SAITC) assigned a project for creation of fast track maps for the most severe fires in Bulgaria for the period 10th-29th July 2007 on the base of SPOT-5 and DMC-II satellite imageries. The pilot study was accomplished by the ASDE and ReSAC in cooperation with the NSFSCP under the MI. The project was supported by the EC - JRC, Republic of France and Federal Republic of Germany.

The study was carried out in compliance with several programmes of the EU such as:

• Building the European Research Area in the field of ICT for environmental sustainability and security
• Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES)
• Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14th of March 2007, establishing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE)

You can view some examples of the resulting map for fire area classification on SPOT and on DMC-II.

Developing of a Methodology and Modeling Application for Forecasting of Potential Losses from Iskar River Floods for the Region of Novi Iskar, Bulgaria

In the autumn of 2007 ReSAC participated in a pilot project for developing of a methodology and modeling application for forecasting of potential losses from Iskar river floods for the region of Novi Iskar, Bulgaria.

The main contractor of the project was Agency for Sustainable Development and Eurointegration – ASDE with subcontractors Remote Sensing Application Center – ReSAC and National Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology – NIMH.

The main beneficiary of the project is Sofia Municipality and the project was fulfilled with the coordination of the State Agency for Information Technologies and Communications – SAITC.

The project had the following tasks:

• Developing of a methodology for flood simulation and analyses of potential losses, prediction of flooded area along Iskar river in the Novi Iskar region;
• Integration of GIS information with satellite images;
• Developing of a methodology for metadata for satellite images;
• Testing of different DEMs for flood modeling.

The project followed the main principles from the new European directive for floods issued on 23th October 2007. The aim of the EU Flood Directive is to reduce and manage the risks that floods pose to human health, the environment, infrastructure and property. According to the EU Flood Directive, Member States will have to reduce flood risk for those areas where the risk is deemed significant. This is done by first determining the extent of flood risk (through flood hazard mapping and flood risk mapping). Consequently, objectives for flood risk reduction have to be established, as well as the measures that will be taken to reach these objectives. These are laid down in flood risk management plans.

The project shows also some of the GMES services for provision of information products for floods based on earth observation technologies.

The project was focused on two big floods which occur in June and August 2005.