Experienced Earth Observation and GeoData scientist with nearly a decade of experience in the field. I use satellite data to monitor and map changes in the environment, and I have worked with governments, NGOs, and other organizations to help them make better decisions. Utilizing my past experiences to find innovative solutions for the future.
LIFE-PeatCarbon aims to successfully implement climate change mitigation measures in raised bogs in Latvia and Finland. An important aspect of the project is the utilization of innovative methods, including the creation of an ecosystem model based on remote sensing and monitoring results. Through these innovative methods, resulting changes in the hydrology, vegetation and greenhouse gas emissions can be supervised closely. The satellite and airborne remote sensing data are used for the detailed classification of plant functional types and different satellite derived products are used for monitoring purposes. Read more.
The objective of the project is to enhance the resilience of urban areas in Estonia and Latvia against extreme weather events, focusing particularly on pluvial flooding caused by excessive rainfall. The project emphasizes the utilization of green infrastructure and nature-based solutions to mitigate these challenges. The Earth Observation data is used to map the heat islands in urban areas nad to map green infrastructure and changes in the green infrastructure. More detailed analysis of nature-based solutions in pilot municipalities in Latvia will be carried out by using IoT sensors that will monitor local air temperature, soil temperature and humidity. Read more.
The goal of the project is to develop Sentinel-2 data-based lake monitoring service for monthly chlorophyll-a concentration assessment in lakes larger than 50 ha. The project is based on knowledge and findings in previous activities related to freshwater Earth observation. The project is established in close cooperation with local freshwater monitoring authorities and will serve as base for further colaboration in order to meet Water Framework Directive Intercalibration guidelines which states that the minimum frequency of phytoplankton surveys in lakes is 4 times per vegetation season.
The project is aimed to develop the automated Sentinel data-based service for remote and regular monitoring of subsoil use in open-cast mining areas with a monthly update frequency to support control of subsoil use and detection of possible illegal mining. Satellite data-based remote sensing seems to bethe only feasible way to monitor mining sites over a large region with reasonable frequency. Such an approach would be in line with National Environmental Policy Guidelines 2021-2027 where the use of new technologies to improve standard monitoring processes is one of the priorities. Regular monitoring would allow timely detection of illegal activities resulting in the reduction of the shadow economy. Read more (Article in Latvian)
This project, which was funded by the European Space Agency, aimed to address one of the challanges that foresters in northern latitudes encounter, namely the difficulty in accessing forests and carrying out management procedures due to soil characteristics in wetlands areas with a naturally high moisture content. Only in the winter are these sites reachable when certain requirements are met. In order to provide forest owners and forest management professionals with information about the accessibility of forested areas during the below-freezing temperature season, a forecasting tool that would provide the information on when and where the forests are accessible was developed in collaboration with leading industry companies. Read more (Poster in Latvian)
A project that continues the development from previous ESA funded feasibility study that explored the opportunities for area suitability mapping in rural areas. One of the main pillars of effective application development was close collaboration with potential end users. The demo study area was Cēsis municipality in Latvia. Multitude of different data layers served as factors describing local area landscape and socioeconomic value. Data from the Copernicus programme were used to describe the landscape and any relevant environmental hazards. Read more (Poster in Latvian)
The project aims to develop and test a prototype of Sentinel data-based tool for auditors to perform sustainability certification of rice fields and to verify compliance with alternate wetting and drying (AWD) management practice. The credibility of the issued certificates is vital for the whole enterprise of certification approach. Certificates issued to operations who are in gross violation of the requirements undermine the trust of stakeholders, consumers and businesses towards the scheme and the certification approach in general. The AWD method allows to grow rice with significantly less methane emmissions and lower water usage. The remote sensing specialists worked with a very challanging task to detect and sperate the rice fields by their managment practice using Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data. Read more (Poster in Latvian)
This European Space Agency funded project was aimed to develop a service for forestry industry professionals in order to provide frequent updates on the activities in their forest properties. The service is based on most recent advancements in SAR processing and optical satellite data. Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 satellites were the core data sources of the product. Leading forestry companies closely collaborated on the project's development providing input data and helping define the primary functions of the forest monitoring tool. Read more (Poster in Latvian)
The project objective is to develop novel, automatic (with a low labour intensity) ICT-based wild animal census methodology to support decision making on sustainable wildlife management and conflict resolution among landowners, hunters and society. Despite the importance of abundance estimates, none of several ungulate monitoring methods used in Europe is satisfying in terms of cost-effectiveness and accuracy. The most commonly used ground-based counting techniques – snow tracking and drive counts – can lead to biased and/or imprecise results and are very labour intensive. Thus, there is a clear need for new, efficient, cost-effective, and reliable methods to estimate ungulate densities. Sustainable adaptive wildlife management is a potential solution for loss reduction but requires reliable information on wildlife census for evidence-based decision making. Information communication technologies (ICT) based solutions should be considered as efficient, cost-effective, and reliable option. During the project testing of effective and remote data acquisition techniques with minimal human involvement focused on unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with thermal and visible light cameras, movement-activated camera traps, passive acoustic sensor networks and GPS tracking of animals. Read more
The main objective of the project is to implement, test, evaluate, promote and provide guidance on effective and economically feasible means for the reduction of agricultural GHG emissions while preserving stable income for farmers by taking an ecosystem-based approach. The remote sensing team from Institute for Environmental Solutions will develop remote sensing-based methodology for assessment of GHG emissions, as well as will implement monitoring of environmental impacts of the project activities. Read more
Development of Sentinel-2 satellite data-based service (SentiLake) for monitoring of Latvian lakes is being implemented within the ESA PECS for Latvia program. The pilot territory covers two regions in Latvia and includes more than 100 lakes larger than 50 ha. Automated workflow for selecting and processing of available Sentinel-2 data scenes for extracting of water quality parameters (chlorophyll-a and TSM concentrations) for each target water body was developed. Combination of C2X and C2RCC processors was chosen for the assessment of chl-a concentration showing the satisfactory performance - R2 = 0,82 and RMSE = 21,2 µg/l. Chl-a assessment result is further converted and presented as a lake quality class. Project results will provide supplementary data to limited in situ data for filling gaps and retrospective studies, as well as a visual tool for communication with the target audience. Read more
A feasibility study for a hypothetical tool that would plot the ideal locations for living or other activities according on user-selected criteria Such a tool would also offer useful information for local and regional decision-making. The key input components were a combination of data from various sources and satellite-derived landscape description products. A number of area suitability mapping techniques, including ones that had previously been applied for mapping the habitats of floral and faunal species, were tested. Read more (Poster in Latvian)
Project GrassLIFE aims to restore and improve EU priority grasslands and to promote their multiple use in Latvia. The project focuses on developing, optimizing and improving the conservation status of five EU priority grasslands in Latvia. All restoration activities are carried out within 14 Natura 2000 network sites. One of the initiatives was to develop grassland connectivity model based on the data about grassland habitats on national scale that is available in various databases and data sets that were developed by Institute for Environmental Solutions by using Sentinel-2 satellite 2017 data. This work involved remote sensing data experts, doing satellite data processing, algorithm development, the map production and data verification at first for smaller case area (100x100km, 17% of Latvia area) and later for all Latvia. Read more
The project aimed to explore the capability of Sentinel-1 radar and Sentinel-2 optical data use and fusion for the assessment of grassland management activities and quantitative/qualitative parameters, thus moving towards the development of a multifunctional grassland surveillance and monitoring tool. Read more and a Poster in Latvian
The project WATERCHAIN helps to reduce inflows of nutrients and hazardous substances to the Baltic Sea from all types of land-based sources by using pilot watersheds and environmental technology. The project tackles both highly developed intensely populated cities as well as less developed peripheral, sparsely populated rural and island regions in pilot watersheds. Read more
It was necessary to adapt the current water quality evaluation algorithms in order to use them with the new OLCI sensor data while scientists expected the launch of the Sentinel-3 satellite. The project aimed to validate existing and develop improved remote sensing algorithms and methods for assessment of water quality data parameters in coastal (case-2) waters in the Baltic Sea. Simultaneous in situ and airborne data acquisition campaigns were implemented during the project. Testing of existing algorithms using Latvian archive of in situ data and MERIS satellite data was performed to see the correspondence between regular field sampling data acquired by the Latvian Institute of Aquatic Ecology and MERIS data products. Read more
An ESA-funded study was underway in Latvia prior to the launch of the Sentinel-2 satellite to simulate the MSI sensor data and create algorithms for the new satellite. To continue developing LC-LU classification algorithms specifically for Latvian user needs, researchers at the Institute for Environmental Solutions used advanced airborne hyperspectral remote sensing to simulate Sentinel-2 data. The developed algorithms will support the analysis of land cover-land use, the spread of invasive species, the dynamics of forest resources, the identification of damaged areas, wetlands, flood risk areas, and degraded ecosystems, as well as the evaluation of various aspects of biodiversity loss using satellite data. Read more
The study of Lake Burtniek’s ecosystem was based on classical hydrobiological research methods – sampling and analysis of nutrients, phytoplankton, zooplankton, and zoobenthos as well as hydro botanical surveys using airborne RGB and hyperspectral remote sensing and ground-truthing. Read more
My research and professional work has resulted in several publications on diverse Earth Observation subjects. Some of the topics covered include the satellite data simulation, land cover classification, grassland mapping and biomass estimation, and lake research. In my ResearchGate and Google Scholar profiles, you may find more information about my published research findings.