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.
