As part of scientific work, the employees of the laboratory of geographic information systems of the Center of Technologies of the Academy of Sciences of Turkmenistan created the country's first spectral library of pasture vegetation, the State Publishing Service reports.

The data were obtained by remote sensing, which consists in studying the reflective spectral properties of the surface of plants. Analysis of such radiation in various ranges can give the researcher information about the state of soil and vegetation cover, show their chemical composition, temperature, humidity, possible damage or disease in plants. Thus, the characteristics of the substances that make up parts of plants or areas of soil can be recorded.

Leading researcher of the laboratory of GIS technologies of the Center of Technologies of the Academy of Sciences of Turkmenistan, candidate of technical sciences Mahri Annameredova:

The measurements of the spectral characteristics of vegetation were carried out using a “FieldSpec HandHeld 2 Pro” spectroradiometer (ASD Inc.), the work was carried out in the territory adjacent to the Turkmen Lake “Altyn Asyr” and the Caspian lowland, the selection of plant samples for spectrometry and pigment analysis was carried out in different seasonal conditions. The species diversity included trees, shrubs, dwarf shrubs and herbaceous plants, which are potential food for grazing animals such as sheep and camels. As a result, packages of characteristics for 29 species of flora were prepared, along with a description of the object, data of spectrometric measurements in the form of graphs, geographical coordinates and a photograph of the sample.

The spectral library of pasture vegetation is one of the tools for systematic monitoring of the state of pasture lands, obtaining operational information about the direction and scale of changes occurring in them in order to create a solid forage base and develop animal husbandry.

Such a library can be used in solving scientific and applied problems, and will optimize the work with remote sensing data of different resolution levels.