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(January 2014) BEIJING – Fabio Rocca, along with seven other foreign scientists, was honored by the Chinese Government as part of the international sci-tech cooperation awards ceremony, held in Beijing on January 10th.

Fabio Rocca, emeritus professor of digital signal processing at the Politecnico di Milano and President of TRE, and the other seven experts from German, the US, Russia and Canada, were given the awards at a high-level ceremony held annually to honor distinguished scientists and research achievements. Specifically Fabio Rocca has established a China-European cooperation on Earth Observation since 2004.

Top Chinese leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, attended the ceremony.

Vice Premier Liu Yandong met with six of the eight award winners after the ceremony, congratulating them and promising that China will enhance international sci-tech cooperation and create a better environment for foreign scientists’ work in China.

Read here the interview to Fabio Rocca

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Latest news: SERTIT’s intervention in IPGP, POLLUTEC Horizons 2013, mapped Super-Typhoon…

SERTIT’s intervention in IPGP, 6 December 2013

A presentation entitled « Rapid exploitation of earth observation data for crisis mapping – Potentiality of Pleiades-HR images for the generation of digital surface models “ will be given to the students in remote sensing at the Institute of Earth Physics of Paris, the 6th of December 2013. This oral presentation open to the public will present some operational cartographic products over catastrophic events, and then will deal with methodology of DSM generation from optical satellite acquisitions as well as application examples.
More information can be found on IPGP’s website.

POLLUTEC Horizons 2013, 3-6 December 2013

SERTIT will attend the POLLUTEC Horizons 2013 show, held from 3rd until December 6th 2013 (with a special gala evening on the 5th) in the exhibition center Paris Nord Villepinte. Unique gathering of this kind in Europe in 2013, this event offers an opportunity to address as a whole subjects linked to Eco technologies, energy and sustainable development: air quality, waste recycling and conversion, water treatment and saving, energy efficiency…
This exhibition aims to unveil the latest research breakthroughs and innovative solutions as regards environmental and energy topics. As a key player in Earth Observation technologies, SERTIT is present for two days (the 4th and 5th of December) to showcase its activities, especially as regards to emergency response to risks and biodiversity protection, within the space applications village (Hall 6 – Stand N18).
More information can be found on the Village Spatial and on POLLUTEC’s official website.

Super-Typhoon in the Philippines, November 2013

At the beginning of November 2013, the typhoon Haiyan badly hit several countries in South-East Asia: Micronesia and Palau, Taiwan, China, Vietnam and in particular the Philippines on the 07 and 08 of November. It is probably the strongest storm ever recorded. It is reported that many thousands of people died and approximately 11 million people have been affected by the passage of this super-typhoon. Within the framework of the International Charter ‘Space and Major Disasters’, SERTIT, in cooperation with global value adders, mapped cyclone impact particularly in the northern part of Cebu Island, the Daanbantayan area and Bantayan island.
Mapping products can be consulted on SERTIT’s and DLR ZKI’s Rapid Mapping Service Portals.

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Less than seven months after launch, Earth-watcher Proba-V is ready to provide global vegetation data for operational and scientific use.

Launched by a Vega rocket from French Guiana in the early hours of 7 May, the Proba-V miniaturised satellite is designed to map land cover and vegetation growth across the entire planet every two days at a resolution of 330 m.

The satellite is less than a cubic metre in volume, and carries a Vegetation instrument that collects light in the blue, red, near-infrared and mid-infrared wavebands. This allows Proba-V to distinguish between different types of land cover and plant species, including crops.

Vital uses of these data include day-by-day tracking of vegetation development, alerting authorities to crop failures, monitoring inland water resources and tracing the steady spread of deserts and deforestation.

Immediately following its launch, Proba-V entered the Launch and Early Operations Phase to establish contact, confirm its pointing direction and check the various subsystems to ensure their functionality following the stress of launch.

All satellite systems were then activated and evaluated during the six-month commissioning phase. This included a careful cross-calibration of the Vegetation imager with the previous generation of the instrument, operating on France’s Spot 5 satellite, to ensure data compatibility. Radiometric and geometric calibration was also executed.

The crucial commissioning phase is now complete and the satellite has been declared ready for operations.

“We are anticipating that with the data from Proba-V the user community ranging from operational Copernicus services to scientific users will be able to answer questions related to the state of global vegetation and its dynamic changes in a seasonal context,” said Bianca Hoersch, Proba-V Mission Manager.

“It will furthermore extend the valuable time series that was started by the Spot 4/5 Vegetation instruments 15 years ago.”

Access to near-realtime data at a 1 km resolution is free and open with user registration, with high-resolution data accessible for free to the research and development community.

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Planetek Italia presented at the Big Data Workshop organized by the Italian Space Agency a use case and concept for the integration of the INSPIRE infrastructure and in particular its Geoportal into the operational workflow of EO workers in search for ancillary data.

Paolo Manunta highlighted the added value of cross-border and cross-language searches on a vast archive of data from the 34 INSPIRE themes for EO workers and pointed out some integration issues with existing workflows.

The event information and presentations on Italian Space Agency website

Slideshare Presentation INSPIREd computing for EO Based Services made by Paolo Manunta, Planetek Italia (PDF version)

See more at

(December 2013) GMV is taking part in the ArcFUEL project, offering a complete and modern forest-fire mapping methodology in the Mediterranean region of Europe, plus a series of online fuel classification databases based on INSPIRE’s common implementing rules.


ArcFUEL is a LIFE+ project; the LIFE+ program, EU’s only financial instrument dedicated exclusively to the environment, is in turn broken down into three priority areas; ArcFUEL comes under nature and biodiversity. The project is being led by EPSILON International SA; apart from GMV, the other participants are outstanding European laboratories and organizations involved in forest-fire research and prevention (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Algosystems SA, ADAI and Epsilon Italia srl).

The ArcFUEL methodology, harnessing remote-sensing and earth-observation techniques, has proved its mettle in a series of tests in the Mediterranean, the area most heavily affected by forest fires within the European Union.

Forest fires obey no borders and it is frequent in summer to see fires spread from one member state to a neighboring one. Effective management of forest fires calls for fuel mapping, all too often missing in practice. With very few exceptions Europe’s existing forest-fuel maps are local or regional in scope and bear no uniformity from one to another, drawn up on different dates and with different methodologies and approaches. ArcFUEL aims to remedy this shortfall by standardizing mapping procedures and ensuring they are compatible with INSPIRE’s geospatial data schemes.

The composition, structure and state of forest fuel are all crucial factors in determining how a fire develops and spreads. Knowledge of fuel models and their spatial pattern is a vital spoke in the coordination of the best forest-fire management strategy.

GMV’s contribution to ArcFUEL includes definition of the workflow and process chain and also implementation of this chain in the two Spanish pilot areas, one of them located in the Biosphere Reserve of Sierra de las Nieves (training area) and the second in the provinces of Malaga and Cordoba (complete working area). To carry out this project GMV is tapping into the spatial data generated by the Environmental Information of Andalusia Network (La Red de Información Ambiental de Andalucía: REDIAM) and by Spain’s Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment.

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(Winter 2013). After almost a decade during which EUROSENSE was involved in the creation of a large scale base map (GRB or “Grootschalig Referentie Bestand) of almost 70 Flemish municipalities, the Flemish Geographical Information Agency (AGIV) awarded EUROSENSE with a project to update the large scale base map of all the municipalities in the provinces of Oost-Vlaanderen and Antwerp (135 in total) over a period of 3 years.

The update takes place in the so-called “inner terrain”, which corresponds to the area which is not accessible to land surveyors and for which photogrammetric mapping thus needs to be applied. The update process is steered by means of “anomalies”, i.e. place where changes occurred, detected by the AGIV.

After a start-up period over the summer of 2013, EUROSENSE has established a clear workflow and adapted tools in order to deliver according to the GRB-specifications. The first municipalities were delivered to AGIV at the beginning of September, as foreseen in the strict time schedule. In the meanwhile, EUROSENSE received the approvals of the first municipalities. The first of a lot to come!

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GAF AG and partners successfully complete the obsAIRve project and continue provision of resulting services

GAF AG, together with a group of European partners, has successfully implemented a project to provide satellite and in-situ based air quality information services for the European Commission’s DG for Enterprise and Industry. The air quality monitoring services deliver near-real-time information through a website and mobile apps and build on previous experience gained in the European Copernicus programme. The project is led by GAF and involves the partners DLR, T-Systems International and the Environment Agency Austria.

Air quality is a key parameter for quality of life. A recent study (2013 Report on Air Quality in Europe) by the European Environment Agency (EEA) states that more than 90 percent of urban citizens in the European Union (EU) are exposed to air pollutants at levels that exceed the threshold values specified by the World Health Organisation (WHO). To increase awareness about air pollution and to provide the European public with up-to-date air quality information, the European Commission initiated the obsAIRve project as a Copernicus pilot service in 2010. Copernicus (formerly GMES – Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) is a joint European Union (EU) and European Space Agency (ESA) initiative promoting the operational use of earth observation based products and services for the environment.

ObsAIRve provides near real-time air quality information services throughout Europe based on satellite and in-situ data. Major air pollutants are ozone (O3), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and particulate matter with a particle diameter of up to 10 µm (PM10). The obsAIRve services provide information about these pollutants in the form of up-to-date maps and forecasts ranging up to 72 hours. In-situ measurement data are integrated from a range of sources: Near real-time air quality values from thousands of measurement stations located all over Europe are provided by the EEA and air quality measurement indices from about 90 European cities are procured via the Citeair project. In order to create a uniform information product from the heterogeneous data sources, obsAIRve automatically refines raw input data and converts it to the Common Air Quality Index (CAQI). Several air quality model forecasts computed by the Copernicus projects MACC and PASODOBLE are also automatically assembled into a single European-wide air quality map.

The resulting information is disseminated to citizens via a range of communication channels, such as a dedicated website (www.obsairve.eu) and mobile apps for Android and iOS.

Dr. Matthias Baron, GAF Project Manager, comments: “This project underlines GAF’s role as a one-stop-shop for comprehensive global environmental information services based on earth observation and geo-information.” Dr. Peter Volk, GAF CEO, adds: “The success of this project demonstrates the importance of Copernicus services for the daily life of European citizens, and we aim to provide even higher spatial and temporal resolutions in the future.

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After three years the project has been concluded with a very positive result; the consortium has therefore decided to maintain the obsAIRve services and portal throughout 2014.

About GAF AG – Germany
GAF AG is globally active and has an international reputation as a skilled provider of project design, management and implementation services in the fields of geo-information, satellite remote sensing and spatial IT consultancy for private and public clients. Over the past 28 years, GAF has worked in more than 100 countries throughout Europe, Africa, South-America and Asia. More information about GAF is available at www.gaf.de

To obtain more information, please contact:
GAF AG Tel. +49 (0) 89 12 15 28 0
www.gaf.de / info@gaf.de

(17 December 2013) To celebrate the first thirty years of activity of the Space Geodesy Centre of Matera, December 17, staff joined with the CEO of e-GEOS, Marcello Maranesi, e-GEOS president, Nazzareno Mandolesi, Telespazio CEO Luigi Pasquali and General Manager Lucio Magliozzi .

Colleagues from the Italian Space Agency (ASI) station who had shared this experience from inception, also took part in the festivities with a speech from Ing. Giuseppe Bianco

After a brief tour of the station and operating rooms, led by the Station Head Ing. Fonti, the delegation visiting Matera gathered for a toast and Marcello Maranesi in a warm and affectionate address to all, wanted to emphasize the cohesion, enthusiasm and commitment of the Matera staff that have made the Centre into a grand family that can look with confidence and optimism to the future.

President Mandolesi also wanted to emphasize the quality and excellence of the work done in Matera over the last thirty years, calling for the development of new activities and new funding aimed at space programs such as Copernicus and the 2nd generation of COSMO- SkyMed, important for the future of the Centre.

Luigi Pasquali, concluding the meeting, stressed the importance of Earth observation activities throughout the Telespazio group, reiterating how e-GEOS and its collaboration with the Italian Space Agency are important to the development of more innovative and effective technologies.

Being part of the Telespazio group, said Pasquali, is a source of pride and inspiration for the future.

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OPTIRAD (OPTImisation environment for joint retrieval of multi-sensor RADiances) aims to advance the state of the art in EO data assimilation in land surface processes.

Jan 2014-Dec2016

The project will build on existing tools and research results (EO-LDAS) to use EO data to improve estimation of some key environmental parameters, notably land surface and vegetation status, and carbon fluxes. The project will implement a Collaborative Research Environment for land data assimilation using ipython hosted on the Centre for Environmental Monitoring from Space (CEMS) computing environment.

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January 13, 2014 Berlin, Germany: BlackBridge is pleased to announce that it is now an authorized reseller of Intermap’s NEXTMap World 30 Digital Surface Model (DSM). Customers now have the opportunity to purchase data that enables a wide variety of applications and efficiently perform geospatial analyses.

NEXTMap World 30 is built using corrected public data as the input source and offers users high performance accuracy and versatility. The World 30 digital surface model has a 30-meter ground sampling distance and filled voids that will give users the accuracy they need in industries such as agriculture, telecommunications, energy, risk planning, water management, defense, military, and a host of government services.

The strength of this partnership is that BlackBridge’s RapidEye imagery and Intermap’s World 30 data are very complimentary with each other. Intermap’s World 30 data add an extra degree of accuracy to the orthorectification of RapidEye imagery while providing an excellent data source to use in terrain draping for visual simulation or other modeling applications. The use of RapidEye imagery allows for the inclusion of a visual and spectral component to the terrain data when doing analysis of geologic hazards, disaster monitoring, or cartographic applications.

This DSM uses over 204 million ground control points with an accuracy of 25 cm RMSE or better to control the vertical elevation of an aggregated surface model derived from ASTER GDEM v2, SRTM v2.1, and GTOPO30.The corrected DSMs were combined with Intermap’s proprietary data fusion technology to create a seamless, void-filled, and consistent dataset with a global accuracy of 7 meters RMSE. Additionally, it offers the most comprehensive coverage of the earth and regular automatic data updates for customers.

To find out more about Intermap’s NextMap World 30 please visit www.intermap.com. For an overview of the BlackBridge, please visit www.blackbridge.com.

About BlackBridge

BlackBridge is focused on providing end-to-end solutions across the geospatial value chain. This includes satellite operations, ground station services, data center and geocloud solutions, and worldwide satellite imagery distribution through over 100 BlackBridge partners, combined with the creation of value added products and services.

BlackBridge – Delivering the world
www.blackbridge.com

About Intermap Technologies

Headquartered in Denver, Colorado – Intermap (www.intermap.com) is an industry leader in geospatial solutions on demand with its secure, cloud based Orion Platform™. Through its powerful suite of 3DBI applications and proprietary development of contiguous databases that fuse volumes of geospatial data into a single source, the Orion Platform is able to provide location- based solutions for customers in diverse markets around the world. For more information please visit www.intermap.com.

Media Contact
Nicole Heringer
Marketing Communications Manager
Kurfürstendamm 22, 10th floor
10719 Berlin, Germany
press@blackbridge.com
(49) 030 609 8300 516