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This is a short descriptive paper. It is meant to familiarize the reader with some of the ice environment in the Caspian Sea and it presents data not fully used in western countries. The paper describes results of ice studies of the Northern part of the Caspian Sea based on the processing of space survey data. It is shown that medium-scale space surveys may be used to study icing events, but also river networks, and irrigated and unirrigated lands of the Northern Caspian Sea region. These studies are necessary for the optimal design of flood defences, offshore platforms and for other engineering purposes. Data from Meteor satellites is used to study the ice regime. The advantages of using meteo-satellite data to study the dynamics of ice cover and to identify various types of ice, are shown in comparison with aerial surveys.

The main results obtained by processing satellite photographs of the delta and the shallow offshore mouth area of the Volga made from 1975 to 1997. The study includes electronic treatment of the photographs, zoning of the delta and shallow offshore mouth area, and the evaluation of their main quantitative characteristics. Space and time variations in the boundaries of zones, main landscape components, and the hydrological characteristics (higher aquatic plants, currents, water flow, sediments, etc.). The environmental state of the identified zones and the role of anthropogenic load are estimated.

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The effectiveness of utilizing the remote sensing signatures of various vegetation associations along the Volga delta region as indicators of specific water availability/ flooding conditions is explored. Considerable attention first is devoted to elucidating relationships between higher aquatic vegetation and hydraulic regimes on the basis of field and laboratory studies, before the focus shifts to how remote sensing imagery can provide insights into these relationships. An output of the process was a series of maps depicting environmental change and suggesting sites where reclamation and public health measures were necessary. Translated from: L. N. Vasil'yev, ed., Kosmicheskiye melody izucheniyu biosfery [Remote Sensing Methods in the Study of the Biosphere]. Moscow: Nauka, 1990, pp. 88-93.