Scientific and Research Center "Sustainable Development Technologies"

Chief executive – Сandidate of Geographical science, Associate professor Sergey Karpenko.

Scientific and Research Center
"Sustainable Development Technologies" was created in July 2001 at the Geographical faculty of Taurida National V.I.Vernadsky university. The Center is supplied with the most modern technologies of informational modeling. Today the center has powerful certified software tools for data collecting and processing (ARC GIS 9.1., ARC VIEW, ARC MAP, Erdas Imagine, etc.), space shots of various scale, digital vector maps of the Crimea and its regions.
The center members focus their attention on implementing contemporary geotechnologies in education and scientific, methodological and management activity of Taurida National V.I. Vernadsky university and in Crimean region.

The aim of Scientific and Research Center "Sustainable Development Technologies" (SRC “SDT”) creation is to develop scientifically grounded recommendations in order to solve the key regional development problems in areas of nature management, preservation of the environment and ecologic and economic optimization of Crimean territory.
The most important task for SRC “SDT” is to develop and implement into the regional management system of mechanisms and technologies, which contribute to sustainable development:

• Ecologic and economic modeling of coastal Ukrainian territories’ sustainable development.
• Development of programs for the Crimean regions’ transition to sustainable development.
• Information and method supplying of the territory planning.
• Scientific, methodological and informational supplying of large economic and investment projects:
• grounds for variants of using territories with high recreation potential;
• development of the informational systems of the natural resources and civil engineering infrastructure cadastre;
• working out programs for the sustainable development of the Crimean economic complex.
• Training of the specialists possessing modern management technologies for  government bodies:
• GIS technologies implementation in the education in TNU;
• Training of the public management specialists;
• Distant GIS technologies teaching (with international acknowledgement).

Highly qualified specialists work in the Center: Karpenko S. (Chief executive of the SRC “SDT”), Borisova N., Glushenko I., Pavlova-Dovgan’ O., Kaydansky V., Epihin D., Kiselev A.. The majority of the members have already worked with structures concerned with regional development questions before. These are Executive directorate on Single republic digital territorial cadastre creation under the Council of Ministers of ARC, Republican Committee of ARC on ecology and natural resources. This experience is a good foundation for practical use of geographical knowledge in various regional programs development.

Areas of research

During action period the Center’s members carried out a number of projects, which deal with the elaboration of the regional development programs: “The concept of resort, recreation and tourist ARC complex development before 2010”, “Evaluation of modern social and economic status of Sivash region”, “Forecasting model of coastal Ukrainian territories’ sustainable development”, “Regional program of national ecological network formation in ARC”, “The concept of ARC wild-life conservation program before 2010”, “The program of resources conservation in ARC”, “Scientific grounds of regional landscape “Karalarskiy” park creation”, “Project of Kalinovskiy regional landscape park’s territory organization”, “Ecologic and economic support of the Scheme of ARC territory planning”, “Development of regional information program for ARC”, “Activities for development and formation of regional ARC environment monitoring system”, “Informational and geographical grounds for planning of strategic ARC development”, “Development of informational system of regional natural resources cadastre (on the example of Crimea)”, etc.

In 2003 the Center carried out a huge effort on geoinformational and methodological grounding of the “Atlas of Autonomous Republic of the Crimea”, which is the first regional volume of National Atlas of Ukraine. A lot of specialists from more than 20 key institutes, universities, ministries, organizations, departments of Crimea and Ukraine worked to create this Atlas. The major part of work was carried out by members of Taurida National V.I.Vernadsky university.

The Atlas is a fundamental cartographic multi-purpose work. The results of fundamental scientific researches on Geography, History, Geology, Biology, Geo-ecology, Economics and other sciences are represented in it. Nature, population and economy of Crimea are fully reflected as universal geosystem in all verges of interaction and correlation. Complexity of research is supplemented with integration in representation of mapping objects, and with scientific research level and perception of interrelations in nature and society.

In February 2004 at the International Mapping Trade Association (IMTA) conference the “Atlas of Autonomous Republic of the Crimea” has won second prize.

Members of the Center work in the following scientific areas: geo-informational modeling (Glushenko I., Pavlova-Dovgan O., Borisova N.), informational and geographical grounding for territorial development management (Karpenko S.), geographical grounding for regional development planning (Kaydansky V.), informational grounding for management of vegetation growth in urban settlements (Epihin D.), political and geopolitical mapping (Kiselev A.).

SRC “SDT” group actively participates in scientific researches as well. The members of the centre have:

• Published more than 70 articles and 5 monographs;
• Taken part in various scientific conferences.

During several years the Center is a main body for annual International GIS conference “Geo-informational technologies in territorial development management”, which is held in Yalta.

Academic and educational relations:

The Center actively collaborates with Geographical faculty of TNU named after V.I. Vernadsky. The representatives of various generations who have graduated from geographical department work here: Karpenko S., Kaydansky V., Kiselev A.. Apart from that many faculty members of the Geographical faculty work with the center. Many students take part in various scientific researches.

The center collaborates with a number of research-and-production organizations: project institute “CrimeaNIIProject”, project institute “Crimeagiprovodhoz”, “Ukrainian center of land and resources management”, "ECOMM" firm, Crimean branch of “Ukrzemproject”, Institute of advanced manufacturing sciences, Institute “Southecogeocenter”, etc.