About Scientific Centre for Aerospace Research of the Earth

Scientific Centre for Aerospace Research of the Earth (CASRE) was founded in 1992 by decision of the Presidium of National Academy of Sciences, Ukraine, as an independent juridical person at the Institute of Geological Sciences, NASU.

Currently there are about 100 employees in the Centre, among them one academician of the NASU, two Corresponding Member of the NASU, nine doctors, and twenty-four candidates of science.

The CASRE is organized into five departments: Department of energy and mass exchange in geosystems, Department of aerospace research in geology, Department of aerospace research in geoecology, Department of geoinformation technologies in remote sensing of the Earth, Department of system analysis.

The Centre is specialized in the acquisition and thematic interpretation of remote sensing data, aerospace image processing and preparation of geoinformation products. Energy-mass exchange in geosystems and their influence on physical and chemical mechanisms, which are responsible for the spectral response from the natural objects and are very sensitive to the different environmental and anthropogenic factors are being studied. The models for the general spectral patterns of the environmental objects are developed. Their relations with the environment features and properties are determined and estimated. On a basis of the spectral models the new methods and technologies of acquisition and thematic remote sensing data processing are developed. The studies are fundamental and appliation-oriented.

CASRE carries out the researches in the following areas:

1. Assessment and management of the natural resources:
   • More precise definition of the geological structures for different areas (studying active exogenous processes, reveal and localization of active fault zones);
   • Evaluation of the areas and shelf zone with the purpose of prospecting oil and gas fields;
   • Determination of soil moisture and water table, water storage search;
   • Assessment of forest conditions and their mapping.
2. Ecological monitoring of environment:
   • Assessment of sea areas and inner water bodies (operative reveal of oil spill, estimation of ecological and sanitary conditions of water from the water bodies, detection of industrial pollution, control of suspended matter distribution and cyanobacteria, etc.);
   • Distinguishing and monitoring leakages from oil, gas and water pipelines, as well as hot water supply systems;
   • Operative monitoring floods, submergence, swamping, forest fire, and other natural disasters;
   • Estimating the areas contaminated by heavy metals, radioactive nuclides, pesticides, and other contaminants;
   • Study of the urban agglomerations (dynamics of development and city building, anthropogenic industrial influence on the environment).
3. Application of remote sensing data to the agriculture:
   • Inventory of crops;
   • Assessment of agriculture lands (phenological observations, fertilizer and water supply to crops, determination of biomass and productivity);
   • Yield prediction.
4. Theoretical justification and assessment of efficiency for remote sensing methods and technologies on a basis of system analysis:
   • Formation of optimal structure for board aerospace facilities to solve the problems of the Earth’s remote sensing;
   • Estimating an efficiency for the board and ground aerospace complexes of the Earth’s remote sensing.
5. Information support and software for the remote sensing research:
   • Application of geoinformation technologies to the Earth’s remote sensing;/li>
   • Algorithm design for the automatic interpretation of multispectral aerospace images to accomplish the thematic tasks of remote sensing;
   • Scientific foundation and harmonization of conceptual and normative base in the remote sensing field.

Center is recognized by the National Academy of Sciences and National Space Agency of Ukraine as a head organization with the complex development of scientific and methodical foundations for the aerospace sensing of the Earth to prospect the natural resources and carry out the ecological monitoring. In this field Centre works together with the other native institutions and organizations.

CASRE is the first scientific organization in Ukraine, which was admitted to the European Association of Remote Sensing Laboratories (EARSeL ). Centre has got the international contacts and cooperates with the European Space Agency (ESA), Space Agencies of Germany (DARA-DLR) and France (CNES), The International Institute of Applied System Analysis (IIASA) and also with the many other foreign establishments and organizations.