SYKE

The Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) is the national environmental research and development centre of the environmental administration. Research and development in SYKE deals with changes in the environment, cause and effect relationships, means of resolving environmental problems and effects of policy measures. SYKE is the national environmental information centre and provides expert services and takes care of certain national and international statutory tasks.

SYKE is actively involved in international research cooperation. Our special interest is to participate in the EU research programmes, but also in projects within the Nordic and Baltic Sea cooperation. SYKE is also engaged in international networking, in particular regarding water issues. SYKE also provides international consulting services covering a wide range of environmentalexpertise.

SYKE works in close cooperation with the Ministry of the Environment in various expert tasks related to international agreements, action programmes and EU legislation. In many cases SYKE has the task of competent authority or national focal point.

The Geoinformatics and landuse division (GEO) is responsible for production, maintenance and support of GIS data and systems in the environmental administration in Finland. The Remote Sensing group (7 persons) in GEO develops and runs operational applications for the mapping and monitoring of environment using EO data. Currently operational applications are monitoring of show melt, monitoring of sea surface temperatures and water quality in the Baltic Sea and land use/land cover mapping. GEO is responsible for the production of CORINE2000 land cover data over Finland. System for monitoring water quality in inland lakes is under development. During snow melt period and summer TERRA MODIS and NOAA AVHRR data is collected, processed and products disseminated in near real time.

Ongoing activities in SYKE related to the project are:

• National focal point for Ramsar Convention
• National authority in charge with CorineLand Cover2000 and Image 2000 -projects
• User requirement partner in Earth Observation Natura 2000+
• Partner for Life Environment projects
• National Focal Point to the European Environment Agency (EEA)
• The Finnish Clearing-House Mechanism of the Convention on Biological Diversity
• Monitoring and assessment of ecological quality of aquatic environments
• Foundations of the typification, ecological classification and monitoring of water bodies
• Database maintenance for Natura 2000 network
• Geoinformation database and systems development and maintenanace for environmental administration.