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(November 2010) Meeting the environmental needs of an ever-expanding Europe requires consistent and regularly updated information on its land cover and use. As part of ESA’s GlobCorine project, a pan-European land cover and use map for 2009 is now available online.

The map, based on ESA’s Envisat MERIS data from 1 January to 31 December 2009, is the first of its kind to be produced in such a short time – nine months as opposed to years. GlobCorine shows how an automated service can generate and regularly update such maps, which are essential for environmental agencies.

The map, providing a resolution of 300 m, was delivered to the European Environmental Agency (EEA), the project’s main user, in October.

“The novelty of this map is that we can finally have relevant, timely global land cover information compatible with the time series of European Corine land cover data for decision-making,” EEA’s Chris Steenmans, Head of Programme, Shared Environmental Information System, said at the final GlobCorine meeting held at ESA’s Earth observation centre (ESRIN) in Frascati, Italy, last week.

“If you want to bring the environment into the context of economic and social development, then the speed of environmental information delivery needs to keep pace with economists and decision-makers for sustainable development.

“This means we can’t continue what we have done in the past, which was to report on land use changes using three or sometimes five-year-old data. Instead, we have to provide up-to-date figures that will help us to monitor sustainability of our ecosystem services.”

Jean-Louis Weber, Special Adviser on Economic Environmental Accounting at EEA, said the idea of GlobCorine is based on two needs: “EEA has been asked by the European Commission to organise an information and reporting system on the state of the environment for the whole pan-European and Mediterranean region, and land cover is basic information needed to understand more complex processes.

EEA is also involved in ‘green accounting’ in the UN context where we cooperate with the World Bank for ecosystem evaluation methodologies. Recently, a Global Partnership for Ecosystem Valuation has been organised by the World Bank.

“Before monetary evaluation can begin, one must describe the ecosystems and how they change. The GlobCorine map is a precursor that can be used to organise this type of information and accounting.”

Sophie Bontemps of the Universite catholique de Louvain in Belgium, which carried out GlobCorine with ESA, said she was pleased to work in close collaboration with EEA because it allowed her to obtain a clear view of the usefulness of the project.

“GlobCorine is much more than a project aiming to deliver a European land cover map. It is the scientific and technical demonstration that a description of the state of land surface on a continental scale can be provided within a year.”

Source

(November 2010) Four leading insurance climate change initiatives, whose combined membership includes more than a hundred of the world’s leading insurers across Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America, and Oceania, have combined their members’ expertise to present a Statement on Risk Management and Climate Change in the Developing World.

ClimateWise, The Geneva Association, the Munich Climate Insurance Initiative (MCII) and leading insurance companies within the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) are collaborating to highlight the huge potential benefits of using government action to enable the knowledge and expertise from the insurance industry to play its fullest role in risk management in developing countries, particularly those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. This government action includes implementing national risk management processes and using limited government investment to measure and reduce those risks.

Read the Statement…

Source GMES.Info

PARIS — The most successful Earth observation satellite builder on the global market, Astrium of Europe, is willing to accept that 20 percent of its contracts’ value goes to transferring technology to customer nations and ultimately may undermine future Astrium business, a senior Astrium official said Nov. 24.

Jean Dauphin, head of the Earth observation and science division at Astrium France, said Astrium makes a conscious effort to limit the amount of technology it inadvertently gives to customers. But some contracts, most recently one with the government of Kazakhstan, stipulate that the winning bidder must train local engineers in satellite production and satellite imagery analysis.

For these nations, buying a satellite is a way of jump-starting their space industrial base. This in effect means hiring Astrium to help them reach a point where they no longer will need Astrium.

“This is an issue we do look at closely,” Dauphin said during a Nov. 24 space policy conference here organized by Euroconsult of Paris and the French aerospace industries association, GIFAS. “Up to now, technology transfer has only included a few elements, and we think it’s OK if about 20 percent of the contract is tied to this. We think 20 percent is an acceptable level for Europe.”

Both on its own and through its Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) division, based in Britain, Astrium has sold more Earth observation satellites around the world than anyone else in the past 20 years. The recent order from Kazakhstan is for an AstroSat 500 Mark 2 platform, similar to the one Astrium is selling to the Spanish government for Spain’s Ingenio optical Earth observation program. The platform is also used for Astrium’s Spot 6 and Spot 7 satellites, which are being built for Spot Image, which is owned by Astrium Satellites’ sister company, Astrium Services.

In the past, Astrium, with its occasional partner, imaging sensor builder Thales Alenia Space, and SSTL have faced little U.S. competition as they visited the capitals of Asia, Africa and Latin America displaying their product portfolio.

But Dauphin and Cedric Balty, marketing manager for Thales Alenia Space, said during the conference that this may be changing. Both said they feel the presence of U.S. competitors in more places now than before, speculating that the reason is that the coming drop in U.S. Defense Department spending is forcing big U.S aerospace players to look for new markets.

Astrium and Thales Alenia Space are in the hunt for an Earth observation satellite contract from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which for more than a decade has run an on-again, off-again competition, sometimes in partnership with other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

U.S. industry officials said other competitors for the UAE satellite include a Ball-Raytheon team and Lockheed Martin on its own as a satellite builder.

One alternative to purchasing a satellite for the UAE would be to purchase high-resolution optical imagery from a U.S. or European company. If that is the option selected, Astrium Services could be competing against Telespazio of Rome, GeoEye of Dulles, Va., and DigitalGlobe of Longmont, Colo.

Dauphin and other European officials have said the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s recent 10-year, $7.3 billion contract divided between DigitalGlobe and GeoEye will permit the companies to amortize their capital investment, allowing them to sell high-resolution data to other customers at a marginal cost.

Dauphin urged European governments to get more active in integrating Earth observation satellite sales into top-level political discussions with nations seeking their own satellite capacity.

By Peter B. de Selding
Source

November 2010

On 24 November 2010, the European Space Agency’s Earth Observation Programme Board approved the extension of the GOCE (Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer) mission until the end of 2012.

GOCE has been successfully delivering high quality data sets with unprecedented accuracy since March 2009. The extension of its mission enables an additional 18.5 months of mission operations.

The products based on GOCE satellite data are distinguished into five different themes:

  • Oceanography
  • Solid-Earth
  • Geodesy
  • Glaciology
  • Sea level change studies

GOCE data are available online through ESA’s Earth observation user services tools.

More information is available at:
http://earth.esa.int/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=5706

Express map delivery from space (2010-11-23)

Meeting the environmental needs of an ever-expanding Europe requires consistent and regularly updated information on its land cover and use

As part of ESA’s GlobCorine project, a pan-European land cover and use map for 2009 is now available online.

more info

Satellites tracking Mt Merapi volcanic ash clouds (2010-11-22)

Since its latest series of deadly eruptions, Java’s Mt Merapi has been spewing volcanic ash clouds into the air. Satellite data are crucial for assessing the eruption’s danger to air traffic and public safety.

Mt Merapi began erupting on 26 October and has killed more than 200 people. Numerous international flights in and out of the Indonesia area have been cancelled due to ash clouds.
Flying through such clouds is a threat to safety because the damaging particles can lead to engine failure. For instance, on 28 October a Thomas Cook Scandinavia Airbus flew through the Merapi cloud en route from Indonesia to Saudi Arabia, with a stop in Batam. Once in Batam, it was discovered that the engines were damaged and had to be replaced. Volcanic Ash Advisory Centres (VAACs) are responsible for gathering ash cloud information and assessing the risks to aviation. Australia’s Darwin VAAC is using satellite data of the plume to issue its forecasts.

Click here for more info

GlobSnow Newsletters (2010-11-15)

The European Space Agency (ESA) Data User Element (DUE) funded GlobSnow project aims at creating a global database of snow parameters for climate research purposes. The main objective is to create a long term dataset on two essential snow parameters.

The latest release of the GlobSnow Newsletter is published on the GlobSnow internal website.

Click here to access it

The University of Leicester in the UK is leading a team of experts who will launch a research centre that will train a new breed of hi-tech environmental researchers to use the latest satellite technologies and tackle pressing issues arising from climate change.

This Centre of Excellence is supported by the GIONET (‘Initial operations network for Earth observation research training’) project, which is backed with EUR 3.5 million under the Marie Curie Action – Networks for Initial Training of the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).

Reliable, thorough and up-to-date environmental information is essential for understanding climate change, the impact it has on people’s lives and ways to handle it. GIONET’s European Centre of Excellence in Earth Observation Research Training will develop better methods for monitoring climate change, environmental disasters and land cover change. It will also lead to the development of new methods for research and for addressing disaster relief following landslides and floods as well as for climate change monitoring, protection of tropical rainforests, lake water quality measuring and coastal erosion.

GIONET is expected to satisfy the demand for more researchers and provide skilled personnel for the EU-supported observation programme Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) land monitoring and emergency services.

Heiko Balzter, head of the university’s Department of Geography and coordinator of the project, said: ‘GIONET is training 14 young researchers in satellite remote sensing over the next 4 years. These young scientists will become the research leaders of tomorrow. They will be placed in industry and universities and experience working abroad, as well as getting the best technical training and scientific education.’

Every student is expected to work on a research project and ‘make a practical impact on our ability to monitor the planet from satellite’, according to Professor Balzter, who added that ‘each full GIONET partner organisation is looking to recruit the brightest research students out there, who can really make a big impact on our future satellite monitoring capability’.

A research topic under the GIONET spotlight is the monitoring of the Congo rainforest. The GIONET partners say this vast region of rainforest has experienced less rainfall in the last 10 years, making shipping in large rivers such as the Ubangi difficult. GIONET will look at whether this drying trend is a long-term effect of climate change. The forest is also under threat from logging, according to them.

Researchers have seen fires burning in the Congo when looking at satellite images of heat emissions. However, the tree canopy appears still to be intact after the fire and researchers are investigating the reason for this. They have already learnt from talking to people on the ground that locals are moving into the rainforest to produce charcoal. They cut down a small number of trees, turn them into charcoal and sell it back in their villages. Charcoal is still the main source of heat for cooking, lighting and keeping warm at night across Africa.

The scientists will now study radar images from a Japanese satellite to get the full picture of what is happening in the Congo. Radar can see through clouds, making it ideal to study the Congo, which is very cloudy. They hope to discover exactly how much of the Congo rainforest is still intact and how it can be preserved.

Experts from Germany, Hungary, Poland, Switzerland and the UK are making solid contributions to this study.

For more information, please visit:

University of Leicester

Global Monitoring for Environment and Security

GIONET project factsheet on CORDIS, click

Category: Projects
Data Source Provider: University of Leicester; GIONET
Document Reference: Based on information from the University of Leicester and GIONET
Subject Index: Sustainable development ; Coordination, Cooperation; Scientific Research; Environmental Protection; Space & satellite research; Climate change & Carbon cycle research
RCN: 32956

Source

The 2010 edition of the Earth Observation Handbook – just released and available online – provides the most up-to-date and comprehensive overview of existing and upcoming satellite missions, their instruments and measurements of more than 30 space agencies worldwide.

Prepared under the auspices of ESA on behalf of the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS), the report features details of 267 Earth-observing satellite missions and 785 instruments that are currently operating or planned for launch in the next 15 years.

The handbook, researched and written by Symbios Spazio, is the cornerstone of CEOS’s efforts to coordinate the planning of these satellite programmes in order to minimise gaps and overlaps in global observations and to maximise data in order to address the most critical requirements needed to benefit society such as climate change information.

CEOS provides this information online to promote awareness of the capabilities and potential of Earth observation satellites. The handbook, and the electronic version known as the CEOS Missions, Instruments and Measurements (MIM) database, is always keenly anticipated by the space community for its insights into trends in remote-sensing programmes.

The full contents of the 2010 EO Handbook are available on-line at www.eohandbook.com.

Source

NSR Report Forecasts EO Market Will Reach $7.7 Billion by 2019

CAMBRIDGE, MA—(Marketwire – November 30, 2010) – According to NSR’s Global Satellite-Based Earth Observation, 2nd Edition study released today, the EO market growth, size and shape are more than ever affected by government contracts, in particular from military users. They are the largest consumers of high-resolution satellite imagery, as demonstrated by the recent EnhancedView contracts from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) that will generate a majority of the EO data market revenues over the next ten years.

“The EO market continues to see growth associated with larger civil government and military segment orders for defense and intelligence, surveillance and security as well as environmental and climate change,” stated Claude Rousseau, Senior Analyst for NSR and author of the report. “Notwithstanding these two main segments, commercial and enterprise users have increased their adoption rate of EO data products and services, albeit at a slower pace.”

NSR forecasts global Earth Observation (EO) market revenues from data, value-added services and satellite manufacturing will grow to $7.7 billion by the end of 2019 at a CAGR of 3.5% over the next ten years. At the same time, the number of operational satellites will grow from 180 satellites in-orbit in 2009 to almost 240 operational satellites by the end of 2019. NSR also projects 77% of all new satellites in the coming ten years will be owned or operated by a government or military entity, confirming the dominance of public institutions on the supply side.

Many new commercial EO satellites and constellations are expected to be launched in the next 3 years with sub-meter resolution, and military users will have a big say in this growth. But as more commercial high resolution satellites continue to be launched, regulations imposed on pixel size due to national security issues will create an opportunity for new players to challenge established ones. Reliance by government and military organizations on commercial satellites has nonetheless rendered the prospect of the EO market sustainable and less prone to the ups and downs of traditional commercially-oriented markets.

With a reduction in data costs in contracts for larger volumes of imagery, the sector is seeing more government and military agencies dedicating staff to use EO, which will slow EO value added services (VAS) growth. The definite trend towards higher resolution is also having a negative effect on low and medium resolution imagery providers who try to fend-off EO data distributed by governmental organizations at a very low price.

About the Report

Global Satellite-Based Earth Observation, 2nd Edition is a multi-client report now available from NSR. The report provides a complete and comprehensive analysis of demand trends for the Earth Observation (EO) market in all regions and forecasts operational satellites and new satellite manufacturing revenues, as well as EO data and value-added services (VAS) revenues for the government/military and commercial markets for the period 2009-2019.

About NSR

NSR is an international market research and consulting firm specializing in satellite and wireless technology and applications. NSR’s primary areas of expertise include emerging technology, IP applications, and broadcast services. With extensive expertise in all regions and a number of broadband sectors, NSR is a leading provider of in-depth market insight and analyses.

Source

Articles related

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satnews

10th December 2010


In this Issue
1. Highlight: GMES and Climate Monitoring as Top Priorities of the 7th Space Council
2. Proposal on Access to the Galileo’s Public Regulated Services: A Future Model for GMES?
3. A new European Flagship Programme on Space Exploration
4. Environment Council Postpones Decision on CO2 cuts
5. EC Co-Funded Project Study Affirms a Crucial Economic Importance of Biodiversity
6. The GMES Role in the “Maritime Surveillance” Roadmap
7. GMES to Serve for a Development of an Emergency Response Centre
8. EC Communication on an Integrated Industrial Policy Highlights the GMES Benefits
9. GMES Applications Addressed at the Round Table on the GMES’ Future
10. Latest Updates on Earth observation
GMES Project Corner:
11. Recent Activities of the MACC Project
12. Latest SAFER Activations

1. GMES and Climate Monitoring as Top Priorities of the 7th Space Council

The 7th Space Council, which took place on 25 November 2010, analysed how the current global challenges can be tackled by European space systems. Ministers in charge of space activities, coming from European Space Agency (ESA) and EU Member States, had a detailed look at the possibilities and actual state-of-play concerning the GMES programme. Following the assessment of the current situation, the Space Council published a resolution dealing with the governance of space activities and role of the GMES in the context of climate and security challenges. Particular attention was also paid to the GMES and Africa initiative.

Read More…

2. Proposal on Access to the Galileo’s Public Regulated Services: A Future Model for GMES?

On 8 October 2010, the Directorate General Enterprise and Industry of the European Commission issued the “Proposal on the detailed rules for access to the public regulated service (PRS) offered by the global navigation satellite system established under the Galileo programme.” Using highly encrypted signals, PRS aims to offer protection against threats to infrastructures dependent on satellite navigation technology so that PRS users can receive vital, often life-saving, information even when other infrastructures become unavailable. The access to PRS will be limited to authorised governmental bodies. Considering that the Galileo and GMES are the main EU flagship programmes in space, both delivering various products and services, this issue is particularly interesting also in the context of current discussions on GMES. Given the parallels of these two programmes, this Proposal should be analysed in order to detect relevant solutions that could be applicable to GMES.

Read More…

3. A new European Flagship Programme on Space Exploration

On 10 October 2010, the Space Advisory Group (SAG) of the European Commission published the document entitled “Space Exploration, a new European flagship Programme. “ The document is seen in the context of the Lisbon’s Treaty’s article 189, which foresees the creation of a “European Space Programme”. According to this proposal, the Space Exploration would complement the relevant efforts made by the EU on GMES and Galileo. The proposal attaches a great value to the development of GMES constituting very important element that strengthens Europe’s global position in the field. The SAG recognizes the GMES as a crucial existing flagship programme which would provide significant input to this new initiative.

Read More…

4. Environment Council Postpones Decision on CO2 cuts

On 14 October 2010, the environment ministers, during their meeting in Luxembourg, discussed the issue of increasing the EU’s target of cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by 20% below 1990 levels by 2020 to 30%. However, the final decision was not reached as some of the Member States are not willing to take the final decision before the publication of the awaited “2050 low-carbon roadmap” to be adopted by the European Commission at the beginning of 2011. The environment ministers agreed to revert to these issues as soon as possible with a view to the next European Council to be held in spring 2011.

Read More…

5. EC Co-Funded Project Study Affirms a Crucial Economic Importance of Biodiversity

The “Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB)” study, drawing attention to the global economic benefits of biodiversity, has recently published its final release entitled the “Mainstreaming the Economics of Nature.” The document synthesised thousands of studies, examined valuation methods, policy instruments and examples of action from around the world pointing out at the growing costs of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation. Referring to numerous case studies, the report concludes with ten recommendations to help citizens, policy makers and other stakeholders transpose biodiversity into everyday decisions. In the context of the ongoing UN Climate Change Conference, it has quickly become an important reference for EU policy makers.

Read More…

6. The GMES Role in the “Maritime Surveillance” Roadmap

On 21 October 2010, the European Commission set out concrete steps to enhance the effectiveness and cost efficiency of surveilling European Seas. In a roadmap, the Commission defines how to bring together relevant Member States’ authorities across all maritime sectors to allow for the exchange of maritime surveillance data, held by authorities such as coast guards, traffic monitoring, environmental monitoring, pollution prevention, fisheries, border control, tax and general law enforcement authorities, as well as navies. This increased cooperation would also help to cope more efficiently with real time events at sea. Among others, the document perceives the GMES as one of the crucial elements determining the success of defined objectives.

Read More…

7. GMES to Serve for a Development of an Emergency Response Centre

On 26 October 2010, the European Commission adopted a Communication entitled “Towards a stronger European disaster response: the role of civil protection and humanitarian assistance.” Among others, it proposes the creation of a European Emergency Response (EER) Centre in order to improve efficiency and coherence of the actions while using the GMES services.

Read More…

8. EC Communication on an Integrated Industrial Policy Highlights the GMES Benefits

The European Commission’s Communication on “An integrated industrial policy for the globalisation era”, published on 28 October 2010 sets out a strategy that aims to boost EU economy. Given that the space applications significantly contribute to the growth of EU economy in various domains, considerable attention was paid to the GMES initiative. Perceived mainly from the “industrial” point of view, GMES applications are recognized as crucial imperatives addressing major societal challenges such as climate change and security of citizens helping to accelerate the competiveness and innovation of European industry. Due to its undeniable added value, the Commission intends to further build on GMES achievements.

Read More…

9. GMES Applications Addressed at the Round Table on the GMES’ Future

On 1 December 2010, the Network of European Regions Using Space Technologies (NEREUS), held a conference debate on “The future of GMES after 2014 from a regional perspective”. The event, organised under the auspices of the Belgian Presidency of the EU, provided an interactive forum for discussion around enhancing the political dialogue with European officials and national governments. In addition to the presentations analysing the forthcoming actions regarding the Earth observation, the recent GMES publication demonstrating various applications in European regions was introduced to participants.

Read More…

10. Latest Updates on Earth Observation

Several significant developments concerning the Earth observation occurred during the period covered by this issue. This article reports on the recent services delivered by the Earth observation satellites as well as on two important contractual developments related to the relevant missions. In particular, special attention is paid to the satellite information on snow cover, monitoring of the Mount Merapi’s volcanic ash, an extension of the GOCE (Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer) mission and the selection of two new Earth explorer missions FLEX and CarbonSat.

Read More…

GMES Projects’ Corner

11. Recent Activities of the MACC Project

The MACC project (developing the pre-operational GMES atmosphere monitoring service) recently held its Second General Assembly Meeting and finalised the processing the year 2005.

Read More…

12. Latest SAFER Activations

During the period covered by this Newsletter, the SAFER was activated two times. The different services were delivered as response to the fires in Israel and the failure of the dam with a toxic waste in Hungary.

Read More…

Notes from the HUMBOLDT Project

The HUMBOLDT project is currently in the middle of its extension phase approved by the EC. During these additional 6 months we are further advancing and disseminating the results of 4 years of research and development in geodata harmonisation. This newsletter edition informs you about the extension work plan applied, planned and upcoming workshops, presentations and trainings about the data harmonisation tools and services developed as well as on new software releases.

Please, feel free to check our website for planned and ongoing activities in your area of interest or the community website for updates of the HUMBOLDT Tools and Services.

On behalf of the HUMBOLDT consortium I send you our Season’s Greetings and wish you a happy and prosperous New Year.

Dr. Joachim Rix, Co-ordinator of the HUMBOLDT Project
Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research, Darmstadt, Germany

Project News

HUMBOLDT Project Extension Work Plan

The following list provides a comprehensive overview of the tasks and actions planned in the extension work plan (EWP):

*EWP 1: Outreach Activities
This includes the implementation of a Customer Relation Management (CRM) System, the organisation of several HUMBOLDT Workshops as well as presentations at events and conferences.

*EWP 2: Training
In this work package the continuous adoption and revision of training material as well as maintenance of the training platform are included. Furthermore, specific training actions have been implemented or are still in preparation.

*EWP 3: Customisation of the HUMBOLDT Framework
Customisation activities embrace language translations of specifications and other software documentation, continued framework testing and evaluation as well as specific integration and updating required for related projects and targeted communities.

*EWP 4: Long-term Sustainability
An important part for securing the long-term sustainability of the HUMBOLDT Framework is the moderation and support of the Community Website. Furthermore, the development of straightforward user reports on HUMBOLDT tools is planned. Another major part within this work package is the development of two edited books, summarising the achievements and results on a scientific and practical level.

In addition the long term sustainability plan for the HUMBOLDT Framework has to be established to ensure a continuation of the future development effort and broad use of the project results.

HUMBOLDT Framework for Data Harmonisation

In the past months two versions of the HUMBOLDT Alignment Editor have been released. Especially the latter should be highlighted as it integrates software developments by 1Spatial , a developer of market leading intelligent data quality and integration solutions.

In the context of the drafting of the INSPIRE Technical Guidance on Schema Translation, 1Spatial decided to incorporate the HUMBOLDT Alignment Editor into the accompanying proof-of-concept activities. At the INSPIRE Conference 2010, preliminary results including an extension of the HUMBOLDT Alignment Editor to output schema mappings in RIF were presented. 1Spatial decided to make this extension available to the public.

The bug fixes and feature supplements in these release candidates are based on thorough evaluations by several users. The majority of the reported issues could be resolved. Examples of the implemented improvements are the resolution of the incorrect positioning of map tiles, performance issues with large schemas as well as memory leaks. New features are, for instance, the read functionality to hide property types in the schema explorer, relative paths in the project file and filters for attributive functions.

Please don’t hesitate to tell us what you think of the most current release and report about problems you are encountering and/or features that you are missing. For more information, please visit the HALE News at the Community Website

All components of the HUMBOLDT Framework as well as full specifications are available for free download on the Community Website

Please use the forum on the community website to discuss any new issues or difficulties you are encountering.

HUMBOLDT at the ASITA 2010 Conference

The 14th ASITA National Conference
took place from the 9 – 12 November 2010 in Brescia, Italy. HUMBOLDT was represented by one workshop and two papers.

The event was an opportunity to disseminate the project results to the Italian community of interest. The participants were SDI Stakeholders, Public Administrations (mostly Italian Regions, but also Provinces and Municipalities) and more generally Italian users dealing with geodata harmonisation.

The workshop was focused on telling the main objectives and achievements of the project, presenting operational tools developed and promoting the online platform for training.

The workshop, as mentioned before, was anticipated by the presentation of two papers: one presented during a session dedicated to European Projects, and the other presented during a poster session. The first paper presented HUMBOLDT harmonisation toolkit, while the second one presented the HUMBOLDT training framework.

HUMBOLDT Workshop: INSPIRE Implementation for LMO’s

In November a 3-day course “INSPIRE Implementation for (Dutch) LMO’s” was given by TU Delft. It was the first in a series; the next will be in March 2011. The November course was specifically aimed at Rijkswaterstaat, a core agency of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment.

Part of the course was a ‘hands on’ introduction to the HUMBOLDT Alignment Editor (HALE). For this the training material prepared in WP12 was used: a step-by-step example of ‘schema mapping’ between existing administrative data (source model) and the INSPIRE Administrative Units data model (target model). By using the Alignment Editor the attendants got a first impression of the complexity of schema mapping as part of the data harmonisation work that has to be done for implementing INSPIRE in the member states. The use of HALE by experts from outside HUMBOLDT was also a good way to obtain feedback: what kind of extra functionality would be beneficial according to these users, and which part of the user interface requires additional explanation, in the course material or in the manual.

HUMBOLDT at the EFAEP General Assembly

During the EFAEP General Assembly held in Brussels on 25 October 2010 a HUMBOLDT Workshop has been organised. EFAEP is the European Federation of Associations of Environmental Professionals, whose aim is to provide a knowledge base and an information interchange tool between Environmental Professionals, Public Institutions and Private Organisations searching for personnel.

The workshop has been organised to spread the results of the HUMBOLDT project towards a specific interest community, in this case the community of environmental professionals that work with environmental and spatial data: it was indeed targeted to match professional interest and touch all the topics that may arouse within this specialist group of stakeholders.

The workshop gave an overview of HUMBOLDT and its relations to INSPIRE and GMES. In addition, the HUMBOLDT Tools and Services, Training Framework and Scenarios were presented. Special focus was set on those interesting from an environmental point of view: Ocean, Forest, ERiskA, Protected Areas and Transboundary Catchments.

HUMBOLDT Workshop at the Plan4all Project Meeting

The HUMBOLDT approach for data harmonisation and its applicability to other European projects was presented during the Plan4all

Thematic Workshop held at Lazio Region in Rome, Italy on October 15, 2010.

The main aim of the Plan4All project is to harmonise spatial planning data and related metadata according to the INSPIRE principles. Therefore, Plan4All and HUMBOLDT are facing common issues related to spatial data, particularly in terms of data harmonisation.

The Workshop provided an overview of the HUMBOLDT project, especially taking into consideration the peculiar aspects of the Plan4All project. In addition, the HUMBOLDT Training Framework for education and HUMBOLDT Training Platform were introduced.

The HUMBOLDT Urban Planning Scenario was presented in detail, as it represents a Plan4All interest area as well as the Urban Atlas Scenario and the need of open, harmonised and standardised systems in order to share knowledge between citizens, planners and political representatives.

Upcoming HUMBOLDT Events

16. Münchner Fortbildungsseminar Geoinformationssysteme – Conference and Training Seminar in Munich, Germany

GIS experts from academia, industry and government will gather in Munich for two days of training courses and workshops followed by a two-day conference from 21-24 March, 2011.

Training courses and workshops will be held on topics like geodatabases, CityGML, data harmonisation in INSPIRE context, WFS for INSPIRE application schemas, Web Processing Services, Microsoft Bing Maps, Location-based services for smart phones, GMES services and semantic model transformation.

Key conference topics include cloud computing, spatial data mining, GeoWeb 2.0, standards & INSPIRE, mobile services and systems, 3D city models & 3D simulations, energy systems, geo visualisation as well as environmental and risk assessment in urban areas. Courses and presentations will be held in German.

HUMBOLDT will be presented in the workshop “Semantische Modelltransformation” (semantic model transformation) on Tuesday, March 22. In addition, the training course “Datenharmonisierung im Kontext von INSPIRE” (data harmonisation in the INSPIRE context) on the same day will make use of project results like the HUMBOLDT Alignment Editor (HALE) based on the experiences in the European Risk Atlas Scenario (ERiskA).

AGISEE Data Harmonisation Workshop 2011

AGISEE organises an SDI workshop to take place on Wednesday, March 16, 2011, in Sofia, Bulgaria. The focus is set on tools and experiences related to the realisation of INSPIRE. HUMBOLDT will be presented by several workshops and presentations.

HUMBOLDT Workshop at the BRISEIDE Project Meeting

In March 2011 the HUMBOLDT approach for data harmonisation will be presented to the BRISEIDE project in Lisbon, Portugal.

The HUMBOLDT Project in brief

The EU project HUMBOLDT contributes to the implementation of a European Spatial Data Infrastructure (ESDI) that integrates the diversity of spatial data available for a multitude of European organisations. It is the aim of this project to manage and advance important parts of the implementation process of this ESDI.

The main goal of the HUMBOLDT project is to enable organisations to document, publish and harmonise their spatial information. The software tools and processes created will demonstrate the feasibility and advantages of an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe as planned by the INSPIRE initiative, meeting the goals of Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES).

Learn more about HUMBOLDT by visiting our Website

Contact
HUMBOLDT Project Office
zeitform Internet Dienste OHG
Fraunhoferstraße 5
64283 Darmstadt
Germany
Phone: +49 6151 155 637
Fax: +49 6151 155 634
E-Mail: po@esdi-humboldt.eu

Executive Board
Prof. Dr. Hans-Jörg Bullinger, President of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Corporate Management
Dr. Ulrich Buller, Research Planning
Dr. Alfred Gossner, Finance, Controlling, IT
Prof. Dr. Marion Schick, Human Resources and Legal Affairs