ZAPÁS

The two days ZAPÁS validation workshop started on Tuesday 14 May with a welcoming by Anatoly Shvidenko followed by a project status presentation given by Christian Hüttich. The Meeting aimed to prepare a road map for the next steps, in particular how to operationalize and implement developed methods, derive product validation information and prepare the task on terrestrial carbon accounting for Central Siberia.

ZAPÁS consortium at IIASA, Laxenburg

The status of the available forest inventory was presented by Mikhail Korets. The inventory could be provided for all local test sites. It was stated that in some cases the old inventory is (probably) more accurate than the most recent update. Reasons could be that information was eventually transferred from old maps from the 70ies. The local scale mapping (methods and products) was presented by the FSU team. More »

News on the GOFC-GOLD Land Cover Implementation Team were recently published in the latest Newsletter of the GOFC-GOLD Land Cover Project Office

Content: Central Siberia’s Forests resource monitoring  -  3rd GOFC-GOLD Symposium  -  Outcomes of the UNFCCC COP 18 Forest Day  -  Voluntary REDD+ databse (VRD)  -  GlobBiomass User Consultation meeting  -  Landsat Data Continuity Mission  -  The REDD Cookbook  -  Calendar of activities

One key objective of the ZAPÁS project (in close cooperation with the ESA project BIOMASAR-II) is the mapping and monitoring of growing stock volume at multiple scales. Different satellite data are being explored, for intance to track cover changes of the natural Taiga forest in the Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk regions in Central Siberia. In the framework of the EU-Russia Space Dialogue data from the ESA ROSCOSMOS and JAXA Space Agencies are analyzed. After the first project year, the following data sourses are analysed:

• Very high resolution: RESURS DK-1 [5 m] (Validation)
• High resolution: ALOS PALSAR [25 m] (local to regional scale Growing Stock Volume mapping)
• Coarse resolution: ENVISAT ASAR [1 km] (regional scale Growing Stock Volume mapping)

More »

The recently published book “Let’s embrace space” contains around 50 projects from thwe 3rd call of the FP7 SPACE research programm. Ongoing research projects covering topics from land monitoring, space propulsion, and space whether are introduced. The ZAPÁS project is included in Chapter 14 in part I Earth Observation  - land monitoring. The 560 page book is available for download in the EU book shop.

Let’s embrace Space

ISBN: 978-92-79-22207-8

DOI: 10.2769/31208

A spatially consistent picture of forest dynamics in Central Siberia is provided with JAXA’s ALOS PALSAR 25 m orthorectified mosaic data. In the framework of the joint Kyoto & Carbon Science Initiative FSU cooperates with the K&C science team in order to improve global forest monitoring and forest disturbance mapping.

Using the ALOS PALSAR Mosaic data will be on step forward for area-wide forest monitoring, in particular in vast forests of Central Siberia. the video presented here shows a virtual flight over the siberian Irkutsk and Krasnoyarsk region along the Angara River as seen by the ALOS PALSAR satellite. The multitemporal RGB false color composite indicates SAR HH backscatter dynamics between 2008 and 2010. Blue and green colours indicate biomass loss in 2008 and 2009. Bright backscatter values indicate stable growing stock conditions.

Whatch the video: Monitoring of Siberian Forest Resources using JAXA’s ALOS PALSAR 25 m Mosaic

As a key part of the ZAPÁS research network the recently launched web map serice provides access to the satellite data sets and thematic products as well as the study area locations developed within the project. Going beyond the visualization of the geographical distribution of forest biomass related maps, such as growing stock volume, forest cover and disturbances (e.g. fire and clear cutting), the map portal provides a toolset for various data analyses methods.

In particular, the web-based geo-spatial analyses functionatities aim at fostering the joint exploitation of Russian and European Earth Observation data, where new cross-validation approaches are possible to analyse up- and down-scaling effects of integrated data sets and products and finally to improve their overall accuracies.

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A one-day field trip to the Bolshemurtinskoe local test sites was realized on 28 August together with FSU and and the Suchachev Intitute of Forest of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SIF-RAS). The field trip organized by SIF-RAS was aiming to validate the first set of local map products, such as forest biomass and disturbance maps. First reference data were collected for the validation of local mapping activities. More »

On August 22, a Workshop “Environment and Global Climate Change” within the joint German-Russian Project “Central Siberian Laboratory on Global Climate Change – Sib-Lab” was held at the Center for Grant-Oriented Activity, Siberian Federal University (SibFU). http://www.sfu-kras.ru/en/10764

The Workshop participation was represented by 46 researchers and PhD students from the Russian Federation (SB-RAS institutions and universities), SibLab project partners from Jena and Berlin, Germany and by exchange students from France as starting researchers. More »

A global mosaic of PALSAR FBD SAR data is generated by JAXA in a spatial resolution of 25 m with HH and HV polarizations covering the years 2007 to 2010. The mosaic  was ordered from JAXA for the years 2007 to 2010 within the K&C project. Single mosaic tiles data were downloaded and mosaicked by FSU. A data example of a HH polarization image of 2010 with highlighted local test sites of Krasnoyarsk Kray and Irkutsk Oblast are shown below. More »

The recent Earth Observation meeting of the EU-Russia Space Dialogue was held in Moscow on 15th of May. The meeting was organized by ROSCOSMOS and took place at the Keldysh Research Center. The meeting aimed at the continuation and review of ongoing and future FP7 acivities and to discuss the potential of common GEO activities and satellite data exchenge including future Sentinel data. While presenting key FP7 projects in the framework of the Space Dialogue, representatives of EUMETSAT and EEA joined the meeting in order to present their current collaboration framework.

The presentation of the ZAPÁS project was well recieved, commented and appreciated from Russian and EU sides. ZAPÁS remains a key component of the joint cooperation between Russia and the European Union. One of the conclusions of the recent discussions of the Space Dialogue is that the ongoing FP7 projects in the field of earth observation for crop monitoring (MOCCCASIN) and forest resource assessment (ZAPÁS) are important mechanisms to bring the ongoing political discussions into action. Both sides of the Space Dialogue recommended to continue the current work and find ways for future funding.