Automated Mapping and Updating Techniques in Transboundary East European Unesco Biosphere Reserves Development

The article contains a brief overview of joint research activities (done using GIS methods) in the East European chain of valuable areas of the world connecting five countries: Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Ukraine. Mentioned territories are currently under focus of such international organizations as Man and Biosphere UNESCO, which are performing some initiatives in this region. The first is international project “Establishment of a Transboundary Biosphere Reserve and a Regional Ecological Network in Polesie”. Geoinformation technologies are one of most important methods involved in all project objectives and are used for the documentation and analysis purposes. From the GIS point of view the project has a broad extent because of these characteristics: small scale result maps, multisource, multiscale and different quality source data integration, necessity of using the universal documentation and analysis technology, the need for comparability of research results. Object based automatic techniques for feature detection were proposed as a main tool for mapping and monitoring of environment. The article describes main problems and propositions of theirs solutions in main problem fields. Results of research proved the adequacy of proposed methodology, projects regarding other biosphere reserves on the Eastern Border of EU will be analysed in respect to the different specific issues.