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ISSN 2070-7401 (Print), ISSN 2411-0280 (Online)
Sovremennye problemy distantsionnogo zondirovaniya Zemli iz kosmosa
CURRENT PROBLEMS IN REMOTE SENSING OF THE EARTH FROM SPACE

  

Sovremennye problemy distantsionnogo zondirovaniya Zemli iz kosmosa, 2026, V. 23, No. 5, pp. 211-230

Vega-Hydro: A specialized satellite information system for hydrological applications

M.V. Vrublevsky 1 , M.A. Burtsev 1 , E.A. Zakharova 2 , D.A. Kobets 1 , I.N. Krylenko 2, 3 , E.A. Loupian 1 , V.M. Moreido 2 , V.O. Polyanin 2 , I.A. Uvarov 1 
1 Space Research Institute RAS, Moscow, Russia
2 Water Problems Institute RAS, Moscow, Russia
3 Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
Accepted: 01.09.2026
DOI: 10.21046/2070-7401-2026-23-5-211-230
The reduction of the ground-based observational hydrological network, as well as increasing demand for heterogeneous, high-quality and operational satellite data on the state of water resource systems under climate change conditions, necessitate creation of a satellite information system to address hydrological problems. The article describes the main tasks, architecture layout and current capabilities of such a system — the specialized satellite information system called Vega-Hydro. This work lays the foundation for developing an accessible domestic service for acquiring, storing, and processing data of Earth remote sensing from space intended for hydrologists, water management specialists and decision-makers in water resource management. Specialists from Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IKI RAS) and Water Problems Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (WPI RAS) have developed a working prototype of Vega-Hydro (http://hydro.geosmis.ru/). The system provides access to both thematic data useful for solving land hydrology problems and satellite imagery from ultra-large distributed archives, as well as to computing resources of the IKI-Monitoring Shared Use Center (IKI-Monitoring SUC, http://ckp.geosmis.ru/) of IKI RAS for data storage, processing, and analysis. In this work, the capabilities implemented in the system are demonstrated through explicit examples, including technological solutions developed specially for this system with the aim to study and assess the state of water bodies and near-water ecosystems. Particular attention is paid to tools that, as a rule, either are absent in thematic information services or distributed across different platforms, making their application in comprehensive analysis difficult. These tools include object-based monitoring instrumentation, tools for work with radar altimetry data and analytical BI (Business Intelligence) tools that enable, among other things, analysis of time series of various characteristics of the study area aggregated within the boundaries of different-level watersheds.
Keywords: remote sensing, satellite data, information system, access to satellite data, hydrology, Vega-Hydro
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