Kyiv

 

2,967,285 inhabitants
surface area: 835 km2


Capital & largest city of Ukraine.

Climate: humid continental with 200-day-frost-free period


 

Which pressures?

Air Quality                                            Disasters                                            Urban Growth 

 

Why?

Environmental pressures targeted by SMURBS


 Air Quality: The industrial activity in Kyiv is high, thus bound to air pollution problems. The picture of Kyiv’s AQ is incomplete due to several problems and deficiencies. The existing in-situ network, operated by the official data provider (the Central Geophysical Observatory, is out-of-date and not widespread. Other monitoring sources, such as models, in-situ instrumentation and remote-sensing provide a variety of environmental information for the city, there is a high degree of heterogeneity. Furthermore, the spatial resolution of available geospatial products is too coarse and, therefore, unable to capture AQ around the city. There is a need for modern products capable of monitoring the AQ situation of the city in a sustainable and operational way.

 Disasters: Peat fires, which occur at low temperatures, and in conditions of high moisture content and low oxygen concentrations, is a major problem for Ukraine. During 2019, there were 519 peat fires in Ukraine, burning 472 ha of peatlands (for comparison, 341 peat fires occurred in 2018). Kyiv, along with many northern cities in Ukraine, are located near peatlands, meaning that peat fires have a negative impact on these populations in terms of health, danger and destruction.

Urban Growth: The city of Kyiv is undergoing an intensive development process, resulting in ecological issues as well as impacting the availability of social infrastructure. Thus, there is a need for land cover maps of Kyiv with enhanced spatial and temporal resolution and a digitized city plan (similar to Copernicus Urban Atlas) to assess urban growth and provide a means of monitoring for decision makers.

 

How?

The implementation of smart urban solutions


 Air Quality: To address AQ issues in Kyiv, SMURBS has initiated the development of an Air Quality System, which provides AQ estimations for the city based on all available data, including in-situ (the official monitoring network), innovative sensors (low-cost portable sensors) and a variety of geospatial data sources (i.e. Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring System, Sentinel-5P, and others). Cross-validation has been enabled through data inter-comparisons, and the fusion of atmospheric and geospatial products and upscaling provides Kyiv with online publicly available AQ maps of high spatio-temporal resolution. The plan to incorporate an AQ service for all of Ukraine into the European regional system, was launched in 2019.

 Disasters: A service based on Sentinel-3 data provides active fire information for Ukrainian territory, allowing for the detection of wildfires and peat fires along with stable burning in agricultural fields. The service provides updated data twice a day (day time and night time state). The fusion of other satellite data sources with Sentinel-3 land surface temperature products allows for the operational detection and monitoring of peat fires near Ukrainian cities and the measurement of burn speed. This service is essential for adequate warning systems to protect citizens and stop the spreading of peat fires. Through the use of land cover and crop maps, this service provides information on stable fires taking place on agricultural lands, which can be classified as illegal and negatively impacts health and air quality.

Urban Growth: The Ukrainian Space Research Institute has used open access geospatial data and satellite imagery from the Copernicus missions Sentinel-1 and 2 to create an Urban Atlas layer for Ukrainian cities. A new layer can be created annually with the use of Copernicus data (at a resolution of 10m). This service and product allow for the monitoring of cities, smart and more controlled urban development and planning based on free data. A technique and methodology has been developed to validate and refine city-level land cover and built-up area maps based off of Kyiv estimations and mapping (via local ground truth data) and can be deployed for other cities.

A Sub-urban and Urban Thermal Anomalies and Heat Island Monitoring Service has been implemented providing daily information on land surface temperature and thermal anomalies, which can negatively impact human health and comfort. Further, the service provides temperature measurements of urban heat islands, an ecological indicator of the state of a city and an important variable for city planning. The Ukrainian Space Research Institute, NASU-SSAU, has been developing the technology behind satellite data fusion and land surface temperature maps upscaling to provide this service on an agglomeration level. The informational products are available for citizens and city administrators, as interactive vector maps.

 

Who?

Partners involved in the design and implementation of the solutions


    

Stakeholders involved: 

Hydrometeorological Service of State Emergency Service of Ukraine

Central Geophysical Observatory of Ukraine

Space Research Institute NASU-SSAU

Kyiv City State Administration

Lviv City State Administration

NGO “Rivne Tree Story”