The scientific foundation Nansen International Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (NIERSC) was founded in 1992 in St. Petersburg as a non-profit research centre. NIERSC addresses such areas of its scientific activities as climate change and environment deterioration in high northern latitudes. Within the NIERSC sphere of interests are aquatic ecology, sea ice dynamics, North Atlantic and Arctic oscillations, environmental pollution and radioactivity. The staff members of the Centre incorporate core scientists (including two Professors, three D.Sc. and eight Ph.D.), associated staff,Ph.D. students and administrative personnel totally about 40 employees.
NIERSC is among the leading scientific teams focused upon
a) observations and simulations of global climate change,
b) investigations of alterations to the ice regime in marine environments,
c) modelling of aquatic ecosystems of Polar Seas
NIERSC enjoys an internationally recognized expertise in environmental monitoring from satellites, marine environments inclusive. Creation of advanced algorithms for inferring the desired environmental data from visible to microwave space images, development of numerical models simulating the optical properties of marine and land environments are salient but not sole specialties of NIERSC. NIERSC has also an extensive experience in coordination of activities of Russian partners both in national and international projects, convocation of associated seminars, workshops and progress meetings.
The "GMS application" project is coordinated by Dr. Leonid BOBYLEV, Director of NIERSC. The key team members are Dr. Vladimir VOLKOV - physical oceanographer and Dr. Andrey STEPANOV - radiochemist.
The Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Centre (NERSC) in Bergen, Norway was established in 1986 and is a non-profit environmental and climate research institute, affiliated with the University of Bergen. NERSC's vision is to make significant contribution to the understanding of regional and global environmental and climate problems through research and development in areas such as marine monitoring, forecasting and studies of climate processes. The strategy of the research and application development is based on an integrated approach using information from various sources combined with numerical model simulation through advanced data assimilation techniques. The NERSC staff members consist of 44 persons from 10 countries, including scientific personnel, eight PhD Candidates, one master student and five administrative personnel. The scientific personnel have professional background in remote sensing, oceanography, climatology, mathematics, physics, informatics/computer science, geology and biology. NERSC has extensive experience in co-ordinating large international research projects in oceanography and remote sensing, particularly in Arctic regions. Several major Arctic experiments such as NORSEX, MIZEX, SIZEX, CARDEEP in the GIN Sea, ICEWATCH in the Russian Arctic, COASTWATCH and AOSGE Pilot project in 1996 has been co-ordinated by NERSC. In addition NERSC was co-ordinator of several completed and ongoing INTAS Projects as well as being the coordinator for two completed FP5 INCO-2 projects (RADARC and WHITESEA) as well as partner in another INCO-2 project (AMETHYST). The NERSC scientific experience and expertise provide the appropriate contribution to the coupling physical and biological processes in numerical models, ocean circulation modelling in the Arctic and adjacent seas and to the development of Marine Information System, databases for remote sensing and in-situ data as well as data management. Under FP5 NERSC has participated (some still not completed) in 23 projects, of which co-ordinating 14 of these.
The personnel involved in "GMS Applications" have expertise in complementary fields of project studies:
Prof. Ola M. JOHANNESSEN is the founding Director of NERSC, and holds a Chair in oceanography at the University of Bergen. He has been the chief scientist of more than 30 large marine experiments and expeditions. He is the author/co-author, with more than one hundred colleagues from 25 countries, of more than 400 publications.
Mr. Lasse H. PETTERSSON, leading scientist, has more than 20 years experience in oceanographic environmental research at NERSC. He is and has been the project leader for several large EC, ESA and national funded research projects, including the deputy project leader for RADARC. He will be the deputy responsible for co-ordination and management for these SSA activities.
Prof. Helge DRANGE, applied mathematician, has wide experience in use of basin to global scale isopycnal ocean models and coupled physicalbiogeochemical
models for climate research, process studies and industry. In addition, he has been
heavily involved in development of new methods for purposefully ocean storage of CO2. Since
1997 he is the leader of the G. C. Rieber Climate Institute at NERSC.
Ukrainian Center of Environmental and Water Projects (UCEWP) Ltd. is consulting and software development company (SME), specializing in environmental risk assessment, radiation safety, environmental and water management, environmental hydrothermodynamics, river and marine computational hydraulics, physical oceanography, coastal engineering and development of environmental modelling software and data bases UCEWP has been established at the end of 1999 by the Academy of Technological Science of Ukraine and by the scientists of the Institute of Mathematical Machines and Systems Problems (IMMSP) of National Academy of Science of Ukraine to involve the experts in information technologies, radiation safety, environmental risk assessment, environmental engineering, ecology, hydrology, oceanography, meteorology, environmental and water management, into the national and international interdisciplinary projects in these fields. A group of scientists comprising the UCEWP team in the proposed project has been created at IMMSP in 1986 immediately after the Chernobyl accident to support counter-measures and predict the radionuclide dispersion in the water system. Within the Fourth, Fifth and now Sixth Framework Programs, this group participates in the development of the "EU Real time, On-line, Decision Support (RODOS) system for the offsite management of nuclear emergencies" as well as customisation of this system in the Ukraine and other European countries. The team participated in Fifth and Sixth Framework Program,INTAS, INCO-COPERNICUS Programs, TACIS and in a set of bilateral projects concerning pollutant transport in rivers, lakes and coastal seas, flood risk assessment and management. From 1996 it actively participates in the EU projects on the radionuclide contamination of the Arctic seas, large Siberian rivers and estuaries.
Team leader of UCEWP in "GMS application" project, Prof. Vladimir MADERICH is a physical oceanographer. Since 1996 Prof. Maderich provides modeling of radionuclides and other pollutants dispersion in marine environment in the frame of hydrostatic and non-hydrostatic 3D models as also simulation of nutrients and oil spill dispersion. Dr. Mark ZHELEZNYAK is an expert in environmental risk assessment and contamination of inland and coastal waters. Since 1986 he was responsible for the national modeling and forecasting system for prediction of Ukrainian water bodies pollution after teh Chernobyl accidents and than he applied this experience for simulation of radionuclides and other pollutants transport (e.g. PCB, chlorides) for other water bodies within number of international projects, as also the model implementation for the decision support systems.