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What are the determining factors that make an end-user’s experience a success story? Who are the pioneering users of satellite information and services? What are their characteristics in terms of areas of activity, needs and responsibilities, organisational structures, resources and personal attributes?

These are the questions Eurisy has begun to analyse in depth since June 2010. The peer-to-peer exchange of pioneering end-users’ successful experiences of implementing and using a satellite service (good practices) is a core tool in Eurisy’s support initiatives. The arrival of a new member of staff, Stefanie Reetz, has provided the resource to systematically catalogue and further investigate good practices throughout Europe.

Alongside the cataloguing of good practices across professional end-user communities (local and regional authorities, small and medium sized enterprises and end-users in the European neighbourhood) and satellite service segments (satellite communication, satellite navigation and earth observation), the analysis is based on intensive field visits with operational end-users of satellite services. These field visits aim to better understand a user’s work environment with its demands, constraints and resources, to retrace the emergence and definition of their needs and the identification of a satellite service as the appropriate solution. They also focus on the interaction with the service provider(s), the process of implementing the satellite service into their organisational structure and all the obstacles the user may have encountered and overcome.

The results of this work will contribute to Eurisy’s activities in a number of ways: the publication of a Handbook of Good Practices designed to catalogue and showcase user experiences that illustrate the benefits of satellite services, the identification of models of implementation of satellite services as well as a typology of users. These insights will enrich the support Eurisy provides to potential end-users, help provide further feedback to decision-makers on how to best support these users and contribute to better facilitate the diffusion of satellite information and services.

Source EURISY

Tromsø is a hub for many types of high-knowledge industries. One of these is the satellite-based remote sensing cluster – a consequence of the city’s high northern latitude. The cluster is involved in a broad range of activities, from trials flying unmanned aircraft systems through volcanic ash to the use of satellite images to monitor catastrophic oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico.

Tromsø, together with Svalbard, is a natural place for Norway’s space-related industries because of its proximity to the North Pole. Due to this northern location, these satellites are in reach for every overpass, an important tool for climate, meteorology, environment and security.

Its ideal location has attracted a large space-related research and business community to the area. More than 200 people within this industry in Tromsø generate close to NOK 400 million annually, according to Jan Petter Pedersen, Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT) vice president, responsible for new products and services.

KSAT is the largest company in this cluster with operation of four ground stations, including SvalSat in Svalbard, the only commercial ground station in the world able to provide all-orbit support (14 passes per day). KSAT operates within two business segments: services to satellites owners and operators for telemetry, commanding, tracking and control and Earth observation data and information services to operational users.

From Aurora to Oil Spills

KSAT was one of the first space-related companies to establish here in the 1960s with the Tromsø Satellite Station as a way to receive data from American meteorological satellites in polar orbits. But the beginnings of Tromso’s space adventure go back to the early 1900s when researchers studied the aurora borealis, said Pedersen.

KSAT has for years focused on maritime applications derived from Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), including global ship traffic and oil spill monitoring. It is the lead company in the European Maritime Agency’s Clean Net Service, which provides EU member states with monitoring and reports of illegal discharges and accidental oil spills at sea within 30 minutes from acquisition. One of its most challenging jobs recently was working with BP to chart the huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The company is currently looking at new business areas, such as the monitoring of biomass in the forests for global carbon tracking. Satellite images can map the extent and density of the rain forest and boreal forest in northern latitudes for extrapolation into carbon measurements. Another evolving application is ice routing for ship traffic.

“Everybody expects in the next 20 years that it will be possible to sail through the North East Passage,” said Pedersen. “There will be an increasing need for updated information for traffic security in this region. We therefore believe that our new service for the detection and monitoring of icebergs will have commercial benefits for us.”

Centre for Remote Technology

KSAT is one of several key players in the remote sensing cluster in Tromsø, along with the Faculty of Science and Technology at the University of Tromsø, Norwegian Research Institute (Norut), Kongsberg Spacetec, and the Norwegian Polar Institute. Together they created the Tromsø Centre for Remote Technology (TCRT) in January 2008 to meet the increasing need for cooperation between the owners amid strong international competition. They represent the whole value chain, from research, technology development and service delivery.

“We saw the benefits of creating one entity where we could talk with one voice,” said Pedersen. “The catalyst was the ongoing work on the BarentsWatch initiative.” BarentsWatch is the government’s plan for a holistic monitoring and surveillance system for the Barents Sea.

BarentsWatch has been among the most important projects at the Tromsø Remote Technology Centre, according to Øyvind Hilmarsen, TCRT managing director. The government decided this June to locate the first phase of BarentsWatch, an open civil system for maritime, environmental and climate change monitoring, at the new climate centre in Tromsø. TCRT has been working on behalf of the remote sensing community in Tromsø to possibly deliver future services to BarentsWatch, such as satellite images.

Another of the centre’s important contributions has been the establishment of the Barents Remote Sensing School this year and the creation of the Forum for Remote Technology to broaden the centre’s network base. There are currently 14 companies engaged in the forum.

They discuss applications for EU and Norwegian research programmes an other forms of collaboration.

In the future, the centre hopes to win Norwegian Research Council approval this year to establish a centre for satellite based earth observation research in Tromsø called SatCent and be part of an eventual new Arctic EU information centre, said Hilmarsen.

Flying Drones through Volcanic Ash

Another key TRCT participant, Norut, is gaining recognition for its work with unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). It sent a drone fitted with air particle sampling instruments in May, six weeks after the volcanic ash clouds grounded aircraft all throughout Europe. This technology can be used to monitor ash from future eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland. The drones can be also used for surveillance of land and sea areas, such as mapping of oil spills and search and rescue work.

Norut recently made a presentation in July for the European Commission on the use of light UAS for scientific purposes and ash measurement at the European High Level UAS Conference in Brussels. It is also working with the EC on a four-year COST action on the use of UAS for atmospheric research.

Norut currently has drones in Greenland conducting measurements of soot in the ice sheet. The aim is to study the impact of long distance transportation of soot in the atmosphere from industry and forest fires has on ice sheet melting in the interior of Greenland.

Source

In September 2006 the HUMBOLDT project started with the main goal to support and contribute to the implementation of a European Spatial Data Infrastructure (ESDI). Now, four eventful years have passed and the regular runtime of the project has ended in September 2010.

Much has been achieved: the HUMBOLDT Framework for Data Harmonisation, Scenario Applications and the Training Framework. The HUMBOLDT Open Day was used as an opportunity to provide more detailed insight into these achievements.

I am delighted to announce that the EC granted an extension of six months to the HUMBOLDT project. This time will mainly be used for technology transfer and dissemination of valuable project results. This will support to stabilize the technology and to transfer the results and experiences into the communities and other interested ongoing projects through specific events, workshops, and training courses offered. It will also help to establish the long term sustainability concept of continuing the HUMBOLDT Open Source Framework to support the harmonisation process in the area of geospatial data.

Enjoy reading and please do not hesitate to give us your feedback.

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

Project News

HUMBOLDT Open Day

The HUMBOLDT Open Day

took place on September, 28th in Lisbon, Portugal. It was organised in cooperation with our partner projects NATURESDIPlus and VESTA-GIS. The host for this event was Instituto Geográfico Português (IGP) from Portugal. IGP is the national agency from the public central administration and responsible for the national geodetic network and cadastre. The Open Source Tools and Services developed in HUMBOLDT were demonstrated in the application context of selected scenarios (Protected Areas, Ocean and Marine Environment, Transboundary Catchments, Atmosphere and Flood Risk Management). In addition to these showcase presentations, the participants had the opportunity to get acquainted with the training courses available on the HUMBOLDT training platform as well as to receive supervised hands-on experiences with the tools and services for data harmonisation.

The HUMBOLDT Open Day attracted more than 70 participants from all over Europe and the overall feedback to the presented content and organisation was consistently positive. Especially the hands-on sessions which allowed for bilateral discussions with HUMBOLDT developers, scenario and training representatives were very well received.

HUMBOLDT Scenario Feedback-Evaluation

For the HUMBOLDT Open Day a questionnaire for Scenario Feedback-Evaluation has been prepared. Your feedback is important for us in order to reveal different point of views about the HUMBOLDT Framework and its associated scenarios by the INSPIRE, GMES and related communities who are not directly involved in the HUMBOLDT project. To this end, the aim of the questionnaire is to inventory benefits and relevance of HUMBOLDT scenario applications to specific communities and similar projects/initiatives.

HUMBOLDT Framework for Data Harmonisation

In July 2010 a new release of the HUMBOLDT Alignment Editor (HALE) has been completed. The focus of this version was on bug resolution, including bugs reported during the project meeting in Valencia, and usability improvements. New features are, for instance, the export of mappings as HTML documentation and the improved detection of Coordinate Reference Systems for map, to allow specification of additional CRSes through preferences. For more information on this release please visit the HALE News at the Community Website. All components 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 difficulties you are encountering.

HUMBOLDT Training Framework

Training efforts in HUMBOLDT are of major importance as they increase the impact and efficacy of the project outcomes by providing selected training tools and actions for the user communities of the HUMBOLDT Tools and Services, the communities of GMES and INSPIRE and, more generally, the geospatial data harmonisation interest community.

During the last months the Training Framework (i.e. Training Package, the Training Material and the Training Platform) has been continuously updated and fed with new and improved training material. Please feel free to check out and investigate the available content at the HUMBOLDT Training Platform which is free of charge, but a registration is required.

Handbook of Standards (Final Version)

The final version of the Handbook of Standards is available for download at the HUMBOLDT Project Website. It contains the conclusions of the state of the art analysis in spatial data tools and in software architectures. It also provides a classification of standards, tools and architectures, which determines their suitability and future application in the HUMBOLDT framework and scenarios. Feedback from implementation work, other projects, and from INSPIRE Implementing Rules (IR) and guidelines was integrated in this document.

HUMBOLDT Annual Report 2010

The Annual Report 2010 will be available for download at the HUMBOLDT Project Website soon. It contains a comprehensive summary of the major achievements of the project: Scientific and technical results, the Training Framework and prime examples of Scenario Applications. In addition, the user and future perspectives of HUMBOLDT are covered.

HUMBOLDT at the INSPIRE Conference 2010

This year’s INSPIRE Conference with the theme “INSPIRE as a Framework for Cooperation” took place from 22nd to 25th June 2010 in Krakow, Poland.HUMBOLDT was represented in the pre-conference workshop “Data Harmonisation in the HUMBOLDT Scenarios and the HUMBOLDT Training Framework” on Tuesday 22nd of June 2010. The potentiality of HUMBOLDT results was demonstrated in different application contexts (“Scenarios”) and as a training session offered to the user communities of the HUMBOLDT data harmonisation tools, as well as for the communities of GMES and INSPIRE. The presentation of the HUMBOLDT Training Framework was addressed to the practical use of the project’s outcomes, paying special attention to training dealing with data harmonisation experiences in different domains and in real world conditions.

In addition, two HUMBOLDT papers have been presented during the conference: the first one providing a general insight to “Data Harmonisation Put into Practice by the HUMBOLDT Project,” the second one targeted at describing the technology in the background: “Integrating spatial data integration: An Architecture for Complex Transformation Services”

HUMBOLDT at the 6th GIScience

Zurich, Switzerland was the host city of the 6th GIScience conference from September 14th-17th, 2010. HUMBOLDT was represented by Thorsten Reitz (Fraunhofer IGD, Darmstadt, Germany) who presented his paper “A Mismatch Description Language for Conceptual Schema Mapping and its Cartographic Representation.”

HUMBOLDT Meetings

HUMBOLDT Technical Review Meeting in Lisbon, Portugal

In combination with the HUMBOLDT Open Day a Technical Review meeting was taking place in Lisbon, Portugal, on the 29th of September. The meeting was hosted by Instituto Geográfico Português (IGP).

The illustration of the technical project achievements was mainly focussing on the extensibility of the developed HUMBOLDT Tools and Services. In addition, feedback from validation and evaluation of the technical quality assurance processes was presented. Lessons Learnt as well as important aspects related to the long-term perspective of HUMBOLDT project results rounded off the Meeting. The reviewers and the project officer provided constructive remarks for the future focus of the project within the 6 month extension period and were impressed by the professional way the project is presenting itself to the community.

HUMBOLDT Consortium Meeting in Valencia, Spain

The last HUMBOLDT consortium meeting took place in Valencia, Spain, from the 6th to 9th July. The meeting was hosted by ETRA Research and Development.

Since the HUMBOLDT project has entered its final phase the meeting in Valencia was focussed on the wrap-up and consolidation of the projects results. These activities also included the necessary preparations for the HUMBOLDT Open Day in Lisbon, Portugal.

Furthermore, the current status of the HUMBOLDT Framework components, the Training Framework as well as Scenario applications and demonstrators were presented to the Advisory Board members Franz Daffner of the European Environment Agency (EEA) and Gábor Remetey-Fülöpp of the Hungarian Association for Geo-information (HUNAGI) . Their feedback to the presented results of HUMBOLDT was consistently positive and moreover included some valuable input for their further finalisation and dissemination.

Upcoming HUMBOLDT Events

ASITA 2010 Conference

The ASITA 2010 Conference will take place from 9th to 12th November in Brescia, Italy. HUMBOLDT will be represented by a workshop and the presentation of two papers on the HUMBOLDT Framework and Training. For more information please refer to the conference website.

HUMBOLDT Workshop at the Plan4all Project Meeting

The HUMBOLDT approach for data harmonisation and its applicability to other European projects like Plan4all, Habitas and SDI-EDU will be presented in a workshop at the Plan4all Project Meeting in Rome, Italy on October 15th.

The HUMBOLDT Project in brief
The four-year 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

KATHMANDU: A team of Japanese scientists has installed a receiver that will directly provide real time satellite imagery when natural disasters occur in the country. The receiver was installed on the premises of International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD in Khumaltar of Lalitpur)

The team led by Shinya Tanaka, senior engineer at Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) installed the receiver. “This satellite receiver will provide direct real time satellite imageries of disaster afflicted areas directly which would help in rapid response mapping and monitoring of major disasters,” said Dr Giriraj Amarnath, remote sensing specialist at ICIMOD.

The JAXA WINDS (Wideband Internetworking Engineering Test and Demonstration Satellites ‘KIZUNA’) receiving station at ICIMOD will be formally launched on October 3.

Sentinel Asia is a voluntary initiative led by the Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum (APRSAF), which supports disaster management activity in the Asia-Pacific region by applying the Web- Geographic Information System (GIS) technology and space-based technology, such as earth observation satellite data. Such receivers have already been installed in Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand and India with central server system in Japan.

At present five satellites, namely ALOS of Japan, KOMPSAT of Korea, THEOS of Thailand, FORMOSAT of Taiwan and Resourcesat-1 of India are currently operating as earth observatory satellites that focus on disaster-related issues.

During large-scale natural disasters, the satellite will focus on the site upon request from the authority here and regular images of the site can be directly accessed from Nepal as the receiver has been installed here. It will focus on implementation of satellite-data production systems for wildfire, flooding and Glacier Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) information.

During emergency operations in times of disaster, emergency observation is requested from here. JAXA then allocates WINDS resources in line with the emergency observation request and satellite observation plan. Satellite observation data are then transferred via WINDS.

“Earth observation system is widely used during disasters and has been seen quite useful, so its promotion is the need of the hour and this satellite will be one of the best resources for understanding big natural disasters as we are very vulnerable to GLOF and big floods and landslides,” said Basanta Shrestha of ICIMOD.

Although crude satellite imagery is received directly, value added information like inundation area and total affected area can be extracted and simplified so that the public can easily understand. The WINDS system can perform high-speed communication at maximum speed of 155 Megabyte per second

Source

by Ramesh Prasad Bhushal

Bangalore, India (SPX) Oct 01, 2010. India will launch a dedicated satellite in 2012 to monitor greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions, Union Minister for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh said beggining October


‘In addition to a dedicated satellite to check greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions, we will have a dedicated forestry satellite in 2013 for real-time monitoring of both deforestation and afforestation across the country,’ Ramesh said while delivering the ‘Satish Dhawan memorial lecture’ at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research

Forging a close relationship with the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the ministry is co-financing the setting up of the National Institute of Climate and Environment Studies in Bangalore.

‘We are also working with ISRO’s space application centre in Ahemdabad in modelling and monitoring the health of the Himalayan glaciers as the space agency is an integral part of our climate science and climate change negotiations team,’ Ramesh said in his lecture ‘The Two Cultures Revisited: Some Reflections on The Environment Development Debate in India’.

Noting that there was no system of green accounting in the country to convert Gross Domestic Product (GDP) into Green Domestic Product and reflect the use of precious depleting natural resources, Ramesh stressed upon the need to develop a robust system to report both the domestic products.

‘My ministry is making efforts to have a system of Green National Accounting by 2015 because if we can report both the GDPs, we will have a better picture of the trade-offs involved in the process of economic growth,’ Ramesh pointed out.

Pleading to consider environmental issues as public health issues, the minister said the debate between environment and development would subside if environment control was seen as a public health enhancing intervention.

‘We are in the process of setting up a National Environmental Protection Authority as a permanent body to appraise projects and monitor compliance as part of environmental governance,’ Ramesh added.

Source

October 2010 issue


In this Issue
1. Highlight: Final adoption of the regulation on the GMES programme and its initial operations (2011-2013)
2. TanDEM-X delivers first positive results
3. Earth Observation satellites help rescue operations after heavy floods
4. Earth Observation satellites used for monitoring recent fires in Europe
5. The European Environment Agency takes a closer look to Europe’s mountains and coasts
6. The European Commission forecasts average crop production in Europe for 2010
7. Outcome of the Bonn conference and next steps in the global climate change talks
8. The EU seeks US partners for join space research projects
9. Publication of the 2009 Environment Policy Review
10. The European Commission adopted criteria for good environmental status of marine waters
11. Launch of the Marine Knowledge 2020 initiative
GMES Project Corner:
12. Recent activities of the MACC project
13. MyOcean Science Days 2010

1. Final adoption of the regulation on the GMES programme and its initial operations (2011-2013)

Following the European Parliament’s first reading approval, the proposal for a regulation on the GMES programme and its initial operations (2011-2013) was finally adopted by EU Ministers during the General Affairs Council meeting of 13 September 2010. This was the final step of the co-decision procedure, after which the regulation has become an EU law aimed at establishing GMES as an operational programme, allocating additional funds for its initial operations and putting into place the necessary structures for its governance. Prior to the adoption of Ministers, the General Secretariat of the Council published on 3 September 2010 a joint declaration of the European Commission and the Council which refers to the adoption of the GMES regulation, and points out, among others, that the Commission will present during 2011 a new legislative proposal on the GMES programme beyond its initial operations.

Read More…

2. TanDEM-X delivers first positive results

On 16 July 2010 the first joint acquisition of the German Earth Observation satellites TanDEM-X and TerraSAR-X have worked well, and a few days later, DLR researchers published the first 3D elevation model which shows a Russian island in the Arctic Ocean with an unprecedented accuracy. In August 2010, TanDEM-X responded to its first call for crisis assistance in the case of the heavy floods in Pakistan. Although the TanDEM-X was not fully calibrated yet at that time, the interferometric data it acquired in formation with its twin satellite has provided a reliable technique to map floods instantaneously and more accurately. By the end of August, over 1000 products have come out of the DLR’s operational processing chain, and some of them are already of very high quality, showing details that were not previously visible from space.

Read More…

3. Earth Observation satellites help rescue operations after heavy floods

During the months of July and August 2010, heavy rains hit numerous regions over the world, the northern Pakistan being the most devastated, followed by some EU countries, namely Bulgaria and the Czech Republic. In the framework of both the International Charter Space and Major Disasters and GMES, data from a range of Earth Observation satellites have been used to generate essential maps of the flooded areas in order to support rescue operations on the ground. Radar imagery was acquired by the Envisat’s ‘ASAR’ instrument, as well as optical imagery by the Envisat’s ‘MERIS’ instrument and the French Spot 5. Furthermore, the German TanDEM-X has provided its first crisis assistance, while the ESA’s SMOS mission acquired data of the water content in the soils of the affected area, both through interferometric techniques.

Read More…

4. Earth Observation satellites used for monitoring recent fires in Europe

Destructive wildfires exploded in Russia during July 2010, impacting lives of thousands of citizens and destroying millions of hectares of crops. The MACC project (developing the pre-operational Atmosphere Service of GMES) has helped the rescue operations by producing daily estimates of the emission of aerosols from fires, thanks to satellite measurements of thermal radiation. Additionally, by using satellite imagery, the Institute for Environment and Sustainability of the Joint Research Centre (JRC-IES) has analysed the occurrence and distribution of forest fires in the European part of Russia, since the beginning of July. JRC-IES has also analysed the impact of the Russian fires on land cover and peat soils. More recently, the SAFER project (providing the pre-operational Emergency Response service for GMES) was activated on 31 August by the French Civil Protection as a response to the forest fires that hit the south of France. In this context, rapid mapping products have been produced from high resolution optical imagery.

Read More…

5. The European Environment Agency takes a closer look to Europe’s mountains and coasts

As part of a series of ’10 messages for 2010’ related to biodiversity in Europe, the European Environment Agency (EEA) published on 28 July 2010 an assessment on mountain ecosystems. As main message, the assessment stresses that Europe’s mountains are rich in biodiversity, but more and more threatened by land abandonment, intensification of agriculture, infrastructure development, unsustainable exploitation and climate change. Later, on 25 August 2010, the EEA published an assessment on Europe’s coasts, warning that these zones are under increasing pressure from erosion, pollution, climate change, urbanisation and tourism.

Read More…

6. The European Commission forecasts average crop production in Europe for 2010

As part of its regular activities, the Monitoring Agricultural ResourceS Unit (MARS) of the European Commission published on 4 August 2010 a forecast for the main crop yields throughout the Union for 2010 and an analysis of the areas most affected by stress conditions. According to the forecast, the total cereal production in 2010 should be close to the average from the last five years, the yield per hectare will be 5% above average, while overall cultivated areas have decreased. In addition to the forecast, the Commission published a Memorandum which provides supplementary information, maps and graphs, as well as crop yields forecast for Russia. The forecast indicated that Russia was threatened by critical weather conditions that will lead to a significant yield reduction, in particular along the Volga River.

Read More…

7. Outcome of the Bonn conference and next steps in the global climate change talks

The latest United Nations-led climate change negotiations took place on 2-6 August 2010 in Bonn, Germany. This meeting was the third of a series of four international negotiating sessions, following the December 2009 Copenhagen climate conference and preparing the December 2010 Cancún climate conference. Building upon the Copenhagen Accord, the Bonn conference has focused on important elements to be agreed upon in Cancún. Nevertheless, the progress made by governments in Bonn has been perceived differently – for the UNFCCC Executive Secretary countries made progress towards deciding the shape of a successful result at Cancún, however, they must radically narrow down theirs choices; for the European Commissioner for Climate Action the Bonn negotiations have been ‘back-sliding’, whilst for the US lead negotiator countries were ‘stepping back’ from their pledges made in Copenhagen.

Read More…

8. The EU seeks US partners for join space research projects

On 20 July 2010, the European Commission launched a call for proposal, under the FP7 Space Research Programme, with a budget of € 99 millions. One day later, a conference was held at the Stanford University, California, US, organised by the Science Section of the EU Delegation to the US. The aim of this event was to inform the US space related research community about the EU Space Research Program, the topics of the current call for proposals, and the opportunities for US interest parties to collaborate with EU partners for space research projects. In fact, the Commission would like to generate a considerable degree of mutual interest and potential synergies between US and the European space research communities, which are both recognized as leading actors in the space field.

Read More…

9. Publication of the 2009 Environment Policy Review

The 2009 Annual Environment Policy Review was published by DG Environment on 10 August 2010. The Review defines recent environmental trends and policy developments at EU and national level as well as the progress towards the EU’s key environmental goals as set out in the 6th Environmental Action Programme. Although 2009 was an active year in all areas of environment policy and progress is evident in some areas, there is still a lot to desire for promoting green growth, making Europe more resource efficient and fighting loss of biodiversity.

Read More…

10. The European Commission adopted criteria for good environmental status of marine waters

The aim of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, adopted in June 2008, is to protect more effectively the marine environment across Europe. As a requirement under the Directive, the European Commission adopted on 1 September 2010 a decision outlining the criteria necessary to achieve good environmental status for Europe’s seas. The criteria and associated indicators will help Member States to develop coordinated marine strategies within each regional sea, ensuring consistency and allowing progress to be compared between regions. Some criteria are fully developed and operational, but others require further refinement, therefore additional scientific understanding for assessing good environmental status will be needed.

Read More…

11. Launch of the Marine Knowledge 2020 initiative

Responding to the users’ demand for creating an integrated European architecture on monitoring and measuring the seas, the European Commission has presented on 13 September 2010 the Marine Knowledge 2020 initiative. The latter aims at unlocking, assembling, and facilitating the use of marine data, which will help to enhance understanding of Europe’s seas and oceans as well as to foster competitiveness among marine data users. For that reason, the Commission has proposed an additional budget of €18.5 million per year for 2011-2013 for assembling data – approximately €11 million through the GMES programme. Additionally, the Commission has launched on 20 July 2010 the “The ocean of tomorrow 2011” call which will allocate €45 million to research projects targeting innovative and sustainable maritime activities.

Read More…

GMES Projects’ Corner

13. Recent activities of the MACC project

Main recent activities of the MACC project (developing the pre-operational GMES atmosphere monitoring service) include daily estimates of the emission of aerosols from fires in Russia detected by satellite measurements of thermal radiation, and provision of a number of products related to the distribution of stratospheric ozone and UV radiation at the surface. MACC is also planning its Second and Third General Assemblies to take place respectively in October 2010 and May 2011.

Read More…

14. MyOcean Science Days 2010

The first scientific colloquium on the MyOcean project (developing the pre-operational GMES marine monitoring service) will be held on 1-3 December 2010 in Toulouse, France, with the aim to discuss the development of the monitoring and forecasting systems, the quality control and processing of observations feeding into the assimilative systems, and the usage of MyOcean products for scientific applications. As part of the event, a call for abstracts has been launched on a range of themes related to MyOcean. The colloquium is open to all MyOcean participants as well as to scientists involved in the research topics of the call for abstracts.

Read More…

Source GMES.Info

Taiwan and Nicaragua recently signed a satellite information cooperative agreement under which Taiwan will provide aerial view photographs to its Central American diplomatic ally to help with disaster prevention and land utilization efforts there.

Taiwan’s Earth observation satellite FORMOSAT-2, operated by the National Space Organization, will take photographs of Nicaragua’s ecological conservation zones, agricultural lands and urban areas to help boost the country’s real-time monitoring capabilities.

Alejandro Rodriguez, director of the Nicaraguan Institute of Territorial Studies, said at the signing ceremony that Nicaragua and Taiwan share a similar natural environment and that both have been struck by devastating storms and flooding recently.

He expressed his appreciation for Taiwan’s sharing of its satellite technical know-how, saying this would significantly increase Nicaragua’s ability to respond to natural challenges.

Republic of China Ambassador to Nicaragua Wu Chin-mu said since April 2009, Taiwan has been providing satellite images regularly to Nicaragua and helping train local high-tech personnel in the field.

According to Wu, Taiwan has assisted in monitoring recent natural disasters in Nicaragua, including major forest fires that broke out around Masaya Volcano last year and landslides on Ometepe Island in Lake Nicaragua.

The agreement is expected to build on existing cooperation and extend support to Taiwan’s allies in tackling climate change, officials said.

Nicaragua’s Deputy Minister for External Cooperation Valdrack Jaentschke also attended the ceremony. (SB)

Write to Taiwan Today at ttonline@mail.gio.gov.tw

Source

The latest computer gadgetry to monitor the ever-evolving landscape of our planet and the elemental forces that shape it are the subject of a new knowledge exchange network being led by The University of Nottingham.

The Earth Observation Technology Cluster, led by Dr Paul Aplin in the University’s School of Geography, is a two-year project funded with £100,000 by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

It will focus on technology that can be used for a range of scientific applications — everything from measuring gas emissions from volcanoes to 3-D mapping of natural and urban environments and monitoring the effect of climate change on plant life and the Polar sea ice and icesheets.

Dr Aplin said: “The world in which we live is a complex system of natural and manmade environments which are evolving all the time. In some cases, even the smallest of variations has the potential to have profound implications for the earth’s inhabitants and we need to ensure that the technologies we use to monitor this are keeping pace with these changes.”

The new network will bring together a community of academics, industrial partners and public research bodies to promote the understanding, development and uptake of the state-of-the-art technologies used to give us the bigger picture on the earth’s changing environments and will operate in partnership with the Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society, the National Centre for Earth Observation and the British Association of Remote Sensing Companies..

During the course of the project, it will encourage discussion through a series of seminars, workshops and demonstrations and culminate in a national Earth Observation conference showcasing the success stories of the network — including future research collaborations or published papers — and the latest gadgets in Earth Observation technology.

The network, which is part of the NERC Technology Clusters programme, will focus on five main themes, chosen as part of an open competition and public consultation process within the Earth Observation community.

The five themes are:

  • Low-Altitude Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Observation led by Professor Daniel Donoghue at the University of Durham: The use of lightweight, fixed-wing, helicopters and blimps, balloons and microlites featuring observational technology that allow us to photograph and map from the sky. Among the uses are monitoring crops, coastal algal blooms and vegetation as well as photogrammetry and laser scanning to build 3-D computer models of landscapes and geology.
  • Terrestrial LIDAR Knowledge Exchange Network led by Dr Nicholas Tate at the University of Leicester: LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) technology provides accurate laser-derived 3-D computer models that can range in scale from micro (cm) to landscape (km) scales. Terrestrial (ground based) LiDAR (including mobile platforms) offers the capture of near real-time data for a variety of applications including environmental monitoring and modelling in diverse environments ranging from forests to quarries and river beds.
  • Field-based Fourier Transform Infra-Red Spectroscopy, led by Graham Ferrier at the University of Hull: Field FTIR technology uses infrared light to provide information on the composition of rock, sediment, soil vegetation and the atmosphere and has the potential to revolutionise the application of remote sensing to geology and geomorphology. It has a number of environmental applications such as monitoring gas emissions from volcanoes, measuring air quality and identifying contaminated land.
  • Hyper-Temporal Earth Observation led by Dr Doreen Boyd of The University of Nottingham and Professor Mark Danson of the University of Salford: Hyper-temporal observations are made up of the same image captured at regular intervals via satellite in order to monitor a changing landscape. Among the applications is monitoring the effect of global climate change by examining the change in plant life growth.
  • Circumpolar and Cryospheric Earth Observation led by Allen Pope of the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge: Using a range of earth observation technologies to monitor the cryosphere — which consists of the frozen parts of the world including ice sheets, glaciers, ice caps, icebergs and snowfall. Among the technologies are multispectral imagery for monitoring the potential effect of climate change on melting glaciers and laser scanning and image comparisons to predict ice avalanches and other natural hazards and to track icebergs.

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KATHMANDU, Oct 5: Participants at a symposium Monday aired the view that Earth Observation was one of the keys to improving scientific knowledge and understanding of the climate change phenomena in the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region.

Inaugurating the symposium, Chairman of the Constituent Assembly Subas Chandra Nembang acknowledged that the Earth Observation provides “unique opportunities for assessing key variables [of climate change]”. “The country should promote its use for improved scientific knowledge and assessing climate change in the region.”

Earth Observation is the spatial visualization of maps and spatial analysis which helps transform data into useful information. It can also track changes due to different climactic conditions, said Jose Achache, secretary of the Group on Earth Observations, an intergovernmental group of 83 member countries and 58 participating organizations coordinating Earth Observation.

“Space observation can be very important in disaster-mapping,” he said.

Andreas Schild, director general of International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), said the symposium’s aim is to bridge the gap between technology and the community and to make connection between data users in order to better understand what is happening.

“This could develop specific mountain perspectives, develop niches and be particularly useful for stakeholders,” he added.

The Hindu Kush region, which stretches 3,500 kilometers across eight countries, is considered as the “third pole” and a major source of water for about 210 million people. However, experts said changing climate and rising temperatures have posed major threats for the region.

To observe these problems more efficiently, the USAID and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has partnered with ICIMOD to launch SERVIR-Himalaya today, which is expected to integrate satellite observations system and ‘predictive’ models with other geographic information system to monitor and forecast ecological changes. When installed, Nepal is going to be SERVIR’s third station after Central America and Africa.

Thakur Prasad Sharma, minister for Environment, said, SERVIR-Himalaya will be an important milestone and the data gathered from Earth Observation will help derive information and support in the decision-making.

Meanwhile, India’s Minister for Environment and Forest, Jairam Ramesh, said climate change in the HKH region is a ‘common concern.’ “India is keen on working with Nepal regarding climate change,” he said.

He said that India will be a part of the solution for global warming and take responsibility very seriously.

“India’s 60 percent of land is monsoon-dependent. More than 300 million live in peninsula area and are vulnerable to rising sea-level, and forest areas are depleting,” he added.

“The eco-restoration and biodiversity program initiated by India, Nepal and China in Mt Kailash is a good starting point for collaboration,” he said, adding, “The launch of greenhouse gases and aerosol monitoring system by 2012 and forestry satellite to measure and monitor on a real time daily basis by mid-2013 can benefit the region.”

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VisionMap Ltd announced today Oct 6 the availability of its newest product, the A3 CIR large format digital camera. A3 CIR (color-IR) provides near-infrared imagery (NIR) in combination with high resolution color imagery.

The new product leverages A3’s well known superior collection efficiency as well as the complimentary fully automated workflow provided by the A3 Processing System.

In contrast to other camera systems, A3 CIR does not require pan-sharpening of NIR imagery. The native resolution of its NIR imagery is identical to the resolution of its color imagery, providing extremely high resolution NIR imagery for the first time. The capability to efficiently collect and process very high resolution CIR imagery over vast areas is exceptionally useful for the agriculture and forestry market segments.

About VisionMap

VisionMap LTD is a leading provider of state-of-the-art digital aerial survey and mapping systems. VisionMap created an innovative data acquisition and data processing system which optimizes mapping work, setting a new standard for productivity in the Geospatial data industry. VisionMap systems are successfully deployed worldwide. For more information visit www.visionmap.com