- Pilot project on sulphur and pH values in air, soils and water 
in Norway. 
- Presentation of data from European Monitoring and Evalua- 
tion Programme, i.e. long-range transported air pollution, in 
the Nordic countries. 
- Cooperation with several environmental data projects in the 
Baltic Sea catchment area. 
- Presentation of soil moisture and vegetation scenarios based 
on changes in atmospheric CO, on a global scale. 
6.6 VIAK-IT 
The company VIAK Information Technology is working with 
mapping, system and software development, geographic and 
environmental information technology and international 
engagements (more than 25 years of international experience). 
At present VIAK-IT is responsible for image processing 
projects in several African countries. 
The most extensive is currently a complete revision of the 
1:50000 national topographic map series of Uganda. 306 map 
sheets are being revised using SPOT satellite data. The satellite 
scenes are divided and put together in a mosaic to fit map 
sheets units. The image map sheets are then visually inter- 
preted. 
Thematic maps are produced illustrating changes observed 
since the last production of topographic maps in Uganda 
(1960s). The same images are in a separate project also being 
used to assess the current amount of woody biomass in 
Uganda. 
The visual interpretation is carried out by local personnel under 
VIAK supervision. The whole exercise will be finished in 
approximately one and a half years from 1992. 
An other successfull project was the writing of the first Nordic 
textbook on GIS: 
Tor Bernhardsen: "A textbook on Geographic Information 
Systems". ISBN 82-991928-0-3. 244p. 
An enlarged english version will be published in 1992. 
6.7 Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center 
(NERSC) 
The research at NERSC covers among others: 
- Monitoring and forecasting of ocean currents, water quality, 
sea ice, wind and waves by integrated use of remote 
sensing, field observations and numerical models. 
- Development and validation of remote sensing methods and 
numerical methods. 
- Application of remote sensing techniques in vegetation 
mapping and geology. 
- The Seasonal Ice Zone Experiment (SIZEX) is an ERS-1 
validation program for sea ice monitoring and forecasting in 
the Barents and Greenland Seas. Repeated SAR images 
provide a unique tool to study ice edge processes. 
- The Norwegian Continental Shelf Experiment (NORCSEX) 
is studying ERS-1’s ability to monitor ocean current fronts, 
eddies, marine winds and long gravity waves. Another 
objective is to obtain a better understanding of the ocean 
circulation on the Norwegian continental shelf. 
- Monitoring and forecasting products developed in the 
NORCSEX and SIZEX programs will be implemented in the 
Norwegian operational Ocean Monitoring and Forecasting 
Program (HOV). 
6.8 Remote Sensing at the Norwegian Computing Center 
(NR) 
Satellite remote sensing at NR started in 1982 as a project 
funded by The Royal Norwegian Council for Scientific and 
Industrial Research. Since then, NR has continously been 
involved in remote sensing projects. 
The combination of remote sensing and geographic information 
systems (GIS) has proved to be valuable. 
Most projects today are carried out on workstations with UNIX 
and X-windows, while C and C++ are used for software 
development. 
Some of the projects are: 
- Forestry: The possible use of contextual classification of 
satellite data in forestry, has been examined. The results 
showed that satellite imagery are unsuitable for economic 
classification of forests by cutting class, but mapping of 
clear cuttings and the growth of newly planted forest areas 
are candidates for satellite monitoring. 
- Monitoring water quality: The project used Landsat The- 
matic Mapper data. Water quality measurements were 
collected by boat while the satellite image was acquired. 
The results showed high correlation between image data and 
water quality parameters. 
- Snow coverage in mountain areas: For several years now, 
NR has provided Statkraft (the largest Norwegian hydroelec- 
tric company) with analyses of images from the AVHRR 
sensor in the NOAA weather satellite in order to determine 
the snow coverage throughout the melting season. 
- Classification and mapping of sea ice in polar areas: Norway 
has strong scientific and economic interests in the Arctic. 
The radar satellite ERS-1 can be used to make observations 
in this region indepent of weather and light conditions. The 
experiments showed that four different categories of ice 
could be discriminated. Up to date ice maps showing the 
location and the movement of the ice would highly benefit 
shipping in the Arctic. NR has developed a prototype of a 
monitoring system designed to detect ice concentration, ice 
edge and ice motion from ERS-1 SAR images. (Ice maps 
are provided today, but these are low resolution maps 
updated and distributed only once a week). 
- Revision for topographic maps: Keeping the topographic 
maps in scale 1:50 000 up to date, is a problem also in 
Norway. Satellite imagery may be a source for up to date 
information, but the low spatial resolution of non-military 
satellites makes it impossible to gain the accuracy obtained 
from aerial photos. However, maps updated by coarse 
features could be published between the main revisions 
using dedicated graphical symbols for the new details in 
order to highlight the higher uncertainty attached to them. 
- Monitoring soil erosion: Under the North Sea agreement, 
Norway has undertaken to cut the discharge of nutrient salts 
to the North Sea by 50% by 1995. One of the main sources 
of pollution is nutrient salts from fields tilled in the autumn. 
The government wishes to reduce this tillage in regions 
vulnerable to erosion, and therefore wants to monitor these 
areas. Experiments showed that fields can be classified as 
plowed, autumn grain, harrowed, stuble and pasture by 
Landsat TM images. But one problem is that it may be 
difficult to obtain cloud-free images during the autumn in 
Norway. Experiments with ERS-1 SAR images showed that 
it is possible to distinguish between ploughed and heavily 
harrowed fields in one class, an other areas in another class. 
Consequently ERS-1 can be used for the monitoring. 
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