"Satellites" of the earth

Moscow officials will monitor city property using aircraft

Representatives of the capital's land resources department, who, despite the crisis, managed to receive significant income from land taxes, decided that they could afford to spend on new equipment. As the head of the department, Viktor Damurchiev, said yesterday at a regular meeting of the Moscow government, already this year officials will begin to use unmanned aerial vehicles with a satellite positioning system to monitor city objects. “Digital video cameras need to be installed on these aircraft, which will record the state of affairs on this or that plot of land,” Mr. Damurchiev showed members of the government a photograph of intricately shaped aerial geodetic equipment.

These kind of flying cameras can carry out work in specific areas and independently return to the starting point. And, as officials assure, they will allow monitoring the efficiency of use of city land. According to Mr. Damurchiev, such work will be carried out jointly with the State Inspectorate for Control over the Use of Real Estate. Last year, according to Viktor Damurchiev, department employees even received training in operating drones. True, apparently, the flying machines themselves in the mayor's office are so far only available in pictures.

Let us recall that officials first voiced the idea of ​​using “microdrones” last year after a major accident on a gas pipeline. Then, unmanned aerial vehicles with photo and video equipment, GPS navigation and remote control were supposed to be used for operational tracking of hard-to-reach urban infrastructure objects. “With the help of this data, we can correctly distribute forces when eliminating emergency situations,” the Department of Land Resources stated then. It was planned to use the 1.5-kilogram “microdrones” both for purely peaceful purposes and for the needs of law enforcement agencies and the Ministry of Emergency Situations.

Another long-standing dream of officials of the Department of Land Resources is the creation of an urban navigation and geodetic support system based on GLONASS equipment. A new method of determining exact coordinates based on satellite data may allow, according to Mr. Damurchiev, to completely abandon the old method of determining the boundaries of land plots using land surveying. In addition, satellites, according to officials, will significantly reduce the cost of this procedure. According to Mr. Damurchiev, the first stage of the navigation and geodetic support system was already launched in trial operation last year. It consists of six base stations, which, in fact, process signals from the satellite, bringing them to high accuracy.

In 2010, it is planned to purchase additional models of equipment for geodetic work, land surveying of the city and control of land plots using satellite navigation. In particular, by the end of this year it is planned to install an additional 12 ground stations of the navigation and geodetic support system that process signals from the satellite. According to officials, the installation of such stations costs the city treasury 10-15 million rubles. In general, in 2009 it was planned to spend almost 2.3 billion rubles on the program for the development of a unified geoinformation space of the city. However, the introduction of a satellite system for determining the boundaries of land plots may meet resistance from adherents of the traditional support and boundary network. Nowadays, land surveying issues are dealt with by the State Unitary Enterprise Mosgorgeotrest, which is part of the structure of the Moscow Architecture Committee.

Meanwhile, land for the capital, apparently, is one of the most stable sources of income. At least, as follows from Mr. Damurchiev’s report yesterday, at the end of 2009, the total volume of revenues to the treasury from land payments even exceeded the planned indicators. Payment for land rent, funds from the purchase of lease rights and the sale of the plots themselves, as well as land tax brought the treasury 28.1 billion rubles, which is almost 2 billion more than planned. However, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov considered that this was not enough. According to the Department of Land Resources, the city receives income from 37% of the urban area "less the road network and federal territories." “This is the maximum number of territories used,” Mr. Damurchiev assured the mayor. But Mr Luzhkov believes more can be squeezed out of Moscow. “We do not have lands that cannot be leased or put up for auction,” argued Mr. Luzhkov, who apparently believes that the department is either illiterate in calculating resources or hiding information. The mayor insisted on the “economic mobilization” of Moscow land.

Yulia KHOMCHENKO