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Gisat serves the World Bank in eoworld

Gisat has been selected as one of the European EO services provider within the frame of the joint ESA and the World Bank eoworld initiative to support the World Bank specialists in sustainable urban management and planning activities in megacities around India and Bangladesh. The required services consists of historical assessment of spatial growth of built-ups in metropolitan areas of 3 selected cities: Delhi, Mumbai and Dhaka and includes both production of spatially explicit multi-temporal information monitoring urban development using satellite imagery data as well as the subsequent assessment report provision.

In this value added services, funded under the ESA VAE programme, Gisat capitalizes his long standing worldwide experience in EO based land cover / land use applications in general and in urban monitoring context in particular.

About eoworld initiative

Recognising the value of using Earth observation satellite data to support development activities, ESA and the World Bank decided to work together on several projects through the eoworld joint initiative

ESA and the World Bank first started collaborating two years ago when ESA carried out small-scale pilot projects that demonstrated the potential of Earth observation for the Bank’s operations. Based on the pilots’ promising outcomes, Earth observation information will now be scaled up and incorporated into 12 World Bank activities in the marine environment, water resources management, urban development, urban and disaster risk management, and agriculture and forestry.

World Bank teams defined the requirements for the geo-information that will be provided across operations in Africa, South and Latin America, South Asia, East Asia and the Pacific.

The Earth observation information products are generated by selected specialist companies from across Europe and will delivered to the Bank’s staff and local stakeholders by the end of 2011.

Related information:
ESA news
World Bank news

Steering land cover mapping in Europe

Gisat is a member of the European consortia working in the HELM project. The HELM acronym stands for the *H*armonised *E*uropean *L*and *M*onitoring. The overall objective of HELM is to initiate a move that will make European land monitoring more productive by increasing the alignment of national and sub-national level land monitoring endeavors and enabling their integration to a coherent European Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) data system.

The consortia forms the extensive network of national and sub-national authorities mandated regarding land monitoring with a shared vision, common knowledge, established modes of exchange, and a collective identity to support further GMES, INSPIRE, SEIS related development in land monitoring context in Europe. Gisat with long-standing experience in land monitoring both on European and national level contributes to HELM objectives as member of General Consortia.

The HELM project receives funding through the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Commission. Related information. HELM website:http://www.fp7helm.eu

Planetek Italia is starting the activities to set up the INSPIRE Geoportal, the central portal for environmental information in the European Union.

The company, prime contractor of the temporary consortium with the German company lat/lon, has been awarded the tender for the “Development of the technical components of the INSPIRE Geoportal at European Level”, of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) – Institute for Environment and Sustainability

The INSPIRE Geoportal will be the unique access point to global European environment geoinformation resources shared and made available by all member states within the framework of the “Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community” (INSPIRE) Directive. The compliance with the requirements and the guidelines included in the Directive 2007/2 EC establishing INSPIRE, is identified as being crucial for the success of the GMES service component. In particular the service provider community is called already to contribute with technical solutions meant to promote the use and sharing of the EO data and information.

LINKS

ReSAC participates in a strategic initiative and capacity building programme

ReSAC in joint collaboration with the Agency for Sustainable Development and Eurointegration (ASDE) and other Bulgarian R&D organizations and companies, united under the Bulgarian Information Office on Earth Observation – GMES (BIOG), takes part in the elaboration of a conceptual and services driven project in support of the Initiative/Strategy/Capacity Building program for a

Regional unit for risk and security management for South East Europe (RURSE)

This activity is following the actions, postulated in the Conclusions of the 2nd Earth Observation-GMES Operational Capacity Workshop , organised in Sofia with the support of the Bulgarian Government and the European Commission on 17-18 March 2011 as a first step towards an European network for balanced centralized and decentralized operational capacity approach in risk prevention, harmonizing local and national risk modelling and probabilistic scenarios, and strengthening integrated methodologies for risk assessment, prognosing and estimating natural and anthropogenic disasters impact; Preliminary exchange of different ideas under the initiative were realised with experts from DG ENTRGMES Bureau, JRC-IPSC, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, UK.

The RURSE initiative includes:

  • help decentralised implementation of GMES core and downstream services in a big pan-region of SEE in a sustainable way;
  • development of operational capacity in the countries in the region – South East Europe, including the Danube region;
  • integration/synergy of EU programs/initiatives and strategies;
  • realisation of Europe 2020;
  • reduce the natural and anthropogenic hazards impact in Europe; preliminary modelling and forecast/early warning;
  • increase the role of risk prevention and early warning;
  • strength the direct access to data and services;
  • support pilot initiatives;
  • disseminate good practices;
  • support the harmonisation of data, procedures, methodologies, indicators, Data Quality, Data Validation.

(Source ReSAC)

TRE, analysis to extract ground displacement over the area affected by the Japanese earthquake

Thanks to data available from the GEO Geohazards Supersite initiative (http://supersites.earthobservations.org/sendai.php), TRE has been able to perform an analysis to extract ground displacement over the area affected by the Japanese earthquake occurring on 11th March 2011. Using ENVISAT S6 data, descending track 347, a co-seismic interferogram was produced using two radar satellite images from 16th February and 21th March. The processed area is approximately 650×75 sqkm. Each visible fringe (a complete colour cycle ranging from red, through the colour spectrum, back to red again) refers to ground movement on the order of 2.8cm in the satellite line of sight (LOS).

The figure below shows our co-seismic interferogram:

Background image © Google Earth

Download the .kmz image file from Google Earth

Source TRE

Spacemetric is showcasing its capabilities in airborne video and other geospatial imagery management at the European Day for Border Guards in Warsaw on 25th May 2011.

The ED4BG conference and exhibition is organised by Frontex, the EU border security agency and collects solution providers and representatives from police, border and coast guards throughout the EU in a forum for discussion and exchange of best practices.

Source

March 11, 2011 at 5:46 (UTC) an earthquake of magnitude 8.9 hit Japan, occuring at a hundred kilometers off Miyagi Prefecture in northeastern Honshu, the main island of the archipelago. The area is hit again one hour later by a tsunami that devastates everything in its path. The assessment is very heavy amounting to thousands of death and heavy damage, with a nuclear threat due to an explosion at the nuclear plant in Fukushima.

SERTIT

SPOT 4/5 and FORMOSAT-2 imagery tasking initiated [2011-03-31]

Space data for ice channeling in White Sea [2011-03-31]

European Space Agency reps familiarized themselves with Russian imaging technologies [2011-03-31]

Free workshops of world leading Operators to take place in MIIGAiK [2011-03-29]

Activities to deploy MSU’s geoportal: Geography Department meeting [2011-03-28]

Effective approach towards operational satellite-based monitoring [2011-03-24]

Mapping, navigation, information systems: new “Earth from Space” magazine’s issue articles available [2011-03-22]

Second Unit of Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant: smoke column detected on March 18 satellite images [2011-03-18]

Perspectives of using micro-satellites for emergencies monitoring and response: London conference summary [2011-03-14]

Earthquake in Japan: detailed satellite images received [2011-03-12]

Urals Federal University can now handle satellite data in real-time [2011-03-11]

New on-line service – satellite-based control of maritime environment [2011-03-04]


ReSAC participation in the HELM project, 7 FP Research programme, EU

On 16 and 17 of March 2011, in Baden, Austria was held kick-off meeting of partners in general consortium, one of which is the Remote Sensing Application Center – ReSAC, of the project financed by the 7-th Framework Program

HELM: Harmonised European Land Monitoring

HELM is a Coordination Action which has responded to the call FP7-Space 2010.1.1-06, Coordination of national activities for land monitoring in the frame of the program for Global Monitoring for Environment and Security – GMES

HELM has started in January 2011. The project website www.FP7HELM.eu will be online soon.

HELM is a network of authorities concerned with land monitoring across Europe. It will initiate a move to increase the maturity of European land monitoring along five sequential steps:

  • Mutual interest in achieving reciprocal knowledge.
  • Shared visions and planning for the future.
  • Joint activities by taking on tasks collectively.
  • Alignment of national systems involving the mutual adaptation of data interpretation methods and of the timing of data gathering.
  • Lasting integration and combining data across all administrative levels.

COSMOS Matchmaking Event, Sofia, Bulgaria, 18th of March 2011

ReSAC – partner in the organization of the COSMOS Matchmaking Event, Sofia, Bulgaria, 18th of March 2011

On 18th of March 2011 the National FP7 Space Contact Points network COSMOS is offering a matchmaking event related with the upcoming 5th Space call of FP7. The event is organized in the frame of the 2nd Earth Observation-GMES Operational Capacity Workshop and is supported by the Bulgarian Information Office for GMES (BIOG).

The main objective of the matchmaking event is to create an opportunity for R&D institutes, universities, SMEs, industry and other organizations working in the field of Space: GMES Service and Space Component. Interested organizations can present proposal ideas, their competencies or their field of work via posters and oral presentations. This aims at identifying common interest with other players and thus finally at submitting joint proposals under the next FP7 Space call.

All the presentations and posters will be published on the Bulgarian Information Office for GMES (BIOG) website as well as on the NCP network COSMOS website after approval by the authors.

We are looking forward to welcome you in the COSMOS Matchmaking Event – Bulgaria 2011.

The agenda of the event can be found HERE, and you can register for the event HERE

For more information, please contact Vassil Vassilev (FP7 NCP Space – Bulgaria):
vassil.vassilev@resac-bg.org

ERDAS will co-host a series of 11 World Tour events with distributor Planetek Italia in March and April.

The Italian branch of the tour will kick off on March 29 in Rome at the Star Hotel Metropole, and will include stops in Palermo, Milan, Venice, Cagliari and Bari. The tour will conclude on April 19 in Ancona.

During the events, ERDAS will share its unique “sensor to the internet” comprehensive workflow. This revolutionary enterprise approach has resulted in a cohesive product lineup that can handle the entire geospatial workflow from beginning to end with seamless transition between steps – authoring data sets from raw data, managing extensive volumes of data, connecting users, and rapidly delivering information to other users and organizations.

ERDAS and Planetek Italia will showcase the enhancements in ERDAS® 2011 that increase productivity, such as the ability to localize ERDAS products for a global audience, integrated support for Microsoft Bing™ Maps base imagery and map data, distributed processing throughout the desktop offerings, and a new product, ERDAS Engine.

For a more detailed list of ERDAS 2011 events, of What’s New in ERDAS 2011, a webinar showcasing new features, and full product descriptions and technical specifications for each product in the ERDAS portfolio, please visit www.erdas.com

Source Planetek