Report 2024 – SCGIS UA – Natute Conservation with GIS

Our 2024 Report

Implementation of EU Standard Landscape Planning Processes to Support the Development Needs of Territorial Communities in the Kharkiv Region:

In cooperation with the Rogan community and Kharkiv National University, with the support of the International Renaissance Foundation, we participated in the development of the first officially approved pilot Landscape Plans in the country as part of the Comprehensive Spatial Development Plans for Territories for two communities in the Kharkiv region—Rogan and Pisochyn.
Communities gained the opportunity to rely on reliable environmental data when planning territorial development, for strategic environmental assessment and environmental impact assessment, and further monitoring.
Cooperation was initiated with the Krasnokutsk community to develop reliable environmental data sets and prepare for further Landscape Planning.
With the support of NGO “Ecoaction,” a concept for environmentally oriented development of the Barvinkove community was developed.

Approximation of Legislation:

Analysis and development of proposals for updating key laws and other regulatory legal acts were carried out, in particular, the requirements for the composition, quality, and procedure for Landscape Planning (50%+ of proposals were taken into account) and the requirements for the composition and quality of spatial data that, based on the results of Landscape Planning, are further distributed through the National Geospatial Data Infrastructure (NGDI) were clarified.

Open Environmental Data:

At the request of communities and environmental NGOs, we continue to update data on the boundaries of the Nature Reserve Fund based on OpenStreetMap, on lands affected by water erosion based on the GeoProstir portal (KhNU), on fires and burning, on clearcuts, and on the state of biodiversity (2000+ updates).
The work of analyzing and updating open data is carried out in cooperation with Kharkiv National University and Kharkiv National Academy of Urban Economy as part of the production practices of masters and postgraduate students.

Nature Reserve Fund:

Aggregation and digitization of Nature Reserve Fund development projects for the eastern regions have begun.
The source data of 50+ projects for the development of the Nature Reserve Fund and the Emerald Network, which will become an important basis for territorial development planning, have been streamlined.
In the course of analyzing open data, 10+ requests for analyzing nature management conflicts within the territories of the Nature Reserve Fund were processed.

Production Practices and Qualification Works:

Masters from Kharkiv National University named after V. N. Karazin (Faculty of Ecology, Biology, Geography), Kharkiv National University of Urban Economy named after O. M. Beketov (Department of Urban Ecology), 10+ students successfully completed basic practice in environmental information project management.

Consulting and Training:

We continue to provide consulting and technical support to partner NGOs, National Parks (Kharkiv region and others), and territorial communities (Rogan, Pisochyn, Barvinkove, Krasnokutsk, Novoоdeska, Koblivska).

Esri Conservation Program:

Continuation of long-term cooperation with national parks of the Kharkiv region (Slobozhanskyi, Dvorychanskyi, Krasnokutskyi), trainings and individual consultations on the use of ArcGIS Collector products were conducted, with the support of Esri Ukraine, a backup transfer of the parks’ spatial infrastructure from their own servers to the ArcGIS Online platform was carried out to ensure reliable access in conditions of possible power outages.

Seminars and Conferences:

The annual GIS Day 2024 was held with the traditional theme of using geoinformation systems for the tasks of researching and protecting natural and cultural heritage.
The next anniversary seminar “GIS and Protected Areas 2025” was announced, and registration for speakers and workshop leaders was opened.

Technical Assistance:

With the support of the Society for Conservation GIS World, dozens of units of equipment (communications, charging stations, generators) were distributed among specialists of national parks, partner universities, and individual specialists supporting the research and development of the Nature Reserve Fund.