International Archives of Photogrammetiy and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXII Part 7C2, UNISPACE HI, Vienna, 1999 
UNISPACE III- ISPRS/NASA Seminar on 
“Environment and Remote Sensing for Sustainable De\’elopment” 
9:00 am -12:00 pm, 23 July 1999, VIC Room A 
Vienna, Austria 
water basins. For Kalmykia region maps of land use, processes 
of desrtification and desertification forecast for 20-30 years 
ahead are presented. 
Technogenic impact in mining and industrial regions, problems, 
connected with urbanisation and nature management, nature 
hazards and nature conservation are examined in concluding 
section of the Atlas. Environmental impact of mining and 
mineral processing can be seen at images of Kola Peninsula and 
Central Caucasus. Damage to environment due to coal mining is 
analysed using images of Southern Yakutia, Nerungry, due to 
gold mining - for Aldan and Patomskoe mountain plateau. Much 
attention is paid to peateries exploration and recultivation 
problems in Moscow region. Impact of oil exploration on 
landscape is shown for some Western-Siberian regions, in 
particular for Samotlor Lake, where planty of grounds and 
platforms of exploration, dams, pipes, roads, contamination of 
lands and water, flooding, disastrous of vegetation are seen. 
Severe damage to nature caused by nickel and cupper ore 
processing due to sulfur dioxide and heavy metals emissions to 
atmosphere are shown for Norilsk area in North Siberia and 
Monchegorsk area in Kola Peninsula. Here zones with different 
degree of damage are distingueshed by satellite images, their 
interpretation signs are characterised and algorithms of computer 
processing are developed for damaged vegetation mapping. 
In solving the ecological problems of urbanised areas, shown at 
examples of Moscow and Saint-Petersburg, satellite images can 
help in estimation and mapping of buildings density, presence 
and state of green vegetation, settlement recreation resources, 
dynamics of town land use. 
In addition to antropogenic ecological problems the Atlas 
characterises the potential of remote sensing for natural hazards 
investigations. Monitoring of flooding is described for Lower 
Volga region. In mountain regions imagery is used for studies of 
natural catastrophic destructive processes both endogenic 
(seismic activity in Big Caucasus, volcanism in Kamchatka) and 
exogenic (landslides, stonefalls in Caucasus, surging glaciers in 
Pamir). The example for Big Caucasus shows the influence of 
earthquakes on activisation of landslides activity. 
Also the materials of the Atlas are mainly Russian-oriented, the 
proposed methods can be successfully applied for solution of 
similar problems in other countries. The Atlas will serve for 
ecological education of people from different fields of Earth 
sciences and business, as well as for general public. It will 
become a manual for use of remote sensing information in 
compilation of ecological maps, environmental impact 
assessment and solving of ecological problems. 
The Atlas may be used by university teachers, by specialists in 
Earth sciences, especially geoecologists; it will be also 
interesting for anyone, who would like to know more about 
ecological problems and their solutions using remote sensing 
methods.