Cartography and Geoinformatics for Early Warning

02 February 2009, 8:48am

At the international conference “Cartography and Geoinformatics for Early Warning and Emergency Management”, which took place in Prague from January 19 through January 22 specialists of ScanEx RDC presented the new English version of the web-based cartographic service “Kosmosnimki – Seas of Russia” designed for oil pollution monitoring using near real-time radar imagery. The geoservice is built on the basis of the ScanEx Center’s proprietary technology - ScanEx Web GeoMixer.

The conference dedicated to combining efforts of the European countries in creation of the unified network for early emergency warning was also attended by representatives of Latin and North America, South-East Asia, and Africa. Special focus was made on modeling and forecasting of emergencies, integration of geospatial data in public projects, development and incorporation of geoservices, as well as adaptation of existing projects to OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) standards. In-situ emergency management data collection and on-line data representation is also of major importance and urgency taking into account the scope of implications caused by natural calamities (floods, fires, marine transport emergencies, etc).

Thus, the long mileage of our country sea borders dictates the need for cooperation between Russia and adjoining states in creation of unified services for monitoring sea areas including online services operating in near real-time mode. Exchange of experience and technological cooperation in this respect is an important factor in creation of functional and accessible geoservices for emergency monitoring and timely decision-making.

The “Kosmosnimki –Seas of Russia” geoportal enables near real-time representation of the monitoring results including satellite imagery and derived vector information, search by metadata, and performance of visual analysis using a web-browser interface alone without specialized GIS software or involvement of GIS specialists. It appears important to connect forecast data to the service and develop improved editing and automatic data analysis tools.

The presentation materials of ScanEx RDC specialists — the article «Satellite Imagery Based Geoportals for Emergency Monitoring» — are included in the digest of the “Cartography and Geoinformatics for Early Warning and Emergency Management” conference.

In his closing speech the conference president Milan Konecny particularly noted participation of Russia represented by ScanEx RDC in European integration processes and combining of efforts on emergency management.

ScanEx RD Centre Moscow

Geo: International