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(7 October 2009). With land degradation in dryland regions continuing to worsen, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification has agreed on scientist-recommended indicators for monitoring and assessing desertification that signatory countries must report on.


The landmark agreement was reached after two weeks of negotiations involving hundreds of scientists and government ministers attending the Ninth Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 9) of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from 21 September to 2 October.

Desertification, land degradation and drought deprive people of food and water and force millions to leave their homes. Desertification refers to the creation of new deserts through the degradation of drylands, which cover 40% of the world’s land surface. Land degradation, caused by over-cultivation, over-grazing, deforestation and inefficient irrigation, affects roughly 20% of Earth’s drylands.

Since dryland desertification can be remedied or even reversed by using appropriate management techniques, scientists attending the first scientific session of the COP, held from 22 to 24 September, stressed the importance of developing science-based methods for monitoring the areas most at risk to support land and water management decisions. Satellite technologies were recognised as playing an important role in achieving this objective.

ESA has been working closely with the UNCCD secretariat for nearly 10 years, developing and demonstrating innovative information services based on satellite Earth observation (EO) technologies that allow land degradation processes to be monitored over time.

Monitoring desertification, land degradation and droughts requires the continuous evaluation of a complex set of parameters and indicators, some of which can be retrieved with EO technologies and state-of-the-art geo-spatial applications. For instance, the status of land cover – one of the 11 indicators defined by COP – can be monitored from space.

In 2004, ESA launched a large pilot project called DesertWatch to develop a set of land degradation indicators based principally on land surface parameters retrieved from satellite observations. These indicators were developed with the support of Italy, Portugal and Turkey – three of the European countries mostly affected by desertification.

DesertWatch also helped these countries fulfil their UNCCD reporting requirements by combining satellite data with weather and in-situ data, numerical models and geo-information systems to create standardised geo-information products.

ESA recently extended the project so that its methodology may be adapted and put to wider use. To demonstrate its applicability, the methodology will be applied to arid and semi-arid areas in Portugal, Brazil and Mozambique.

According to the UNCCD, soil moisture is another key parameter that should be monitored, because it is an indicator of water scarcity and vegetation stress. Soil moisture data can also be used for assessing drought risk.

The ESA-backed SHARE (Soil Moisture for Hydrometeorological Applications in the Southern African Development Community Region) project has developed a pre-operational soil moisture monitoring service with the long-term goal of supplying free soil moisture information for all of Africa, at a resolution of 1 km, via the Internet. SHARE was developed under ESA’s TIGER initiative, which helps African countries to overcome water problems. DesertWatch and SHARE are funded by the Data User Element (DUE) under ESA’s EO Envelope Programme.

ESA hosted an exhibition booth and a side event at COP 9 entitled ‘Earth observations from space for the UNCCD’, where the latest DesertWatch findings and results were presented. The side event also served as a platform for demonstrating the benefits of EO technology for the UNCCD Convention.

Speaking of DesertWatch, Dr Lucio do Rosario of the Portuguese delegation said: “We recommend the UNCCD Contracting Parties to adopt these methodologies. The benefits are multiple. They improve the monitoring and assessment of land degradation, provide more efficient decision-making and facilitate the reporting to the Convention on the indicators adopted by COP 9.”

In a message to COP 9, UN Secretary General Banki-Moon said: “In addressing climate change, the international community has tended, quite understandably, to focus on cutting greenhouse-gas emissions. But tackling the issue in all its complexity also requires to go beyond mitigation and take into account the intrinsic linkages between desertification, land degradation and climate change.”

ESA will continue to act on both fronts by helping the UNCCD community develop monitoring and assessing tools and supporting the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) community with long-term trend analyses of essential climate variables.

The Tenth Conference of the Parties of the UNCCD will be hosted by the Republic of Korea in October 2011.

SOURCE ESA

After massive flooding in an Eurasian country, relief workers seek open roads, allowing them to bring necessary supplies to stranded residents. Amid the chaos of war, a military general redirects a planned convoy to safety. Scientists measure the true levels of coastal erosion, an oilfield worker finds new potential for digging, and a tourist successfully navigates to a hotel in an unfamiliar city. Every day, satellite imagery plays a significant role in the decisions — both small and large — that make a difference in our lives.

This year marked some of the most significant advances in the satellite industry, bringing technology to life in new ways and to a broader audience. Japan’s SELENE satellite gave us stunning images of the lunar landscape as it concluded its mission this June, and South Korea attempted its first satellite launch from its own territory. In the commercial segment of the market, DigitalGlobe is also set to make history this year with the October launch of its second next-generation class satellite, WorldView-2, the first with combined high resolution and eight-band multispectral capabilities.

WorldView 2 WorldView-2: Fueling the Demand for World Imagery

Demand for accurate, up-to-date, high-resolution imagery continues to increase as new and varied industries learn how the information can provide game-changing opportunities for growth. Constituencies as diverse as defense and intelligence, civil agencies, mapping and analysis, environmental monitoring, oil and gas exploration, companies, infrastructure initiatives, Internet portals, and navigation technology concerns are seeking more detailed and improved currency of imagery to help solve everyday business issues.

The DigitalGlobe WorldView-2 satellite introduces the next generation of geospatial information, adding to what is already the world’s most complete and current resource of high-quality world imagery. The satellite will be the third component in DigitalGlobe’s constellation of high-resolution digital imaging satellites, and it represents a significant step forward for the industry. WorldView-2 features advanced agility and accuracy, state-of-the-art collection capacity, and eight-band multispectral capability. Its addition, the company’s sophisticated constellation will offer an unprecedented stream of new images every day, enhancing DigitalGlobe’s ability to rapidly collect and disseminate up-to-date imagery through its world imagery solutions.

Wavestream Ad SM Oct09 Improved Intelligence + Smarter Business Decisions
We live in a society that expects access to timely and accurate information. Viewing up-to-date imagery alongside historical benchmarks has a discernable impact on real-time decision making. On a battlefield for example, it is imperative to understand the whereabouts of supply routes, bridges, and safe-harbor locations — such as schools, churches, and hospitals — but taking the necessary time to confirm the true ground status can delay field decisions or require more dangerous and costly verification of the location of potential weapon caches or enemy forces. Today’s satellite imagery advancements ensure that troops have the intelligence they need to make the best decisions possible in real time, as events on the ground unfold.

For relief workers in the aftermath of natural or man-made disasters, access to detailed imagery in the days surrounding the event can mean life or death for those awaiting evacuation, relief supplies, or rescue. The smallest delay can have a tremendous impact on human life and recovery efforts. The accessibility and delivery of current and historical imagery can accelerate relief efforts by determining the safest and fastest routes for supplies and rescue, pinpointing safe harbor locations, and identifying potential roadblocks that could cause life-threatening delays.

In the business world, imagery may not always save lives, but it does aid organizations and individuals in corporate decision-making support, asset management, and GPS navigation. In fact, major consumer mapping sites have already realized the benefits that satellite imagery providers like DigitalGlobe have to offer, leveraging the technology to share and deliver image-based maps and applications to millions of users with a single click.

DigitalGlobe has been a pioneer in the commercial satellite imaging market. It was the first company to receive a license by the U.S. government to operate a high-resolution satellite for commercial use, and it has facilitated the adoption of satellite imagery into new markets by partnering with providers of personal navigation, social networking, and location-based services to integrate high-resolution satellite imagery with a variety of consumer applications.

With the launch of WorldView-2, DigitalGlobe will continue its leadership by bringing the world’s first commercial high-resolution eight-band multispectral products to market and by making an unprecedented amount of new imagery available to expert and lay users. The combination of large, seamlessly collected countries, states, and counties imaged in higher level of detail than traditional four-band satellites, combined with the sheer amount of daily new image collections, make for a formidable new offering from DigitalGlobe.

A powerful constellation of agile, high-resolution satellites provides three options to collect points on the globe on a given day, or multiple points of interest within a defined area, such as the disparate Olympic arenas in Beijing The additional band capabilities of WorldView-2 will also provide end users with the enhanced ability to track landscape changes down to the species levels of trees and plants, map the ocean floor, and identify and extract more features from the earth’s surface with much higher degrees of confidence than were previously possible.

Integral Ad SM Oct09 Better Accuracy

WorldView-2’s advanced geopositional technology allows for significant improvements in accuracy. The current accuracy specifications for an image acquired at nadir have been tightened to 6.5m CE90 without ground control. WorldView-class satellites record measured accuracy for a nadir image at a remarkable 4.1m CE90 without ground control and achieve sub-meter CE90 with ground control. These levels of accuracy provide detailed imagery for precise map creation, change detection, and in-depth imagery analysis without additional processing required by the user. Removing the need for further processing can mean the difference between immediate or delayed access to high-resolution imagery for end-users—a critical difference for professionals making real-time, location-based decisions as events occur.

New Spectral Bands Mean Deeper Analysis, Faster Insight

WorldView-2 will be the only commercial high-resolution imagery satellite with eight-band multispectral capability. The new bands support greater levels of feature identification and extraction, more accurate change detection, and a truer reflection of the world’s natural colors.

The benefits of the new multispectral bands are particularly useful for those monitoring land and aquatic environmental change. For instance, scientists studying coastline erosion will have a clearer picture of the areas they are monitoring than with four bands, allowing them to notice subtle differences and changes in greater detail: The four new spectral bands (coastal blue, yellow edge, red edge, and near infrared 2) enable broader ranges of classifications, enhanced vegetation and coastal analysis, the extraction of more features, and the identification and tracking of coastal changes and infractions. Additionally, the new red edge (the first in the commercial industry) and yellow edge spectral bands deliver more granular field classifications, improve the understanding of vegetation analysis, and provide early warning capabilities to industries that interact with the environment. The new coastal blue spectral band will enhance bathymetry studies for sea floors, coastal plains and waterways, discriminate features of the shallow ocean floor more accurately, and increase the scope of coastal remote-sensing applications, improving the safety of marine navigation and providing important insight into the ever-changing marine environment.

Further, mapping experts can use the additional bands to pinpoint more points of interest and create more diverse and interesting navigation applications.

Supporting Emerging Market Demands

As the number of industries leveraging satellite imagery continues to grow, so do estimates about geospatial imagery industry growth. Frost & Sullivan has reported estimates of $8.34 billion in revenue by 2010 for the global market that includes commercial remote sensing imagery, GIS software, data, and value-added services. The American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) has published similar high-growth projections, citing the call for higher resolution and improved geolocational accuracy as key industry drivers.

WorldView-2 is among the first commercial satellites to have control moment gyroscopes (CMGs), a high-performance technology that provides acceleration up to 10 times that of other attitude-control actuators and improves both maneuvering and targeting capability.

WorldView 2 logoWith the CMGs, slew time is reduced from more than 60 seconds to just nine seconds to cover 300km, allowing WorldView-2 to swing rapidly and precisely from one target to another in a single pass. Its sister satellite, WorldView-1, demonstrated WorldView-class agility by collecting eleven separate images of the Beijing 2008 Olympic stadiums in one pass.

When a more up-to-date source of world images is available, the potential uses increase, as more knowledge and insight can be extracted and imported into the daily location decisions and plans of organizations. Additionally, more predictability and more proof that images reflect the most accurate ground truth, discern more features, and tack more changes increase an end-user’s ability to make location-based decisions. Automating world imagery changes and extruding relevant sets of information are the next steps toward increasing the ubiquity of world imagery in business and social applications.

What’s Next?

As the satellite imaging market continues to grow, new applications will emerge and companies will continue to offer more sophisticated collection and monitoring capabilities. As a pioneer in the industry and a leading provider of commercial high-resolution imagery, DigitalGlobe will continue to innovate and excel in its development of highly accurate, easily accessible, and comprehensive world imagery. With the support of WorldView-2, users will be able to tap satellite imagery to address all of their location-based concerns—whether ensuring the safety of flood victims or just finding their way to the nearest Starbucks.

by K.C. Higgins
SATMAGAZINE

More than 600 participants from 36 nations attended the OceanObs’09 conference. The conference statement drafted as a result of the week’s discussions is available for comment through 4 October, 2009.

The OceanObs’09 meeting concluded on Friday 25 September with the goal of providing ‘routine and sustained global information on the marine environment sufficient to meet society’s needs for useful hindcasts, nowcasts and forecasts of marine variability (including physical, biogeochemical, ecosystems and living marine resources), weather, seasonal to decadal climate variability, sustainable management of living marine resources, and assessment of longer term trends’.

The statement from the conference continues as follows:
Recognizing the progress in ocean observations in the last decade, the demonstrated societal benefits of the existing elements, the recent technical and scientific developments that enable enhancements to observing systems and ensuing services,

Having broadly consulted with the communities involved in the production, distribution and use of ocean information, Informed by 99 Community White Papers, 47 Plenary Papers, and discussions captured in the Conference Summary,

Call for significantly enhancing internationally-coordinated provision of sustained observation and information of the world ocean, as a part of the larger earth observing effort, for public good and stewardship.

Despite the profound importance of marine information to meet the needs of our societies, the resources necessary to observe, assess and forecast global marine conditions are fragile and insufficient.

Core principles of participation in the sustained observing system include recognition that users require rapid access to all relevant data, free of charge. An integrated system, making use of remotely sensed and in-situ observations is essential. Observations are openly shared in near-real-time when technically feasible. They are collected, analyzed, archived, and distributed to internationally agreed standards with agreed best practices.

A true global partnership with strong local benefits requires involvement of all stakeholders. All nations must work together for mutual benefit, through educational programs and development of national capacity.

Many organizations are playing roles to sustain and develop the ocean observing system.

At the global level, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the UN Environment Program (UNEP) and the International Council for Science (ICSU) sponsor the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS), the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) and the World Climate Research Program (WCRP), which have taken the lead in formulating the present plan for the sustained global ocean observing system. The satellite agencies of the world also play a fundamental role in the integrated observing system, and the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) has helped coordinate a global response to needs. Nations have been urged to act on this GCOS Implementation Plan by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Group on Earth Observations (GEO). The WMO-IOC Joint Technical Commission for Oceanography and Marine Meteorology (JCOMM) and its partner global observing networks coordinate observations, standards, the data system, and the development of services for much of the physical and carbon ocean observing system. ICSU’s Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) coordinates international ocean research that has and will develop observing techniques and networks that become a part of the sustained ocean observing system.

The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) facilitates and coordinates research in the Antarctic and Southern Ocean. The Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans (POGO), a forum for leaders of major oceanographic institutions responsible for implementation and operation of various observing elements, advocates integrated global ocean observing systems and helps build the capacity to make them a reality. The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) is committed to a strengthened role for scientific research on marine ecosystems as a basis for advice that is unbiased, sound, reliable, and credible, to the benefit of management and conservation of marine ecosystems and living marine resources.

The North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES) coordinates scientific research and observations on marine environment, ecosystems, and their living resources in the North Pacific and its marginal seas. The Census of Marine Life (CoML) is global network to assess and explain the diversity, distribution, and abundance of life in the oceans. The International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and its marine projects promote the development of ocean observing techniques and provide research results that will become a growing part of a global integrated ocean observing system. At the regional and national level, meteorological agencies, oceanographic agencies, space agencies, fisheries agencies, research funding agencies, marine research institutions, ocean-related service providers, regional alliances, and the Large Marine Ecosystem (LME) program are all key contributors to a sustained ocean observing and information system.

Website: http://www.ioc-unesco.org
by Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission

SOURCE

http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/unspider/docs.html

Conferences and Workshops>

1. UN-SPIDER’s SpaceAid Framework operational

2. Bonn to host two key UN Meetings – 10th UNGIWG Plenary and UN-SPIDER Workshop

3. UN-SPIDER Keynote Presentation at the International Symposium in Saudi Arabia

4. UN-SPIDER fortifies Capacity Building Strategy at UNU-ITC Seminar

5. UN-SPIDER staff members put heads together in first programme building retreat

6. UN-SPIDER helps develop guidelines for establishing ACPC Climate Activities Database

7. South Africa’s Sumbandilasat successfully in orbit, awaiting full
activation

8. Micro-satellites MicroGEM offer improved earth monitoring

9. India launches Oceansat-2 for ocean study

10. Amid widespread droughts and crop failures, satellites could help prevent famines

11. Satellite Images from MODIS Sensor Cover Southern California Forest Fires

12. Satellites show ozone layer depletion levelling off

Conferences and Workshops>

AfricaGIS 2009: “Geo-spatial Information and Sustainable Development in Africa” in Kampala, Uganda, 26-30 October 2009

The Third MERIT Technical Meeting, Niger, 9-11 November 2009

Pacific Islands GIS&RS User Conference 2009, in Suva, Fiji, 1- 4 December 2009

The Third African Leadership Conference on Space Science and Technology for Sustainable Development ALC-2009 – Algiers, Algeria 7 – 9 December 2009

The Fourth Caribbean Conference on Comprehensive Disaster Management, Montego Bay, Jamaica 7 – 11 December 2009

For centuries, maps have stirred imaginations and inspired explorations of the unknown. Today, maps are used to help understand relationships across areas and regions. These spatial relationships are analyzed using digital maps within a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) environment.

GIS in Education

For the past 40 years, GIS has quietly transformed everyday decision making in academia, government, nonprofit, and in business through the manipulation of satellite imagery, maps, graphs, databases, and multimedia in a decision-making framework. Agriculture was one of the first fields to embrace GIS, applied to everything from precision agriculture to invasive weed eradication to sustainable practices.

In the classroom, GIS offers a powerful decision-making toolkit that helps students understand content in a variety of disciplines, such as geography, history, mathematics, language arts, environmental studies, chemistry, biology, and civics. GIS is used as an inquiry-driven, problem-solving, standards-based set of tasks that incorporates fieldwork and provides career pathways that are increasingly in demand. It helps students think critically, use real data, and connects them to their own community. It does so in informal, primary, secondary, and university settings and appeals to today’s visual learners. Geotechnologies, along with biotechnologies and nanotechnologies, are the three key skills and job markets identified by the US Department of Labor for the 21st Century (Gewin 2004). The National Academy of Sciences (2005) identified GIS as being essential to K-12 learning because of its ability to foster spatial thinking (Gersmehl and Gersmehl 2006).
wheat

What is the relationship between birth rate and life expectancy? How does acid mine drainage in a mountain range affect water quality downstream? How will climate change affect global food production? With GIS, students explore the relationships between people, climate, land use, vegetation, river systems, aquifers, landforms, soils, natural hazards, and much more.

Using GIS provides a way of exploring not only a body of content knowledge, but provides a way of thinking about the world. When epidemiologists study the spread of diseases, scientists study climate change, or businesspersons determine where to locate a new retail establishment, they use spatial thinking and analysis. In each case, GIS provides critical tools for studying these issues and for solving very real problems on a daily basis.

GIS-based questions begin with the “whys of where” – why are cities, ecoregions, and earthquakes located where they are, and how are they affected by their proximity to nearby things and by invisible global interconnections and networks? After asking geographic questions, students acquire geographic resources and collect data online and from their own fieldwork. They analyze geographic data and discover relationships across time and space (Bednarz 2004). Geographic investigations are often value-laden and involve critical thinking skills. The following illustrates just one example of how GIS can be used in education.

Analyzing the Pattern of Four Crops in GIS

What did you have to eat today? Where was your food grown? Where was the cotton in your shirt cultivated? An increasing number of books and research initiatives are aimed at helping students to reconnect with the importance of agriculture. A new resource on the ArcLessons library (http://edcommunity.esri.com/arclessons/lesson.cfm?id=416) invites investigation of four different crops—soybeans (shown on the map below), wheat, corn (maize), and cotton – in a spatial context using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology.
Screenshot

Learners work through the following scenario: The US Department of Agriculture has heard about your extensive skills in GIS and spatial analysis, and has hired you to investigate the patterns of 4 crops as part of its National Crop Assessment Program (NCAP). They would like you to produce a report detailing the results of the following investigation: What are the cultural and physical geographic reasons for the spatial distribution, spatial patterns, and the amount of soybeans, cotton, wheat, and corn grown in the USA?

Learners conduct research on the origin of the four crops, examine the spatial distribution of those crops, and investigate the similarities and differences among them. They discover the most productive counties for each crop, and consider the proximity of major cities and the influence of climate on each. They determine which areas are planted with winter wheat versus spring wheat, based on the evidence. GIS skills developed include investigation of the “G” part of GIS (the maps) and the “I” part of GIS (the tables) through constructing queries, sorting, and creating summary statistics. They also select and identify data, create various thematic maps using different classification methods, including natural breaks, quantile, equal area, and standard deviation. Content emphases include national and global considerations of why different crops are grown, the influence on urban areas on crops, and the social and physical reasons for the spatial concentration or diffusion of the cultivation of those crops.
Cottonboll

The resource includes not only the lesson, but the data needed to run the lesson. The data includes agricultural information at the county level from the US Census of Agriculture, climate data from the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Spatial Climate Analysis Service at Oregon State University, and base layers (states, rivers, roads, lakes) from ESRI. The lesson contains 55 questions, but additional investigation can certainly be done, by students of secondary, university, and informal (such as 4-H) programs.

To find out more about the use of GIS in education, see http://edcommunity.esri.com, and the library of lessons on http://edcommunity.esri.com/arclessons.

References

-Bednarz, Sarah W. 2004. Geographic information systems: A Tool to support geography and environmental education? GeoJournal 60: 191-199.

-Gersmehl, Phil, & Gersmehl, Carol. 2006. Wanted: A concise list of neurologically defensible and assessable spatial thinking skills. Research in Geographic Education 8.

-Gewin, Virginia. 2004. Mapping opportunities. Nature 427: 376-377.

-National Academy of Sciences. 2006. Learning to Think Spatially—GIS as a Support System in the K-12 Curriculum. Washington DC: The National Academies Press, 313 p.

By Joseph Kerski, posted on September 23rd, 2009 in Agriculture, Articles, Education, Featured Article
Corn
By Joseph Kerski, Geographer and Education Manager, Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI).

SOURCE

Directorate General Entreprise is organising seven conferences on “Strengthening European small and medium sized enterprises in the defence sector” in different Member States between October 2009 and June 2010.

In December 2007 the Commission adopted the Defence Package which consists of a Communication and two legislative proposals. The whole Defence Package aims to strengthen the European defence industry and encourages a more European approach to business cooperation in the currently segmented national defence markets. It also contains numerous proposals for the support of SMEs.

Nevertheless, SMEs acting in the defence sector still face significant problems. They lack information on business and clustering/partnering opportunities and they experience difficulties to make primary defence companies and customers aware of their products and services.

In follow-up to the Defence Package, it was agreed to explore concrete ways to support these SMEs through an ongoing study and a series of seven conferences. The conferences shall make SMEs better aware of new opportunities in defence procurement as a result of the Defence Package and to discuss recommendations developed in the above study.

Conferences will take place in Berlin (October 2009), Stockholm (November 2009), Budapest (February 2010), Warsaw (March 2010), Madrid (April 2010) and Athens (May 2010) with participation from industry and particularly SMEs, from Ministries of Defence, Ministries of Economics, European and national industrial associations and from EDA.

The final conference in Brussels in June 2010 will summarize the results and conclusions on the measures to be undertaken.
Downloads

Practical information – October 2009, Berlin PDF (7 Kb) English (en) (EN)
Programme for the Conference in Berlin PDF (107 Kb) English (en) (EN)

SOURCE

Brussels, 21 September 2009. More than 120 delegates representing European institutional stakeholders and industry across the civilian, security and defence domain attended the workshop on ‘Space for Security and Defence’, jointly organised by the European Defence Agency, the European Commission and the European Space Agency in Brussels on 16 September.

Given that effective civil security and defence capabilities are linked to the ability of decision makers to rely on timely, accurate and comprehensive information, the workshop set out to explore common needs in the area of situation awareness with a particular bearing on space.

Key note speakers highlighted the need to deepen the already existing dialogue on space and security among the European Defence Agency, the European Commission, the European Space Agency and the Council Secretariat General so as to address the integration of space systems into the wider ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) and NEC (Network-enabled capabilities) domain based on a capability and user-driven approach.

The first Panel provided decision-makers and operational end-users from the civilian security and defence remit with an opportunity to present their view on the role and use of space in crisis management, civil protection and other complex emergencies. Based on their personal experience, panellists from the EU and UN framework underlined their respective needs during military operations, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief for timely, secure and highly accurate data delivery based on a guaranteed access to relevant Earth Observation and satellite communications assets. Particular emphasis was laid on the aspect of ‘responsiveness’ and the need to deliver relevant information to operational actors on the ground within hours.

The second Panel allowed European institutional stakeholders to present on-going or planned programmatic activities and raise awareness regarding the added value of linking space-derived data into the overall ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) and NEC (Network enabled capabilities) architecture. “The space dimension thereby transcends a variety of priorities – not only NEC and ISR but equally domains such as medical support, information management, ISR sensors or wide-area maritime surveillance”, as highlighted by Capability Manager Denis Trioulaire (EDA).

The workshop recognised in particular:
· the growing political momentum and commitment between institutional players to cooperate across the civil security and defence domain with regard to space
· the support by Member States to further look for complementarity among activities at European and national level
· the necessity to develop future space assets in a capability-driven approach responding to clearly stated user needs

Based on such principles, cooperation shall be further developed in a systematic fashion, starting with the following actions:
· The ‘Structured Dialogue on space and security’ among EDA, ESA, EC and the Council Secretariat General shall be strengthened and used as a platform to study the scope and conditions for future dual-use capabilities.
· Based on the mandate received by Defence Ministers in May 2009 on a ‘European Framework Cooperation for Security and Defence research’, EDA will look for synergies with the European Commission as well as other institutional players such as the European Space Agency in the wider area of ‘situational awareness’.
· EDA, the European Commission, ESA and the Council Secretariat General will explore civil-military synergies in the field of Earth Observation, incl. GMES and MUSIS and related standardisation issues, in a dedicated task force.
· The security dimension of GMES shall be further developed.
· ESA’s initiative on a European Space Responsiveness System (GIANUS), linking navigation, satellite communications and Earth observation, among others, into one coherent and user-driven system will be further examined by the other European stakeholders, also in view of synergy and complementarity with on-going activities.
· The European SSA (Space Situational Awareness) System will be further developed as a European autonomous infrastructure based on civilian (ESA-lead) and military (EDA-lead) user requirements, while the European Commission and Council Secretariat General will further provide guidance on governance and data policy issues.

Workshop agenda

ESA Website

DGENTR website

Background Info

Background
Reference

Contact Info
Raquel Patrício Gomes
raquel.patricio-gomes@eda.europa.eu

October 2nd, 2009. A pioneer in free images distribution by internet of low resolution satellite data, INPE exceeded on Monday (Sept. 29th) the mark of one million images.

A pioneer in free images distribution by internet of low resolution satellite data, INPE exceeded on Monday (Sept. 29th) the mark of one million images.

The free data policy adopted by INPE became Brazil a worldwide model in Earth Observation Field, making the Remote Sensing a tool of easy access. The success of this pioneering initiative has taken other countries, as the United States, to make available free low resolution orbital data.

The free distribution through internet has started in June, 28 2004, with CBERS-2 images. Later on, INPE made possible the free access to historical images of LANDSAT satellites. Presently, the Institute of Remote Sensing Data Center, located in Cachoeira Paulista (SP), has images of satellites CBERS-2 and 2B and Landsat 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7 as well, available to anyone in the world who wants to access it.

Out of the total distributed, the CBERS Programme is responsible for 716,889 images. From LANDSAT family was distributed 283,123 images.

Brazil has one of the oldest satellite image sets of the world, due to LANDSAT data it has been receiving since 1973 through INPE’s station in Cuiabá (MT). Launched in 1972, the Landsat-1 was the first orbital remote sensing equipment of earth resources, so that Brazil is the third country to receiving this kind of image, being behind the United States and Canadá only.

The Latin America countries that have been embraced by Cuiabá’s station, are the most privileged ones and pretty soon the African countries also will be able to count on free images of their territories, because a memorandum was executed for the reception of China Brazil Earth Resource Satellite in the Canary Islands, South Africa and Egypt, and, it has been in negotiation the installation of an antenna for Gabão as well.

CBERS DATA

In charge of more than 70% of the free images distributed by INPE, the CBERS Programme was conclusive for spreading out the use of orbital remote sensing. Recently, INPE made a survey to evaluate the level of satisfaction of the users regarding the CBERS image quality as well as the quantity of people hired to work on satellite data.

The survey results let clear that the free image diffusion of satellite images helped to expand in a strong way, the number of Brazilians that make use of the space programme. 15,000 out of the registered users, 3,470 answered the quiz and, from these, 1,100 confirmed to have gotten a help in the making of their paper due to CBERS images availability. Another important discovery of this survey is that more than the half stated that did not use satellite images before having access to CBERS images from INPE.

Responsible for setting up a free access policy, INPE’s director, Gilberto Câmara, considers that “the free data offer, allows a much better earth resources management of our planet, what is important in times of global changes.

For more information please visit www.dgi.inpe.br/CDSR

SOURCE

London (AFP) Oct 1, 2009. Climate change has “potentially huge security implications” and NATO countries should use the alliance as a forum to address the challenges it creates, the new NATO chief said Thursday.

Rising sea levels, droughts and falling food production could spark large population movements and conflict, while the melting of Arctic ice risked inflaming tensions in the region, Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said.

“I think it is within the natural scope of work for NATO to be the forum for consultation and discussion on these issues,” he told reporters following a speech at a joint NATO and Lloyds conference in London.

The melting of the ice cap in particular was likely to cause tensions, as shipping begins in the previously frozen Northwest Passage and competition breaks out for resources that were formerly under ice, he said.

“The fact that new sea routes will be opened for navigating, the fact that we will get easier access to resources in the Arctic, might also increase the scope of competition in the region,” Rasmussen added.

“We known from experience that strengthened competition also increases the risks of tensions. And this is the reason why we have to do our utmost to reduce the risk of tensions and take action in due time.”

Five countries bordering the Arctic — Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States — claim overlapping parts of the region, which is estimated to hold 90 billion untapped barrels of oil.

Relations with Russia, which were badly strained after the Russia-Georgia war last year but have improved under the new administration of US President Barack Obama, would prove vital in the region, Rasmussen said.

“With the aim to reduce tensions… in the Arctic region, I think we need cooperation between NATO and Russia and between individual allies and Russia,” he said.

However, Rasmussen — who took over as secretary general in August — said politicians shouldered the bulk of the responsibility for climate-related security, in cutting emissions and preparing for natural disasters.

“Climate change may have potentially huge security implications, but the response cannot be exclusively military,” he said.

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Pasadena CA (SPX) Oct 02, 2009. NASA and Argentina’s Comision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE), with support from the Argentine Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovative Production (MinCyT), have selected additional members of the international scientific investigating team for the Aquarius/Satelite de Aplicaciones Científicas (SAC)-D mission, scheduled to launch in 2010. The new team members include two from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

The joint minimum three-year mission will carry a suite of instruments into space onboard the Argentine-built SAC-D spacecraft. NASA’s sensor, Aquarius, is the primary instrument on the mission.

Aquarius is designed to provide monthly global maps of how salt concentration varies on the ocean surface – a key indicator of ocean circulation and its role in climate change.

Seven CONAE-sponsored instruments will provide environmental data for a wide range of applications, including natural hazards, land processes, epidemiological studies and air quality issues.

NASA and CONAE conducted a joint solicitation and selection of scientific investigations and innovative application demonstration projects using Aquarius/SAC-D observations. NASA selected 15 projects that it will fund over the next four years for a total of $8 million.

CONAE/MinCyT selected 15 Argentine projects with participation of scientists from Chile and Brazil, which will be funded for a total of $1.3 million. An additional 10 proposals were selected from scientists in Italy and Japan.

The primary focus of the selected projects is to prepare the scientific community to use Aquarius/SAC-D observations to better understand the interactions between global ocean circulation, the water cycle and Earth’s climate. Several projects will concentrate on socio-economic applications of the mission’s observations in such areas as fishery management, disease and flood forecasting, and monitoring volcanic eruptions and fires.

The principal investigators for the NASA-funded projects are:
+ William Asher, University of Washington, Seattle
+ Frederick Bingham, University of North Carolina, Wilmington
+ Shannon Brown, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
+ Antonio Busalacchi, University of Maryland, College Park
+ Ichiro Fukumori, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
+ Arnold Gordon, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, N.Y.
+ Thomas Jackson, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Beltsville, Md.
+ W. Linwood Jones, University of Central Florida, Orlando
+ Roger Lang, George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
+ William Large, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colo.
+ Nikolai Maximenko, University of Hawaii, Honolulu
+ Rui Ponte, Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc., Cambridge, Mass.
+ Stephen Riser, University of Washington, Seattle
+ Douglas Vandemark, University of New Hampshire, Durham
+ Frank Wentz, Remote Sensing Systems, Santa Rosa, Calif.

The principal investigators for the CONAE/MinCyT-funded projects are:
+ Miguel Bertolami, National University of the Patagonia San Juan Bosco, Chubut, Argentina
+ Marcelo Cassini, National University of Luján, Buenos Aires, Argentina
+ Carlos Cotlier, National University of Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina
+ Dora Goniadzki, National Water Institute, Buenos Aires, Argentina
+ Raúl Guerrero, National Institute for Fisheries Research and Development, Buenos Aires, Argentina
+ Haydee Karszenbaum, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
+ Maite Narvarte, Marine Biology Institute Alte. Storni, Chubut, Argentina
+ Alberto Piola, Naval Hydrographic Service, Buenos Aires, Argentina
+ Gloria Pujol, National Meteorological Service, Buenos Aires, Argentina
+ Mirta Raed, National University of Luján, Buenos Aires, Argentina
+ Raúl Rivas, National University of Centro, Buenos Aires, Argentina
+ Cristina Rodriguez, Mariscope Chilena Department of Oceanography, Puerto Montt, Chile
+ Hector Salgado, Naval Hydrographic Service, Buenos Aires, Argentina
+ Paola Salio, National University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
+ Cristina Serafini, National University of Luján, Buenos Aires, Argentina

NASA is providing the Aquarius instrument (which was built by JPL), along with launch services and Aquarius science data processing. JPL manages the Aquarius mission for NASA. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., is providing the Aquarius instrument radiometer. CONAE is providing the SAC-D spacecraft; additional instruments, including optical and thermal cameras, a microwave radiometer and other specific sensors (with participation from Italy, France, Canada and various Argentine institutions); and mission operations.

Launch of Aquarius/SAC-D onboard a Delta II rocket is scheduled for no earlier than May 2010 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

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