International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Vol XXXV, Part B6. Istanbul 2004 
8.2 Research 
Since 2001 a major part of SNRA's photogrammetric research, 
development and production is managed by consultants. 
Investigations and tests of mobile mapping systems for road 
inventories have been made in corporation with commercial 
organisations, Visimind AB and WSP. Objects, close to the 
roads, where measured semi-automatically in stereo images, 
acquired from a moving vehicle. The technique was quality 
checked and used for i.e. road sign inventory. 
Digpro, a GIS consultant company, investigated and evaluated 
digital image and measured data formats suitable for 
deliverance to SNRA. Laser scanning from helicopter, also a 
Digpro project, for road planning, mapping and investigations is 
another example of co-operation with an external company. 
8.3 Production 
Former SNRA  photogrammetric equipment is used for 
educational purposes at KTH and at a regional level of SNRA. 
Quality control of external, consultant, produced information is 
also performed at the regional offices equipped with 
photogrammetric competence. 
8.4 Address 
Swedish National Road Administration 
SE-781 87 Borlänge, Sweden 
Home page: www.vv.se 
9. SWEDISH METEOROLOGICAL AND 
HYDROLOGICAL INSTITUTE - SMHI 
9.1 Organisation 
SMHI, the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, 
operates under the auspices of the Swedish Ministry of the 
Environment and uses its meteorological, hydrological and 
oceanographic expertise to promote efficiency, safety and a 
better environment in various areas of society. 
9.2 Research 
At the Research Department at SMHI methods and models are 
developed for utilising remote sensing information. The results 
are used within our core fields of meteorology, climatology, 
hydrology and oceanography. The main activities are founded 
on radar and satellite based platforms, but SMHI also uses other 
remote sensing systems. It could be ceiliometers, lightning 
location systems and instruments for observing the amount of 
stratospheric ozone. 
Information from radar and satellite instruments are used in 
preparing forecasts but is also presented as animations or as 
pictures of the present weather for media and the public. In later 
years the remote sensing information, in particular from 
satellite based instruments (e.g. TOVS, MODIS) but also from 
radar have been included in the forecast models. The result has 
been notably improved forecasts. SMHI is active within the 
European co-operation EUMETSAT together with other 
institutes to utilise information from both polar and 
gcostationary meteorological satellites. Our speciality is cloud 
analysis. Typical output products are cloud types, cloud top 
temperature and probability for precipitation. These products 
have to be available as soon and as frequent as possible to be 
used for near real time forecasting. We have been very 
successful and now the system will be developed further to be 
used for climatological applications. 
In oceanography remote sensing data has been used for studies 
of ice cover extension, sea surface temperature and episodes of 
algae bloom, which is important for shipping, climate and water 
quality. In hydrology the interest has been focused on snow 
cover but the ultimate goal would be snow and ground water 
content. 
Also radar data can be used in near real time. A co-operation 
between the Nordic countries (NORDRAD) gives a good spatial 
coverage. Present improvements have the goal to reduce the 
influence from error sources such as eliminate echoes that is not 
connected to precipitation. The large challenge is to quantify 
precipitation, which would be an important complement to the 
relatively sparse gauge network. By using Doppler technique 
wind profiles and 3-dim wind fields can be obtained. This 
information is assimilated in the meteorological forecast 
models. 
At SMHI there is a model system for mesoscale analysis, 
Mesan. Within this system all available information on the 
atmosphere is assimilated and synthesised hour by hour. The 
goal is to have as good description of the atmosphere as 
possible for every hour for a number of variables, e.g. 
precipitation, clouds and temperature. Mesan covers a large part 
of northern Europe. Remote sensing data is a large and 
important component in this system. 
The activities where remote sensing data is used is done by 
participation in national and international projects, e.g. Swedish 
National Space Board, in a number of EUMETSAT Satellite 
Application Facilities (SAF), NORDRAD2, COST-projects, EC 
funded projects. 
9.3 Address 
SMHI 
SE-601 76 Norrköping, Sweden 
Home page: www.smhi.se 
9.4 Key publications 
Thoss, A., Dybbroe, A. and Bennartz, R. 2001. The Nowcasting 
SAF Precipitating Clouds Product. /n Proceedings of The 2001 
Eumetsat Meteorological Satellite Data Users’ Conference, 
Antalya, Turkey, 1-5 October 2001, 399-406. 
Karlsson, K.-G. 2002. Evaluation of regional cloud climate 
simulations using a ten-year NOAA AVHRR climatology, in 
Proc 2002 EUMETSAT Meteorological Satellite Conference, 
Dublin, Ireland. 2-6 September2002, EUMETSAT, EUM P 36, 
540-547. 
Alberoni, P. P., Ducroeq, V. Gregorio, G., Haase, G., 
Holleman, I., Lindskog, M., Macpherson, B., Nuret M. and 
Rossa, A. 2003. Quality and assimilation of radar data for NWP 
— A review. European Commission, Report EUR 20600. 
Bennartz, R., and Michelson, D.B., 2003: Correlation of 
precipitation estimates from spaceborne passive microwave 
sensors and weather radar imagery for BALTEX PIDCAP. Int. 
J. Remote Sensing Vol. 24, No. 4, p. 723-739 
Gekat, F., Meischner, P., Friedrich, K., Hagen, M., Koistinen, 
J., Michelson, D.B., and Huuskonen, A., 2003: The State of 
Weather Radar Operations, Networks and Products, p. 1-51 in 
P. Meischner (Ed.) Weather Radar — Principles and Advanced 
Applications, Springer Verlag. 
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