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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