Ukraine

The partners of the EvIDENz project conducted the second stakeholder workshop entitled “Earth observation-based information products for drought risk on a national basis”.  The workshop was conducted in Kyiv, Ukraine, on December 6, 2016. Partners involved in the organization of the workshop included the Space Research Institute (NASU-SSAU) of the Ukraine, the Remote Sensing Center (ZFL) of the University of Bonn, UNU-EHS, and UN-SPIDER. The workshop was attended by 15 key stakeholders of Ukraine involved in disaster risk reduction including the State Emergency Service, the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Centre, the Institute of Agro-ecology and Environmental Management, the  Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, the Institute of Agro-ecology and Natural Management, the National Centre of Management and Testing of Space Facilities, the State Water Resources Agency of Ukraine, the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine.

By bringing together a small and... read more

When using Space technologies for disaster risk management and emergency response, it is not only important to have access to the right data and software, it is also crucial to be aware of methods that have proven to be good practices in a certain context.

UN-SPIDER's Regional Support Offices and other partners are currently working on the development of Recommended Practices on the use of space technologies for various hazards. The aim is to describe successful methods that our partners have used and refined during the work in their regions in order to make these practices available to a global audience. The practices include a descriptive part and hands-on, step-by-step instructions on how to use satellite information for various hazards, in various phases of the disaster management cycle.

While these Recommended... read more

UN-SPIDER's network of Regional Support Offices is currently developing Recommended Practices on the use of space-based information for disaster risk management and emergency response. The practices deal with a variety of topics such as droughts, floods, agricultural monitoring or land degradation and include detailed information on the data and methodologies used as well as step-by-step instructions.

Six practices have already been submitted by Regional Support Office with others to follow. These practices will be discussed at the upcoming 5th UN-SPIDER RSO-Meeting on 13 and 14 February 2014 in Vienna, Austria, and will be disseminated through the UN-SPIDER Knowledge Portal once final.

Flood Mapping: This practice is devoted to the use of SAR satellite imagery for flood mapping. The practice shows the use of ESA NEST software for pre-processing and processing of SAR imagery using a threshold method for deriving the flood extent. QuantumGIS is used as... read more

Representatives of the UN-SPIDER Regional Support Office in Ukraine, hosted by SRI NASU-SSAU, took part in the International Meeting on Food Security, Earth Observations and Agricultural Monitoring. This workshop was held in Brussels on November 21, 2013 at the premise of the Secure World Foundation and was organized by Secure World Foundation (SWF), the European Commission (EC), and the Group of Earth Observations (GEO) Secretariat. The purpose of this meeting was to assess the situation regarding global observational facilities, models, and derived services needed to meet the demand in developed and developing countries regarding agricultural production.

One of the Ukrainian experts, Prof. Nataliia Kussul from Space Research Institute National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and State Space Agency of Ukraine, delivered a presentation on national agricultural monitoring activities and took part in the discussion on the GEO-GLAM system implementation with other experts from... read more

On 8 October 2013, the European Parliament ratified an agreement on jointly developing a civil global navigation satellite system (GNSS) with Ukraine, as the Ukraine News Agency Interfax announced.

Interfax reported: "The agreement envisages the creation of ground-based infrastructure - three ranging and integrity monitoring stations (RIMS) in Ukraine under the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) project, which is the ground component of the Galileo European Global Navigation Satellite Systems. It is expected that the coverage of Ukraine with the EGNOS system will increase the accuracy of positioning and air navigation systems, which will help increase the safety of flights and airport operations."

The Space Research Institute NASU-SSAU, UN-SPIDER's Regional Support Office in Ukraine, utilizes Earth observation (EO) data to support agriculture monitoring and operational forecasting of crop yield in Ukraine.

Every 16 days forecasts of winter wheat yield are provided upon arrival of new EO data and products. Due to the spring dry kill effects, many areas of winter wheat in southern regions of Ukraine were damaged in May of 2013. These regions could be identified from EO data.

Figures 1 and 2 show forecasts of winter wheat yield as of 8 May and 23 May 2013, respectively. Figure 3 shows changes in forecasts between 8 May and 23 May 2013. For southern regions, changes are of an order of 0.9 t/ha.

Other agriculture geo-information products provided by the Space Research Institute NASU-SSAU and UN-SPIDER Regional Support Office in Ukraine are... read more

On March 4th, 2013 experts of the UN-SPIDER Regional Support Office in Ukraine took part in the regional workshop “Wild fires in Eastern Europe: science, politics and management” and the official opening of the Regional Eastern Europe Fire Monitoring Center (REEFMS) at the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine. Prof. N. Kussul and Dr. S. Skakun delivered a presentation on the “UN-SPIDER Regional Support Office in Ukraine: Fire Monitoring using Satellite Data”.

During the round table regional collaboration on the wild fire management in Eastern Europe was discussed (including collaboration between UN-SPIDER RSO in Ukraine and REEFMC), and a working plan was worked out that will be presented during the European Economic Commission Forum in Geneva in November 2013.

UN-SPIDER's Regional Support Office (RSO) in Ukraine, the Space Research Institute NASU-NSAU, has elaborated an operational forecast of the winter wheat yield in Ukraine for 2012 using Earth Observation Data. Due to the winter kill effect, many areas of winter wheat in southern regions of Ukraine have been damaged in the last year. These regions could be identified with satellite imagery. The obtained results were delivered the Department of Agriculture of the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Center and Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine.

Ukraine is one of the biggest crop producers in the world. According to the 2011 statistics provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), Ukraine was the 8th largest exporter and 10th largest producer of wheat in the world. Timely and accurate crop yield forecasts for Ukraine have become a key element in providing support to policy making in food security.