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Start Date End Date Event Web link Venue
23-jan-06 26-jan-06 GIS Ostrava 2006

web Ostrava, Czech Republic
23-jan-06 26-jan-06 DGI06- Geospatial Intelligence Conference

web London, United Kigdom
23-jan-06 26-jan-06 CORP 2006 & Geomultimedia06

web Vienna, Austria
23-jan-06 28-jan-06 Third Global Conference on Oceans, Coasts, and islands.

web Paris, France
13-feb-06 15-feb-06 Workshop 3-D Remote Sensing in Forestry

web Vienna, Austria
13-feb-06 15-feb-06

Kuwait International GIS Conference and Exhibition

web Kuwait
15-feb-06 17-feb-06 ‘Scientific Challenges for ESA’s Living Planet Programme’Workshop web Frascati, Italy
21-feb-06 23-feb-06 4th CHRIS Proba workshop web Frascati, Italy
22-Feb-06 24-Feb-06 Joint ISPRS Workshop

web Hannover, Germany
22-Feb-06 24-Feb-06 Intergeo-East: Conference and Trade Fair for Land Management…

web Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro
02-mar-06 03-mar-06 Urban Remote Sensing: Challenges and Solutions

web Berlin-Adlershof, Germany
06- mar-06 10-mar-06 Second World Maritime Technology Conference

web London, UK
09-mar-06 11-mar-06 International symposium on management system for disaster prevention

web Kochi, Japan
13-mar-06 18-mar-06 15 Years of Progress in Altimetry, 13-18 March 2006

web Venice, Italy
20-mar-06 20-mar-06 Industry‘s Role to foster GMES Socio-Economic Benefits web Paris, France
22-mar-06 29-mar-06 Artic Science Summit Week 2006 web Postdam, Germany
27-mar-06 29-mar-06 Early warming Conference III

web Bonn, Germany
28-mar-06 31-mar-06 Geodesy and Geoinformation in the Service of our Daily Life web Berlin, Germany
02-apr-06 04-apr-06 ISSS/LORIS/V4DIS 2006 Conference

web Prague, Czech Republic
02-apr-06 07-apr-06 NATECH disasters

web Vienna, Austria
05-apr-06 07-apr-06 3rd Harmoni-CA Forum & Conference

web Osnabrück, Germany
19-apr-06 20-apr-06 GMES Action Plan: 2007-2015

web

Graz, Austria
20-apr-06 22-apr-06 AGILE 2006.

web Visegrád, Hungary
24-apr-06 28-apr-06 8th International Winds Workshop web Beijing, China
01-may-06 03-may-06 IMAGIN Conference

web Traverse city, Michigan, USA
03-may-06 05-may-06 IST-Africa 2006

web Pretoria, South Africa
07-may-06 11-may-06 2006 NSTI nanotechnology conference and trade show

web Boston, USA
08-may-06 10-may-06 1st Int. Conf. Application of Physical Modelling to Port & Coastal Protection

web Porto, Portugal
08-may-06 11-may-06 Remote Sensing: From Pixels to Processes web Enschede, The Netherlands
08-may-06 12-may-08 Atmospheric Science Conference web Frascati, Italy
15-may-06 17-may-06 UDMS 2006, 25th Urban data management symposium

web Aalborg, Denmark
16-may-06 18-may-06 6th European Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar web Dresden, Germany
22-may-06 25-may-06 Data Systems in Aerospace, DASIA 2006

web Berlin, Germany
24-may-06 26-may-06 FIEOS06- International Symposium on Future Intelligent EO satellites

web Beijing, China
29-may-06 02-jun-06 26th EARSeL Symposium

web Warsaw, Poland
08-jun-06 17-jun-06 COPUOS

web Vienna, Austria
12-jun-06 16-jun-06 6th International Conference on Urban Climate

web Göteborg, Sweden
12-jun-06 16-jun-06 EUTMETSAT Meteorological Satellite Conference

web Helsinki, Finland
18-jun-06 21-jun-06 Conference on Disaster Management

web Toronto, Canada
19-jun-06 23-jun-06 2006 Euro-South East Asia Forum on ICT

web Singapore
24-jun-06 29-jun-06 Climate Change Conference

web Nyäshamn, Sweden
27-jun-06 29-jun-06 International Conference in GIS and Health: GRAFEPHS 2006

web Hong Kong, China
10-jul-06 14-jul-06 GICON 2006, Geo-information connects Society

web Vienna, Austria
11-jul- 06 13-jul-06 Data Mining & Information Engineering 2006

web Prague, Czech Republic
31-jul-05 04-ago-05 IEEE/IGARS 2006- International Geoscience and RS Symposium

web Denver, Colorado
28-sep-06 30-sep-06 RS of Land Use and Land Cover: Applications and Development

web Bonn, Germany
05-sep-06 07-sep-06 Sustainable irrigation 2006

web Bologna, Italy
19-sep-06 22-sep-06 XII Spanish Geographic Information Congress

web Granada, Spain
20-sep-04 23-sep-06 4th International Conference on Geographic Inf. Science

web Muenster, Germany
26-sep-06 29-sep-06 URISA´s 44th Annual Conference & Exposition

web Vancouver, Canada
03-nov-06 11-nov-06 CCT 2006, 9th International Earth Science Congress

web Santiago de Chile, Chile

November 05- The Space Council has endorsed the orientations necessary to pave the way ahead on GMES.

Ministers also recalled the importance of maintaining a European
autonomous Earth Observation capacity supporting political decision
making, as well as the importance of the international dimension of
GMES and its status as the main European contribution to the worldwide
Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). Besides GMES, a
progress report on the development of the European Space Policy has
also been presented to the ministers.
The Space Council – a joint and
concomitant meeting of the European Space Agency Council at ministerial
level and of the European Union Competitiveness Council – was held in
Brussels today. It was jointly chaired by the current Chairs of the ESA
Council at ministerial level and of the EU Competitiveness Council, in
this case the German Minister of Economy and Lord Sainsbury of
Turville, UK Minister for Science respectively.
The Ministers recognized the positive
results of the cooperation between the EU, ESA and their Member States
in the initial phase of GMES, and recommended that this cooperation
should continue to play a key and visible role in the overall
management of GMES.
During this meeting, as highlighted in a
recent Communication of the Commission on this subject, the Ministers
reaffirmed that the implementation of GMES will see the early
deployment of three fast-track services on Emergency Response, Land
Monitoring, and Marine Services, due to enter the pilot operational
phase by 2008. Other services will follow according to a deployment
plan covering the years 2009-2013.
In order to ensure the continuity of data
necessary for the establishment of operational GMES services and to
avoid duplication, the Ministers requested that best use of existing
and planned satellite and in-situ systems on European and national
level is made. To this end, they invited national Agencies and European
organisations which already possess or are in the process of building
up relevant assets and capacities (such as EUMETSAT for instance) to
make their capacities available to the GMES initiative at appropriate
conditions.
Though it was largely devoted to GMES,
this third meeting of the Space Council received a report on the
progress made towards the development of the European Space Programme
and engaged in a debate on the international dimension of the European
Space Policy on the basis of a discussion paper submitted by the
Presidency.
(Credits Europa)

An ambitious ESA project to chart ten years in the life of the Earth‘s
vegetation has reached a midway point, with participants and end-users
having met to review progress so far. Harnessing many terabytes of
satellite data, the GLOBCARBON project is intended to hone the accuracy
of climate change forecasting.

GLOBCARBON involves the development
of a service to generate fully calibrated estimates of land products
based on a variety of Earth Observation data, suitable for assimilation
into sophisticated software simulations of the planet created by the
global carbon modelling community.

The service is focused on the generation
of various global estimates of aspects of terrestrial vegetation: the
number, location and area of fire-affected land, known as Burnt Area
Estimates (BAE), the area of green leaf exposed to incoming sunlight
for photosynthesis, known as Leaf Area Index (LAI), the sunlight
actually absorbed for photosynthesis, known as the Fraction of Absorbed
Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fAPAR) and the Vegetation Growth
Cycle (VGC).

To obtain these products, GLOBCARBON
blends data from a total of five European satellite sensors: the
VEGETATION instruments on SPOT-4 and SPOT-5, the Along Track Scanning
Radiometer-2 (ATSR-2) on ERS-2, plus the Advanced Along Track
Radiometer (AATSR) and Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS)
on Envisat.

At a 17 January GLOBCARBON progress
meeting that took place at ESRIN, ESA‘s European Centre for Earth
Observation, project partners and end-users heard that products for six
complete years are now available, covering the whole of 1998 to 2003. A
follow-on phase is planned to cover up to the end of 2007.

GLOBCARBON is a multi-sensor,
multi-year global service, and as such has been very challenging in
scope,” stated Geert Borstlap of VITO, the Belgium-based organisation
leading the contract for ESA. “In processing terms we had about 45
terabytes of input data and 18 terabytes of output data, and within the
process generated about one petabyte of intermediate data. We developed
the necessary software and had about 25 computers and 25 terabytes of
disks continuously running for one year from start to finish.”

The processing algorithms used to render
raw satellite data into final products have come from a number of
authoritative sources: the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme
(IGBP); the European Commission‘s Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy
(EC-JRC); the University of Toronto; the Centre d‘Etudes Spatiales de
la Biosphère (CESBIO) in Toulouse and the Laboratoire des Sciences du
Climat et l‘Environnement (LSCE) in Gif-Sur-Yvette as well as ESA‘s
ESRIN centre in Frascati, Italy. Dr Stephen Plummer of IGBP oversees
algorithm selection and interfaces with product users.

GLOBCARBON end users – charged with
assessing and validating the products – comprise the Global Carbon
Project (GCP) hosted in Canberra, Australia, the UK Centre for
Terrestrial Carbon Dynamics (CTCD) in Sheffield, the Max Planck
Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M) in Berlin, Germany and the Potsdam
Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).

GLOBCARBON LAI results are also
being checked with LAI products from CYCLOPES, another satellite-based
service being developed through a project called Geoland, part of the
European Commission‘s initial contribution to Global Monitoring to
Environment and Security (GMES), a joint initiative with ESA to develop
an independent environmental monitoring capability for Europe.

Researchers seeking to follow the carbon

Carbon‘s unique compound-forming properties
underpin all life on Earth. They also mean this many-formed element is
abundant not only in the biosphere but also in the geosphere, ocean and
atmosphere, undergoing exchange – often rapidly – between them.

This movement of carbon through the
different components of the Earth system is called the carbon cycle.
Human activities have led the cycle to move out of balance, as fossil
fuel burning and land clearances lead to increased atmospheric carbon
levels driving global warming. This development may also have knock-on
effects on the carbon cycle itself, in the uncertain responses of
oceanic phytoplankton and land vegetation respond to rising
temperatures.

Researchers have developed complex software models of carbon cycle
processes to try and predict future changes, providing vital input for
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and related groups
assessing the potential impact of climate change. However any model is
only as good as input data, and relevant data is lacking for certain
aspects of the carbon cycle – especially land vegetation.

GLOBCARBON
is definitely a useful product for the carbon modelling community,”
explained Dr Tristan Quaife of CTCD. “Information about LAI is
important because it gives us an ability to constrain the amount of
green biomass available for photosynthesis and gas exchange through
evapo-transpiration.

“These are probably the two key processes
controlling carbon exchange with the atmosphere, so with better
knowledge of LAI and its dynamics we have a better chance of estimating
the primary productivity of an ecosystem.

“It is a similar story with vegetation
growth cycle – or phenology. Improved information allows us to improve
our knowledge of the length of time that leaves are out, influencing
vegetation‘s ability to assimilate carbon from the atmosphere. That
isn’t well modelled at the moment because we don‘t fully understand
what it is that makes a plant sprout its leaves, and consequently
models aren‘t so accurate.

“Burnt area estimates are also useful
because we don‘t fully understand global fire occurrence patterns
either. We can map active fires from space, but what we are seeing
there is only the part of the Earth that is combusted at that moment.
To get a complete picture we need to record the full area burnt, which
is useful for determining how much biomass has been removed from the
Earth‘s surface and consequently how much carbon has been liberated
into the atmosphere.”

ESA serving global change research

GLOBCARBON
is being supported through the ESA‘s Data User Element of the Earth
Observation Envelope Programme-2 (EOEP-2), and is one of a family of
projects developing satellite-based products and services that support
investigations of global and climate change within different elements
of the Earth system.

These include GLOBWETLAND which is
developing means of monitoring wetland areas; GLOBCOVER which aims to
create the sharpest-ever global land cover map; GLOBAEROSOL to chart
the distribution of atmospheric aerosols playing a role in climate
forcing; GLOBCOLOUR which users ocean colour data to estimate marine
photosynthesis; and GLOBICE to acquire information on sea ice dynamics.

(Credits ESA)

The European Commission has recently conducted a series of user
workshops to define initial Europe-wide pilot services within the GMES
(Global monitoring for Environment and Security) initiative.

The three events on Land, Marine and Crisis/Emergency services
attracted a well represented user European community, underlining the
will to have a first set of services operational by 2008, as requested
by the Council of the Member States.
The discussions focused on three key issues:
- A detailed scope of the services and consolidated requirements,
- The next implementing steps (action plan for 2006-2008),
- The conditions (funding mechanisms and institutional structure) for the long-term sustainability of GMES services.
Participants emphasised the necessity that
the interactions between the users and the providers must be better
articulated in order to meet users’ needs. In that perspective, they
welcomed the initiative taken by the Commission in organizing this
series of workshops. Participants also recalled that the use of GMES
products may differ from one country to another but cooperative
undertaking at European level should focus on the reliability of
delivery and efficient information dissemination.
The participants of the workshop agreed
that the issues of the political ownership and funding scheme of GMES
have still to be addressed. They insisted on the necessity of a strong
financial public commitment and proposed a GMES management structure
integrating European, national and local levels.
Environment, resources and investment management, city planning or car navigation will benefit from the Land service.
Requirements include an increase in the level of detail and accuracy,
open access to data as well as the updating speed. Users agreed that
core land cover data should be available maximum one year after
satellite data acquisition. Updates should be done every three to five
years for continental coverage, more frequently for urban areas.
Furthermore, a group of 500 functional urban areas have been identified
and will benefit of a more precise mapping. Participants stressed that
coordination of satellite data is required with in-situ land cover/land
use inventory initiatives.
The Marine Core Service will
deliver systematic reference information on the state of the global
ocean and EU seas by providing observational and model data, real-time
predictions and ocean scenario simulations. Several R&D projects
have developed Marine Core Service components which are ready to go
operational in 2008, an effort consistent with the “fast track”
approach. Foreseen to be an initial European contribution to GEOSS, the
Martine Core Service should strengthen the connection with downstream
services such as marine safety, oil spill monitoring or costal
management. The need to integrate and upgrade the capabilities of
existing national services has also been evoked.
The contributions to the workshop on the Crisis/Emergency service
show an agreement on the need to focus on the “rapid response” part of
the crisis cycle. However the rapid response cannot be decoupled from
preparedness, prevention, risk reduction and early warning. At European
level a wide range of risks will be addressed such as floods,
earthquakes, landslides, vegetation fires or accidents associated with
transport. The fast delivery of reference and damage maps of the crisis
area has been identified as a key requirement for the Information
Service in Responses to Crises, Disasters and Emergencies (INSCRIT).
There was a strong demand from the Civil Protection sector for GMES
products since INSCRIT can strengthen civil protection capacity through
best use of new technologies. At world level, GMES INSCRIT can
significantly contribute to the delivery of EU assistance in case of
crises and emergencies. As underlined by the participants, GMES shall
become a single point for resourcing, planning and decision making on
developing the European capacity to better respond to Land, Marine and
Crisis/Emergency information needs.
(Credits Europa)

Dec 2005 : ESA PR 57-2005. The Ministers responsible for space in the European Space Agency‘s 17 Member States and Canada concluded a two-day meeting of ESA‘s ruling Council in Berlin by deciding on a coherent plan for discovery and competitiveness for Europe in space.
They
accordingly endorsed the continuation of a set of ongoing programmes
and agreed to undertake major new initiatives designed to give Europe a
clear vision and tangible means to further strengthen its space
exploration and exploitation activities. They emphasised the need for
Europe to maintain a competitive space sector able to lead the search
for new discoveries, guarantee access to strategic data and new
services, and consolidate its share of the global commercial market.
The
Ministers appreciated the efforts made to heighten European citizens’
awareness of space activities and their benefits, thanks in particular
to the success of recent European scientific missions such as Huygens
and Mars Express. These missions, together with a series of successful
Ariane 5 launches, have confirmed once again that combined European
skills and efforts enable Europe to succeed in the most challenging of
enterprises and achieve a level of excellence for discovery and
innovation in the global arena.
The Ministers also noted the increase in the volume and quality of the
Agency’s relations with its international partners. They recognised
that the global scenario in the space sector is evolving rapidly, in
particular with increasing numbers of players mastering major space
technologies and offering competitive conditions for civil and dual-use
applications.
The Ministers reaffirmed the strategic
importance of Europe continuously improving its scientific,
technological and industrial capabilities in the field of space so as
to enable it to better respond to the expectations of its citizens
concerning the environment, quality of life and security. They noted
that European industry has encountered difficulties in recent years,
resulting from a significant downturn on the commercial market as well
as the competition from industries operating on the basis of lower
production costs; they also took note of the measures taken by industry
to improve its position, through difficult reorganisation and
concentration processes which have led to a reduction in the volume and
distribution of European capabilities.
A major political step was achieved with
the approval of an overall European launcher policy ensuring coherence
between the launcher and satellite fields.
The Ministers recognised that it is crucial to continuously foster
European cooperation on space activity by further developing an overall
European Space Policy encompassing ESA, the EU, plus national and
industrial programmes, and to allocate the available resources and
capabilities to common European initiatives, so as to achieve the
critical mass needed to face the worldwide competition.
Decisions on programmes/activities
On the programmatic side, the Ministers
took decisions concerning the Agency’s mandatory activities (scientific
and basic) and optional programmes (Earth observation,
telecommunications, satellite navigation, human spaceflight,
microgravity, exploration, launchers). Those decisions confirm the ESA
countries’ commitment to boost progress in space science and to be at
the leading edge of discovery, thus supporting the development of
competitive services and future applications for European citizens. The
decisions taken concern the following:
a) The Agency’s mandatory activities: the Level of Resources for 2006-2010 (scientific programme and basic activities) The International Space Station
b) Continuation of ongoing programmes:
– subscriptions for the Earth Observation Envelope Programme
- subscriptions for the International Space Station Exploitation Programme Period 2 and the European ELIPS programme Period 2
- subscriptions for launcher evolutions
- subscriptions for Advanced Research in Telecommunications
Systems (ARTES), focusing on technologies, applications and mission
demonstrations
c) New programmes:
- subscriptions for the Global Monitoring for Environment
and Security (GMES) Space Component, also representing a key European
contribution to the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS)
initiative
- subscriptions for the European Space Exploration
programme Aurora, comprising its first Exploration mission ExoMars and
a Core programme to prepare for future exploration missions
- subscriptions for the preparation of future launchers
- subscriptions for the General Support Technology Programme
(GSTP) for the preparation of new dedicated technology programmes,
focusing on the development of technologies with a view to
non-dependence and security, and aimed at preparing and demonstrating
new concepts such as formation flying satellites in order to carry out
missions of strategic and economic value to space science, Earth
observation and new – in particular security-related – areas.
Note for Editors. For further background information on the programmatic aspects, see ESA Information Note 02/2005
or call:
ESA Communication Department
Media Relations Division
Tel: + 33 (0)1 53 69 71 55
(Credits ESA)

The African partners of the PUMA project (Preparation for the Use of
Meteosat Second Generation in Africa) have presented the results this
inititiative funded by the European Commission during a workshop
co-organised by the unit in charge of the Space Policy at the EC and
EUMETSAT.

A coherent African request
The African meteorological community
created the PUMA working group (Preparation for the Use of Meteosat
Second Generation in Africa) in 1996, with the support of EUMETSAT and
the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). Its mandate was to
generate funds so that all the National Meteorological Services (NMS)
of Africa could have access to the environmental data furnished mainly
by the European MSG satellite.
The PUMA
Group included 5 regional economic groupings, the NMS, the WMO and
EUMETSAT. The Financing Agreement for the project was signed in January
2001.
PUMA has a unique character in a number of ways. It is a Project of
- Continental size with a unique management structure, financed by the EDF and by bilateral funds for non-ACP countries;
- Long term, based on proven information systems and a critical mass of 350 trained experts;
- Based on guaranteed free access to the environmental data distributed by EUMETCast for at least 18 years. A balanced content
PUMA has three components:
- EUMETCast receive stations, providing access to data via
the Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) standard, perfectly adapted to Africa
and based on simple solutions (PCs and TV receive antennas).
- Training in the use and maintenance of the stations and
use of the environmental data. This training has been programmed at
acknowledged African centres (EAMAC (Niamey), IMTR (Nairobi) and the
South African Weather Service).
- Pilot projects easing access to data for the whole body
of African decision-makers, not just those benefiting from the project.
The themes covered are: tracking the water resources of the Kasai
(RDC), continuous monitoring of desertification (Niger), management of
the fish food chain (Senegal), operational use of MSG in southern
Africa (South Africa), degradation of natural resources (Kenya) and
fisheries management (Mauritius).
The Puma project was completed on 30th
September 2005 with all its objectives attained. Follow-up of the PUMA
project: AMESD PUMA has also prepared the future, by means of the
signature by the Executive Secretaries of the 5 regional economic
groupings in September 2002 of a ‘Dakar Declaration’, which requests
the European Commission to launch a new initiative ‘AMESD’
(Environmental Monitoring for Sustainable Development for Africa).
AMESD is based on exploiting the technical, institutional and thematic
experience which has been acquired in PUMA. AMESD will form the basis
of the African element of the European initiative for Global Monitoring
for the Environment and Security (GMES).
(Credits Europa)

On 25 January 2006, the European Commission and EUMETSAT signed letters
outlining future co-operation on GMES (Global Monitoring for
Environment and Security). EU officials say the signing paves the way
to a strong working relationship on Europe’s premier Earth Observation
(EO) initiative, part of a comprehensive European Space Policy.

26 January 2006
The European Commission has been a prime
mover in getting GMES off the ground and it continues to build towards
full European participation in this critical initiative. The letters of
intention, signed in Brussels, establish the basis of a formal
Agreement to follow between the two parties.
The letters have no financial implications
but do set out areas of co-operation and assign clear responsibilities
for the near term. Specifically, the Commission will access existing
EUMETSAT satellite data and services and will define ways to use these
within GMES. It will also recognise EUMETSAT as an operational agency
for future GMES initiatives and will support initiatives to improve the
use of EUMETSAT data in Africa. Meanwhile, EUMETSAT will offer
technical support and guidance on how to establish new services.
Specifically, existing and future EUMETSAT applications will be used in
the to advance fast-track marine services.
“I am very pleased to sign this Agreement
with EUMETSAT. The Commission and EUMETSAT have lots of common grounds,
as the two organisations are driven by user needs. IN addition,
EUMETSAT is a space operational agency. This is very important for us,
particularly for the development of GMES services, which will have to
be user driven and run operationnally. I hope that the signature of
these letters is a first step towards a more intense and fruitful
cooperation between the Commission and EUMETSAT.” said Mr Zourek
Director-General of the Enterprise and Industry Directorate-General,
signing on behalf of the European Commission.
Excellence in international co-operation
The
new EU-EUMETSAT accord will ensure the availability of key satellite
data not only for Europe but also for many developing countries.
Together with the Commission’s Directorate-General for Development,
EUMETSAT has already initiated a continent-wide project enabling all 53
African countries to access EO information through the EUMETCast
system. This project, known as PUMA (Preparation for the Use of
Meteosat Second Generation in Africa) will deploy 60 EUMETCast
receiving stations in Africa and will enable all African countries,
plus a number of regional centres, to access all EUMETSAT data,
products and services.
As a continuation of the PUMA project, on
the request of five African Economic groupings, the European Commission
is now laying the groundwork for the AMESD project (African Monitoring
of the Environment for Sustainable Development).
Combining forces
GMES is a joint initiative of the European
Union and the European Space Agency (ESA). It represents a concerted
effort to bring environmental and security data providers together with
users, to make such information available to those who need it, in the
most efficient way. The EU aims to launch GMES services by 2008.
EUMETSAT is the European Organisation for
the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites. Created through an
international Convention, it is responsible for the launch and
operation of weather and environmental monitoring satellites and for
the delivery of satellite data to end-users. It also plays a major role
in a global meteorological satellite observing system, in coordination
with other space-faring nations. With its unparalleled experience as a
provider of satellite data, EUMETSAT can guarantee delivery of
high-quality data 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The Commission
considers this sort of capability crucial to the operational remit of
GMES.
More info:
(Credits Europa)

“Space technology for sustainable development and disaster management: opportunities within the United Nations system”

VIENNA, 17 January (UN Information Service)
An
open informal session on “Space technology for sustainable development
and disaster management: opportunities within the United Nations
system”, was chaired on the afternoon of 20 January at the headquarters
of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) in Paris. The session took place immediately after the 26th
annual session of the United Nations Inter-Agency Meeting on Outer
Space Activities, from 18 to 20 January.
The purpose of this informal open session
was to exchange views and information between Member States and
observers of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer
Space (COPUOS) and United Nations entities, on activities and
initiatives of the UN system in sustainable development and disaster
management that involve space technology.
Member States had the opportunity to
familiarize themselves with initiatives such as the International
Charter “Space and Major Disasters”, as well as the UNESCO Space
Education Programme and the Open Initiative on the Use of Space
Technology in Support of the World Heritage Convention.
The UN Inter-Agency Meeting on Outer
Space Activities convenes annually, since 1975, to discuss current and
future activities, emergent space technologies of interest and other
related matters. The Meeting reports on its deliberations to COPUOS.
The Meeting also compiles, on behalf of the UN Secretary-General, a
report on the coordinated space-related activities of the UN system,
which serves as a strategic tool for UN entities to further enhance
inter-agency cooperation and avoid duplication of efforts related to
the use of various space applications.
Open informal sessions for the Member
States and observers of COPUOS have been held by the Inter-Agency
Meeting since 2004 to provide a constructive mechanism for an active
dialogue between the entities of the UN system and Member States of
COPUOS. Representatives from the following countries and UN entities
are expected to participate in the open informal session: Australia,
Belgium, Czech Republic, Colombia, France, Germany, Mexico, Nigeria,
Syria, Ukraine, United States, United Nations Department of
Peacekeeping Operations, United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs,
United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, Secretariat for the
International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, World Food Programme,
UNOSAT, UNESCO and the World Meteorological Organization.
The United Nations Office for Outer Space
Affairs (OOSA) implements the decisions of the General Assembly and of
the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and its two
Subcommittees, the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee and the Legal
Subcommittee. The Office is responsible for promoting international
cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space, and assisting
developing countries in using space science and technology. Located in
Vienna, Austria, OOSA maintains a website at http://www.unoosa.org
For information contact:
Qais Sultan
Associate Programme Officer
Telephone: +43 1 26060-4962
E-mail: qais.sultan@unvienna.org
United Nations Information Service
Vienna (UNIS)
P.O.Box 500, A-1400 Vienna, Austria
Tel.: +43 1 260 60 – 3430;
Fax: +43 1 260 60 7 5899
Email: UNIS@unvienna.org
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Five international partnerships have recently been awarded funding
through ESA’s TIGER Innovators project to develop new ways of applying
Earth Observation data as a tool for water resource management in
Africa.

ESA launched the TIGER Initiative in 2002 following the World
Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. Focusing on the use
of space technology in water resource management in Africa, the primary
objective of TIGER is to help African countries overcome problems faced
in the collection, analysis and dissemination of water related
geo-information by exploiting the advantages of Earth Observation
technology. More than 200 African water basin authorities, universities
and other organisations have become involved in TIGER projects across
the continent.
Existing activities have now been bolstered by a new type of project
called TIGER Innovators. These are aimed at developing innovative,
low-cost solutions to support African water authorities in the
conservation and monitoring of scarce water resources.
Utilising the latest Earth Observation technology and Geographical
Information Systems these North-South partnerships involving
European/Canadian and African organisations are intended to tackle a
range of different water-related issues across the African continent.
The five TIGER Innovators projects have been funded by the Data User
Element (DUE) of the Earth Observation Envelope Programme of ESA
(EOEP-2 DUE) with an overall budget of 500 000 Euro.
SHARE
SHARE (Soil Moisture for
Hydrometeorological Applications in the SADC Region) will provide an
effective soil moisture monitoring service for the entire Southern
African Development Community (SADC). The project team combines
expertise in soil moisture remote sensing from Vienna University of
Technology with specialists in hydro-meteorological applications from
University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa.
Despite holding only a small percentage
of the total global water budget, soil moisture plays an important role
in the global water cycle. Data obtained from ESA’s ERS-2 Scatterometer
and Envisat‘s ASAR sensors will form the basis of a new soil moisture
information system.
The ERS-2 Scatterometer uses three
antennas to illuminate the Earth‘s surface in three different
directions and derive low-resolution active microwave data. The
incidence angle of each signal bounced back to the instrument is
dependent upon the relative moisture content of the soil and the
vegetation, the vegetation type and surface roughness. An increase in
angle signifies an increase in soil moisture content, surface
roughness, and vegetation biomass. Whereas the Scatterometer provides
coarse-resolution data, ASAR can achieve a higher resolution, thereby
enhancing the overall accuracy of the data.
The improved resolution of the system
will provide the team with quick and detailed information, accurate to
within 1 km. “With this service, SHARE will address today’s most severe
obstacle in water resource management which is the lack of availability
of reliable soil moisture information on a dynamic basis at a frequency
of a week and less,” said Dr. Klaus Scipal of Vienna University of
Technology.
A major benefit of the project will be
the availability of soil moisture data for use and distribution amongst
water authorities in the region.
“The long-term vision of SHARE is to
supply soil moisture information for the entire African continent, run
by African partners, posted on the web, freely accessible to all,” Dr.
Scipal said. The primary users of these products will be the South
African Weather Service and the South African Agricultural Research
Council.
IWAREMA Zambia
This project is aimed at developing a basic
information system for monitoring the Zambezi river catchment area.
Geographic Information Management in Belgium will be working together
with the University of Zambia, the Zambian water authorities and
workers at the SADC Regional Remote Sensing Unit to alleviate water
shortage problems in this area of Zambia.
Using data from ESA’s multispectral MERIS
sensor on Envisat as well as Landsat imagery, IWAREMA (Integrated Water
Resource management for Zambia) Zambia will provide local researchers
and politicians with the necessary tools for effective water resource
management. Satellite imagery will be used to generate a variety of
maps depicting existing water resources, suitable dam locations and
land cover as well as forming the basis of information bulletins for
local policy-makers.
The local team consists of workers from
the Ministry of Energy and Water Development through the Department of
Water Affairs, the University of Zambia and specific departments of
other responsible Ministries.
Lake Water Quality in Egypt
This project is aimed at designing,
developing and implementing a system for monitoring the water quality
of Lake Manzalah in Egypt. Leading the project will be members of the
engineering company C-CORE, based in Canada, in collaboration with
Egyptian water authorities and consultants from the Finnish Environment
Institute and Canada.
An essential source of freshwater in the
region, the demand on Lake Manzalah has been strained over recent years
owing to increased competition from domestic, industrial and
agricultural users. Accurate and reliable data on the condition of the
lake will be extracted using satellite imagery to monitor key
indicators of water quality such as turbidity, algal blooms and the
presence of invasive plant species.
“Responding to urgent user requirements,
the Earth Observation-based water quality products will represent an
up-scaling in space and time of the conventional field measurements and
will capture the spatiotemporal variability of critical lake water
parameters more accurately then the current monitoring programme,”
reports Mr. Puestow, of C-CORE.
As well as determining how and where the
pollution occurred, this data will be utilised by Egyptian water
authorities in their efforts to prevent further pollution of this
valuable resource.
WADE
WADE (Water resources Assessment using SAR
in Desert and arid lands in West African Ecosystems) will map
sub-surface, man-made water structures and surface water as a means of
combating the effects of desertification. In collaboration with a
consortium of desertification experts known as AGRHYMET, workers at
Advanced Computer Systems (ACS spa) in Rome will use Synthetic Aperture
Radar (SAR) imagery to explore underground and superficial water
resources.
The advantage of using SAR technology
over other tools is that it is both relatively cheap and is capable of
covering a wide surface area.
“The availability of an advanced
technological tool for water resources detection and mapping can
represent a significant improvement for sustainable water management,”
said Gaetano Pace, Project Manager at ACS Spa.
The team will be working closely with
AGRHYMET to map buried water-related artefacts such as wells, foggaras
(a type of ancient irrigation system) and channels in a selected area.
Both the technology and the necessary skills will ultimately be
transferred to local authorities.
Potentially covering an area of hundreds
of square kilometres, this new technology will enable local workers to
pinpoint human-made water features to within 20-30 metres. This
information will help local water authorities and institutions to draw
up effective plans to conserve resources in the region and understand
seasonal natural water dynamics.
Lake Victoria
Bordering the countries of Uganda, Kenya
and Tanzania, Lake Victoria is the largest source of fresh water in
Africa. The economic value of the Lake is well established, as is the
sensitive nature of its environmental condition. For these reasons, all
three countries are committed to monitoring the threats and gaining an
accurate inventory of the contents of this vast and essential resource.
In collaboration with Nairobi’s Regional
Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development, workers at Vexcel in
The Netherlands will use data derived from Earth Observation satellites
to form an information system that monitors both the quality and quantity of water.
“Goals are to develop dedicated products
and services and to build capacity at the three institutes to ensure
that expertise is made available to implement these data structurally,”
reports Léon Schouten, Project Manager at Vexcel.
Beneficiaries of the scheme will include
the Fisheries Resources Research Institute in Uganda, Kenya Marine and
Fisheries Research Institute and the Tanzania Fisheries Research
Institute. Lake Victoria Fisheries Organization and other water
management authorities will also receive valuable information and
training through this project.
(Credits ESA)