World Wetlands Day 2021
Each year on February 2nd the World Wetlands Day is celebrated. This day marks the date of the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands on February 2, 1971 in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the shore of the Caspian Sea. Poland joined Ramsar Convention on March 22, 1978; nineteen locations in the country have been designated so far as Ramsar sites.
Remote Sensing Centre has a long tradition of using Earth Observation data for monitoring wetlands. Projects conducted at the RS Centre mainly concern applications of optical and radar satellite images collected by various satellites under ESA and NASA missions for monitoring the state and development of wetland vegetation in Poland. Currently the project entitled Modeling of carbon balance at wetlands applying the newest ESA satellite missions Sentinel-1/2/3 is carried out at the Remote Sensing Centre. It is aimed at elaborating the methodology for carbon balance modelling based on satellite Sentinel-1/2/3 data and in-situ CO2 measurements with Eddy Covariance flux Tower. The project is conducted for Biebrza wetlands under changeable moisture, biomass and meteorological conditions.
Moreover, two Sentinel-1 soil moisture validation sites representing grassland and marshland are located in the Biebrza Wetlands (Poland). The validation sites with soil moisture measurements at various depth levels allow to evaluate quality of the S-1 soil moisture products delivered under Copernicus service.
In 2015-2017 the POLWET project System for new space-based products for wetlands under Ramsar Convention – pilot Project for Poland supporting future GlobWetland has been carried out at the Remote Sensing Centre. Within the framework of POLWET project the maps of state and development of wetlands vegetation over thirteen Ramsar sites in Poland have been elaborated. The results are presented under the link http://polwet.com/
The list of projects related to wetlands and grasslands studies, conducted at the Remote Sensing Centre is presented under the link http://www.igik.edu.pl/en/remote-sensing-projects
Visual interactive comparison of soil moisture maps derived from Sentinel-1 acquisitions in April and July 2020 over Biebrza Wetlands is presented below.