Dubai’s MBRSC to study coronavirus impact on the environment

Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) to mark the World Environment Day a scientific interactive platform has been launched to learn the impact of Covid-19 outbreak.

This research will study the concentration of nitrogen dioxide before and after the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic. Nitrogen dioxide, a gas emitted from vehicles and industrial facilities.

Saeed AlMansoori, head of application development and analysis section at the MBRSC said: “The platform gives the end-user access to an interactive map where the user can monitor the percentage of nitrogen dioxide through the certain months from when the pandemic set in and when it progressed. The platform showed how the concentration of nitrogen dioxide decreased after the Covid-19 outbreak in the region and this was because the pandemic led to the closure of businesses, malls and airports and industrial facilities in the country. The interactive trait in the platform enables you to track the characteristics of a particular environmental phenomenon so that users can obtain accurate statistics on the proportions of changes and identify their positive or negative impact,”

The platform will be using remote sensing systems, image processing, GIS and artificial intelligence to provide analytical reports to government entities on a regular basis. It will allow  scientific community to utilise the data collected from scientific research and studies done by the MBRSC. In which this initiative will provide scientific analysis of environmental phenomena and their impact on the UAE’s natural resources.

Al Mansouri said:”The first of its kind in the region, the platform includes around 20 analytical studies that can be categorised in three sections – monitoring infrastructure projects such as Dubai Water Canal, Expo site etc; studying environmental changes such as water levels in dams throughout the year; and changes that occur in UAE coastline over a period of time through interactive maps, identify the changes, compare them with another time period, and ultimately come up with a specific scientific interpretation,”.

“The benefits of this platform can be extended to other entities and institutions that are not directly linked to environmental studies such as real estate developers, universities and educational institutions so that they can benefit from the space technologies of MBRSC,” he added.

Yousuf Hamad Al Shaibani, director-general at MBRSC, said: “The new platform does not only benefit the scientific community, but also contributes to the UAE’s vision of building a competitive, sustainable by encouraging innovation, research and development, and promoting strategic decisions made by key UAE entities