AAAS satellite image analysis reveals South Ossetian damage

Tag : agricultural hardware

In summary, the AAAS report concludes: "Imagery analysisdemonstrates initial concentrated damage to the city of Tskhinvaliand small amounts of damage to outlying areas that had occurred by10 August. By 19 August, a much broader range of destructionoccurred in the village areas surrounding Tskhinvali & Othersignificant signs of military actions were also shown to haveoccurred in the region, including many obvious craters fromshelling, and tracks from the presumed movement of militaryvehicles, which resulted in clearly visible damage in the vegetatedareas throughout the region."
The development of the conflict involving Georgia, South Ossetianseparatists and Russia remains the subject of intense dispute. But,AAAS sources said that tensions seemed to begin rising earlier thisyear after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) agreed toone day allow the Ukraine and Georgia  independent from the SovietUnion since 1991  to join the alliance. Then in July, Russiareportedly conducted military exercises near Georgia's historicallyethnic South Ossetian, separatist region. Roadside bombs nearTskhinvali in early August may have further aggravated theconflict, though all such details are mired in controversy. By 6August, Tskhinvali was being subjected to heavy shelling byGeorgia, and by 7 August, Russian troops had entered the conflict.All Georgian troops left South Ossetia and Abkhazia sometimebetween 10 August and 13 August.
The AAAS study combined eye-witness accounts of destruction withobjectively interpreted satellite images purchased through threecommercial vendors: GeoEye, DigitalGlobe and ImageSatInternational.
To precisely quantify damaged civilian structures, Bromley andcolleagues Susan Wolfinbarger and Jonathan Drake also used thesoftware packages ERDAS Imagine and ArcView to leverage the powerof remote sensing technology and Geographic Information Systems(GIS), respectively. Other specific sources of information used forthe AAAS analysis included: one 10 August image captured by camerasaboard GeoEye's IKONOS satellite; one 19 August image produced byDigital Globe's WorldView satellite; and a second 19 August imagefrom ImageSat's EROS-B satellite. The resulting report relies onplace names provided by the U.S. National Geospatial IntelligenceAgency; and national and administrative unit borders compiled fromDigital Chart of the World.
After completing a side-by-side assessment of earlier and latersatellite images, Bromley further substantiated the AAAS findingsby looking at images captured 2 July 2005 by DigitalGlobe'sQuickbird satellite, and an additional image from 26 July 2007."The images from July 2005 and 2007 represent how the region lookedbefore the conflict," Bromley explained. "The 10 August image showsthe status of the region in the middle of the conflict, and the 19August image was acquired after fighting had largely ended." Theresolution of all images was "one meter or better," Bromley said.
Bromley noted that additional analysis of the affected region wasconducted by United Nations Institute for Training and Research(UNITAR) Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNOSAT),with whom AAAS cooperates. "We hope that the AAAS analysis willcomplement the UNOSAT reporting, which covers Tskhinvali andnumerous villages to the north of the city, whereas the AAAS reportcovers regions to the east and south of Tskhinvali, and ouranalysis encompasses different dates," he said.