REMOTE SENSING AND GIS IN REGIONAL PLANNING

Introduction

In the last ten years one of the most important goals of the faculty was to introduce and promote the use of multi-user-research (GIS applications, digital mapping, remote sensing etc.) in the field of regional planning. The most important examples are:

1. The Devolepement Plan of the North-Western Region
2. Human Risk Assessment in the Aries River Basin

Our ideas have received a huge sustainament trough the estebilishment of the MURC (Multi User Research Centre) in 2000. Our future actions will be hopefully strongly connected to MURC.

What is the MURC?

The MURC is a concept elaborated by the Ministry for Education and Research and the National Council for Research and Higher Education (CNCSIS). The aim of the MURC is to help and promote advanced research activities. An instittion is granted the right to create the MURC by the CNCSIS only after having passed a national evaluation programme being funded by the Ministry for Education and Research in proportion of 21% and by the World Bank in proportion of 79%. The MURC allows different users to access state of the art technology in an efficient way creating an optimum environment for large multidisciplinary research projects. There are 30 MURCs in Romania, the Regional Centre for Topographic Science, Cartography, Remote Sensing and GIS beeing the only one in the field.

One property of the MURC is that, the host institution has to maintain the technology at the highest levels assuring that it remains state of the art all the time.

The Regional Centre for Topographic Science, Cartography, Remote Sensing and GIS

Resources. A laboratory with state of the art equipment and software + 1 mobile lab.

Hardware is made of topographic instruments (1 non mobile GPS, 1 mobile station and 1 total station both having a precision of 5 mm; the mobile lab. has also 4 medium precision GPSs and one laptop for data gathering and procesing on the field), a LAN of 6 pentium III machines, 1 Internet map-server, 6 printers, 1 A0 plotter, 1 A0 scanner, 1 digital camera with accessories, 1 digitizing tablet (size A1).

Software is made of: Arc/Info 8, 2 licenses, ArcView LabKit 8.1 (including Spatial Analyst, Network Analyst, 3D Analyst) 6 licenses, Image Analyst 1 license, ER Mapper 2 licenses, OrthoImage 1 license, ERDAS 1 license, OrthoBase 1 license, Idrisi 1 licence including Carta Linx.

Research activity. The members of the MURC are involved mainly in GIS and Remote Sensing projects. MSc and PhD students also participate in many of them.

Services. We perform work for many of industries, including government agencies, oil and gas pipeline companies and utility providers. Each and every job we do receives our utmost attention to assure accurate and quality work performed on time and at resonable costs.

Fly-by Video Sequences. Leordina (Maramures county ).