Development of Remote Sensing and Initial GIS Support Materials for Management Plans for New Protected Areas Planned for 2002 (Crimea and Zakarpattya)

According to the Law of Ukraine "On State Program for Developing a National Ecological Network of Ukraine for 2000-2015", it is planned to cerate 60 new reserves and extend nature conservation areas that form the basis of ecological network.

Adoption of this law and recent implementation of a number of programs on development of the ecological network of Ukraine at the local, regional and international level speak to the fact that there is a need for coordination of an approach to this problem and attracting new technical resources including information technologies.

In this connection, in 2001, with USAID-Kyiv financial support, ULRMC initiated a Project for the Development of Remote Sensing and Initial GIS Support Materials for Management Plans for New Protected Areas Planned for 2002 (Crimea and Zakarpattya). The Project aim is to assist the reserve specialists in Crimea and Zakarpattia in application of remote sensing and GIS to provide cartographic justification of establishing new reserves, as well as to train them in utilization of GIS analysis and remotely sensed data in their everyday work.

This work is performed upon the request of Republican Nature Committee of AR of Crimea, Djankoy Rayon Rada (aspect of Kalynivsky Regional Landscape Park (RLP)), Balaklava Rayon State Administration in Sevastopol, Zakarpattia Oblast State Administration, and under approval of the State Reserve Service within MENRU on the establishing of Zhdymyr National Natural Park (NNP).

The project activities include:

• remote assessment of the state of the future reserve areas in Zakarpattia and Crimea;
• remote assessment of insulation of the natural ecosystems;
• improvement of thematic layers of the available maps (roads, water-ways, built-up areas, forests, coast strip and other).

The key project study areas are those of the National Natural Parks Syvasky, Zhdymyr, Zacharovana Dolyna that are being made now, as well as the steppes of the former military polygon Kalynivsky, steppes of Tarhankut and Kerch Peninsula, mountainous forest-covered areas of Crimea and Zakarpattia.

According to Vasyl I. Prydatko, ULRMC Specialist in Ecology and Biodiversity, Candidate of Life Sciences and Project Manager, this work will stimulate digital processing of dozens of plans, maps and other archive and historical materials in order to integrate them with remotely sensed and GIS data, which was unfeasible for local authorities and scientists over the past years.

On the basis of the processed archive and new Landsat (TM, 7ETM+) satellite images, using ERDAS4 Imagine4 8.4 software tool and in situ observations, the following activities have been performed within the framework of the project:

• Assessment of forest-covered areas in the mountainous part of the Crimean Peninsula;
• Development of the basic project ArcGIS and integration of new thematic cartographic information about the administrative and natural boundaries of the future reserves in Zakarpattia, Zhdymyr and Zacharovana Dolyna in particular;
• Development of GIS files-classifiers of animals and plants of the protected areas;
• Update of the Crimea Peninsula land cover classifier.

The remotely sensed data on the Kalynivsky RLP has already been efficiently been used by governmental institutions of the AR Crimea for the development of a series of geobotanical maps and the project for Kalynivsky RLP area management. In course of the project, ULRMC was offered an assistance in utilization of remotely sensed data, development of the initial GIS products or unification of the existing ones, updating of the thematic cartographic materials for other reserves both on the project area (Uzhansky NNP, Carpathian Biospheric Reserve, Synevir NNP) and beyond its bounds (Podilski Tovtry NNP, Danube and Black Sea Biospheric Reserve).

Alongside with ULRMC, the experts of the State Reserve Service under MENRU, the Republican Nature Committee of AR of Crimea, Vernadsky Tavriya National University and other Kyiv, Melitopol, Sympheropol and Sevastopol organizations participate in this project.

The preliminary results of ULRMC's work were represented at the 5th International Conference "Geoinformational Technologies in the Management of Territorial Development", (May 27-31, 2002, Partenit, AR of Crimea).

This project is a sequential continuation of ULRMC Project "Updating of the Existing maps of the Areas Natural Reserve System of Ukraine in AR of Crimea".

To learn more about IT application capabilities in the development of the ecological network, go to ULRMC Articles:

• "Fundamentally New Opportunities for the Development of the Ecological Network of Ukraine Due to the New Experience in Purpose Processing and Incorporation of Satellite Images into GIS"
• "Experience in ERDAS Imagine Application to the Change Analysis of the Forests in the Crimea Mountains Over the Period of 1988-2001 Using Landsat Satellite Images"

To learn about other ULRMC projects in Zakarpattia and Crimea, click here.

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