DISASTER MONITORING WITH THE UTILIZATION OF ENVISAT MERIS SATELLITE IMAGES IN HUNGARY

ABSTRACT In the frame of operational remote sensing based National Crop Monitoring and Production Forecast Program (CROPMON) the Remote Sensing Center of Institute of Geodesy, Cartography and Remote Sensing, (FOMI RSC) provided nation-wide crop production forecasts. The technology of CROPMON served as the background of disaster monitoring. The achieved results of ESA–FOMI Prodex 1 -ENVISAT R&D project demonstrated that a regional disaster monitoring model could be developed using integrated satellite data set including ENVISAT data. The ESA-FOMI PECS 2 -ENVISAT project aimed at the improvement of the previous activities utilizing ENVISAT data that covered a longer monitoring period and a larger ENVISAT dataset. Another project was carried out by FOMI RSC in 2006. It monitored forest damage caused by gypsy moth in 2005 and 2006. ENVISAT MERIS data were used. In addition, the forest fire map derived from MERIS data is also presented illustrating the forest fires resulted from drought in 2007.