Remote Sensing Division
1-Historic brief
The remote sensing center was first established in the mid-seventies in the D.G. of geological survey &mineral investigation .it was considered the first center for space sciences in the Middle East in this field, in the mid-eighties it was completely transported to the scientific research council under the title "Astronomy and space science center" (ALBATANI) which merged with the ministry of science and technology later, therefore the management in the state company of geological survey and mining decided to rebuild the remote sensing division in its headquarters. A small remote sensing unit was indeed formed in 2001, and in 2003 it evolved to be remote sensing division which in 2011 included 3 units and it was a part of information department.in 2016 the division was merged with geology department depending on the new structure of Iraqi Geological survey.
The main tasks of the division and its units are summed up hereinafter:
2-the structural arrangement of the remote sensing division and its units:
1) Processing and interpretation of satellite data unit
- Satellite data and aerial photos collecting.
- Image processing and applying some new techniques to be used in geological applications such as: producing 3D maps for drainage pattern system to discharge ground water, producing contour line maps, producing land use_ land cover digital maps, producing change detection maps, and applying band combination ratio to determine vegetation index, soil index, water index ….etc. The unit also uses satellite data for economic mineral and sediment exploration and studying exposed rocks on the earth surface.
- the unit is capable of planning and giving basic and advanced courses in processing satellite data, and courses in programs like (ERDAS V. 2015 & ENVIV. 5.1).
- Writing scientific reports and researches.
2) Spectral reflection unit
- measuring spectral reflection of rocks and soil samples (in the lab), and transforming them into spectral signature by using the Spectrometer device to produce a spectral map for Iraq.
- measuring the spectral reflectance for some important phenomenon on earth surface in the field, and compare the results acquired with satellite data using the Spectrometer device.
3) Archiving and managing server unit:
- Managing the server of the division by connecting users' computers to the server (network management).
- organizing and archiving satellite data regularly whenever new coverage is available.
- archiving information layers and scientific reports produced by the Processing and interpretation of satellite data unit on the form of information bases by using GIS software.
- archiving old available aerial photos for all Iraq by scanning them with scanner and transforming them to digital photos and rectifying them.