Azercosmos: City governance is carried out with help of space technologies

Previously in Azerbaijan, if virtually all decisions in urban governance were based on statistical data, today this process is carried out with the help of space technologies, stated by Ismat Bakhishov, Director of the Geographic Information Systems Center of the Space Agency (Azercosmos), at an event titled "Empowering Cities with Better Data - Accessible and Actionable Data for Policy Formulation and Decision-Making" organized within the framework of the 13th session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13) held in Baku, Report informs.

According to him, obtaining data is not a problem today, as there is a lot of open data available worldwide: "As data owners, we understand how we can benefit from them. However, this is not enough. We try to present these solutions to organizations in their own language, in their own understanding. For example, we are working on 'Platera' – this is a geo-artificial intelligence-based platform that automatically provides solutions for each relevant organization. I will give a few examples. In terms of urban governance, the platform uses open data and there are also options for various data sources. Within a few minutes, it is possible to create basic building footprints, detect any changes in urban areas, green zones, and open water bodies."

The guest added that it is important to understand not only the territory but also the quality of water, the quality of green areas, and the health of green zones: "The main goal of this platform is to combine all GIS technology and remote sensing technology in one hand, meaning no knowledge in this field or any special tools are required from users. This cloud-based platform also does not require infrastructure for processing. As the Space Agency, our main mission is to increase space awareness in Azerbaijan and to provide solutions for relevant organizations to benefit from space data."