Trends Identified

Long-term weather forecasts with long lead times

The role of long-term weather forecasting with a large lead time and a success rate exceeding climate forecasts will grow in environmental forecasting (in particular, dangerous natural phenomena) and economic planning (natural resources and economic risks affected by the climate, trends in climate dependent economic sectors, etc.), which will in turn contribute to the achievement of sustainable development and the security of the country.

2016

Russia 2030: science and technology foresight

Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Remote monitoring systems including using satellite systems

The introduction of remote monitoring systems using satellite systems will ensure that qualitatively new information on the state of the land, land based installations, and natural and anthropogenic processes is available. These data will serve as the primary source to create up-to-date thematic maps. Aside from this, prospective remote surveying technologies and computer data processing technologies vastly exceed the capabilities of traditional cartography both in terms of content and the diversity of the methods used to present the data.

2016

Russia 2030: science and technology foresight

Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Meso-scale models to forecast dangerous hydrometeorological phenomena

The meso-scale model to forecast dangerous hydrometeorological phenomena is a software package incorporating an actual meso­scale atmospheric model; a unit to prepare input data, constraints and surface properties (pre-processing); and a post­processing unit to process modelling output data, additional calculations and visualisation. Such models, implemented for limited territories, already serve as a means to provide a detailed forecast of meteorological fields with various parameters (temperature, humidity, pressure, precipitation, wind), and the sampling resolution of the computer grids for operational weather forecasting does not exceed 2 km2. Improving these models will enhance the accuracy and scales of the fore­ casts of dangerous phenomena, both for “purely atmospheric” (storm wind speed, large­scale precipitation, etc.) and for series of hydrometeorological phenomena (storm surges, floods, rough seas, avalanches, etc.).

2016

Russia 2030: science and technology foresight

Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Systems to diagnose the state of natural and dangerous man-made systems

Systems to diagnose the state of natural and dangerous man-made systems are critical for the prevention of emergencies. These systems include not only an instrument base, but also a means to process and visualise the results. Their application means that the amount of time required for diagnosis can be reduced and accuracy can be increased, which would greatly reduce the possible damage and increase the safety of the technosphere. The development of systems to diagnose the state of natural and dangerous man­made systems based on innovative equipment will lead to the creation of new markets in the field of instrumentation and software.

2016

Russia 2030: science and technology foresight

Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Methods to forecast natural and man-made disasters and their after-effects based on observation data

Over the past two decades there has been active development in methods to forecast natural and man-made disasters and their after-effects based on observation data. For this, geographic information systems (GIS technology) has been used which, among other things, allows you to collect operational data, analyse the signs of brewing earthquakes and assess possible threats of their occurrence on a spatio­temporal scale. The prospective techniques that are being developed for earthquake regions will be based on detecting changes in the pattern of the solar­terrestrial structure (cloud seismo­tectonic indicators). To monitor and forecast earth­ quakes there needs to be space image data, including images at intervals of no less than 15–30 minutes, covering large areas and at a high sampling resolution.

2016

Russia 2030: science and technology foresight

Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Web services (geoportals)

Geoportals – a set of web­services (downloads, visualisation, editing, transformation, analysis, etc.) carried out on the basis of unrestricted access to geographic (geospatial) information – make it possible to improve efficiency and dramatically reduce the amount of time required to deliver public services. Moreover, they address the problem of investment openness and transparency. An important property of geoportals is the self-development of services. Thus, regional geoportals will be able to monitor the movement of state and municipal transport (snow removal machinery, ambulances, etc.). This leads to the accumulation of data on average speeds along main city thoroughfares and makes it easier to find ways to optimise use of the road network.

2016

Russia 2030: science and technology foresight

Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Land registries based on Geographic Information Systems

Registers developed on the basis of geographic information systems are a system for quantitative and qualitative information on the state of natural resources, their economic and social value, as well as the breakdown and categories of users. All registers contain explicit and implicit spatial data; however, under the existing system the accumulation and storage of information on their “spatiality” is not in any way used in the procedures of services connected with the extraction and comparison of information stored in multiple registers. The creation of registers based on integrated GIS platforms will reduce the time taken to provide a service to a few minutes (currently, in Russian departments it can take days or weeks). During their development, there may be potential to allow for integration into other GIS platforms and databases. Moreover, keeping registers will open up a broad range of analytical capabilities and will become a key factor in the development of state and municipal services on an entirely different level.

2016

Russia 2030: science and technology foresight

Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Techniques to optimise spatial planning

Practices to optimise land planning in accordance with the landscape structure and the environmental and resource potential of the land imply the embedding of the landscape component in the land planning procedure. They will include GIS algorithms for landscape mapping, the development of generally accepted classifiers for various scale levels, and substantial GIS modelling of key stages of landscape planning: engineering and geological assessments of land, analysis of the capacity (vulnerability, resistance) of landscapes, calculation of eco­service systems, arrangement of the environmental framework and planning regional tourist and recreational systems.

2016

Russia 2030: science and technology foresight

Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Development and extraction of unconventional raw materials sources

The creation of equipment to develop and extract non-traditional sources of raw materials will guarantee the necessary conditions for the industrial development of new hydrocarbon sources. The application of these technologies implies a several fold increase in the volume of reserves, the geographical expansion of extraction, and the transformation of the raw hydro­ carbons market with an increase in the proportion of resources and alternatives to traditional oil and natural gas (gas­hydrates, shale gas, “heavy oil” and oil sands, coal mine methane, methane from high gas­bearing coal formations, etc.).

2016

Russia 2030: science and technology foresight

Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Systems to increase oil extraction ratios, including targeted changes in the collecting properties of fields

Systems and methods to increase the oil extraction ratio, including a targeted change in their reservoir properties, in particular at depleted hydrocarbon deposits and low pressure gas deposits, will play a crucial role. These involve a combination of technological solutions, instruments and integrated groups aimed to have a chemical and physical impact on hydrocarbon­bearing formations in general and on individual components (hydrocarbons in beds, hydrocarbons themselves, water, etc.), leading to an increase in oil extraction. New technologies will not only help to increase the effectiveness of hydrocarbon extraction at operating deposits, but also to develop deposits with reserves which are hard to extract, including those which are currently regarded as exhausted. In the long-term, this will significantly increase the operating term of existing deposits and will push back the exhaustion of industrial stocks of traditional hydrocarbon raw materials by a decade. Some technological solutions will also be focused on recycling industrial carbon dioxide emissions.

2016

Russia 2030: science and technology foresight

Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation