AUA Signs MoU with RA Hydrometeorology and Monitoring Center

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YEREVAN, Armenia — In July 2022, the American University of Armenia (AUA) and the Hydrometeorology and Monitoring Center (HMC) of the Ministry of Environment of the Republic of Armenia signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) within the Copernicus assisted environmental monitoring across the Black Sea Basin — PONTOS BSB 889 project funded by the European Union’s European Neighborhood Instrument (ENI) Cross Border Cooperation (CBC) Black Sea Basin Joint Operational Programme 2014-2020. This agreement is a significant output for the PONTOS team considering that the project makes information about the Black Sea environment from the EU Copernicus Earth Observation platform accessible to scientists, policymakers, citizens, and other stakeholders, HMC being a key stakeholder in Armenia. 

Through this MoU, HMC and AUA undertake to support the intended activities and mission of the PONTOS project. In particular, HMC will support the PONTOS project as it pertains to the use case of  Armenia’s Lake Sevan by assisting in the implementation of environmental assessments in that location and provision of relevant data and supporting information. It will also provide user needs and requirements for developing the use case and the corresponding PONTOS platform. The HMC team will participate in project events, including training sessions and other local events, and provide a final evaluation and validation of the outcome of the PONTOS platform.

Throughout the duration of the project, the AUA PONTOS project team will communicate with HMC about developments in the project and involve HMC staff in events. The HMC team will have full access to the PONTOS platform, including its services and tools for use even after the end of the project. AUA will share the results of the environmental assessments and final reports with the HMC team and provide access to the PONTOS virtual training modules and all the tutorials developed by the Earth Observation and Environmental Monitoring project. Furthermore, the lessons learned and best practices for using remote sensing technologies for environmental monitoring will be shared with the HMC team. 

Copernicus assisted environmental monitoring across the Black Sea Basin-PONTOS is a 30-month project funded by the European Union’s ENI CBC Black Sea Basin Programme 2014-2020. PONTOS makes information about the Black Sea environment from the EU Copernicus Earth Observation platform accessible to scientists, policymakers, citizens, and other relevant stakeholders. It utilizes information technologies to automatically retrieve Copernicus products, couples them with national or regional infrastructures for data acquisition and processing, and provides monitoring services for the Black Sea and the surrounding environment in a transboundary, standardized, and homogenized manner. The environmental monitoring system developed is tested in pilot sites across Armenia, Greece, Georgia, and Ukraine.