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[By Juliet Van Wagenen. Via Satellite 01-12-2016] France’s government space agency, the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) has signed a framework agreement with the French Ministry of the Environment, Energy and Maritime Affairs (MEEM) with the aim to develop new space systems and applications, notably in the fields of climate monitoring and mobility.

Announced on Jan. 11, the agreement will strengthen and extend the scope of the previous agreement signed in 2011.

This new agreement reflects recent space efforts engaged to curb climate change, with the go-ahead for the MicroCarb and MERLIN satellites that will monitor emissions of carbon gases and methane. It also recognizes the creation of CNES’s new Directorate of Innovation, Applications and Science (DIA). Climate and innovation are two key thrusts of the agency’s strategy that mesh closely with the ministry’s goal of boosting ecological competitiveness, environmental protection and mechanisms for coping with climate change.

To this end, the framework agreement signed today by MEEM and CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall ties in with the National Strategy for the Ecological Transition to Sustainable Development. In particular, it is intended to help reach the goals set at the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) in Paris 2015, which came with the adoption by almost all of the world’s space agencies of the New Delhi Declaration, giving satellites a greater role in efforts to curb climate change.

“The contribution that space assets are making to efforts to curb climate change, reaffirmed at the COP21 and confirmed by the adoption of the New Delhi Declaration, is clear for all to see,” Gall said after signing the agreement.

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The latest instalment of our handbook covers user testimonials and business cases from agriculture, environment, risk management, logistics and tourism, to name a few.

They are intended to demonstrate, in a down-to-earth manner, how digital products and services that rely on satellite technology benefit professionals in all areas of activity. Get your copy on eurisy.org!

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China’s first commercial high-resolution Earth observation satellite network has begun to operate, its developer said.

China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, the country’s major space contractor, has released several images taken by SuperView 1A and 1B, the first two satellites of the SuperView system.

The images show the Potala Palace and a local convention center in Lhasa, capital of the Tibet autonomous region, as well as the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center.

The SuperView 1A and 1B were lifted atop a Long March 2D carrier rocket on Dec 28 from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in Shanxi province. They entered preset orbits on about Tuesday and have sent more than 1,200 ground images back to the control center, according to the State-owned CASC.

The two are operating at an altitude of 500 kilometers above the Earth, with a panchromatic resolution of 0.5 meters and multispectral resolution of 2 meters, said Zhang Xiaomin, a senior researcher at the company’s China Academy of Space Technology, who oversees the system’s development.

Zhang said that compared with foreign commercial Earth observation satellites, SuperView satellites have better resolution, accuracy and coverage.

China now operates the Gaofen network that has four satellites in service, but the system mainly serves government departments and the public sector rather than businesses, said Yang Yike, director of high-resolution satellite projects at CASC.

The two identical satellites are part of the SuperView network of at least 24 Earth observation satellites, which CASC expects to become one of the world’s largest commercial providers of space imagery and geospatial data, Yang said. He added that the whole system will be built by 2022.

Once the network is completed, it will consist of 16 optical satellites like the SuperView 1A and 1B, four optical satellites that are more advanced, four radar satellites and several mini-satellites, according to Yang.

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(Written by Pierre Bahurel on 29 December 2016 in Thought Leader) 2017 is set to be Malta’s year for the oceans, explains Pierre Bahurel.

Malta is about to take over the presidency of the Council of the European Union at a time when, although there are more environmental, economic and societal issues concerning the ocean than ever before, the world’s attitude to these questions seems to have shifted.

Until a few years ago, the oceans appeared to interest only a handful of specialists and small groups of experts dispersed around the world. Today, their immense efforts seem to have created a dynamic groundswell.

The United Nations had opened the way some time ago, and the oceans now feature on the agendas of other major global forums, such as the COP21 andCOP22 climate change conferences and the last G7 in Tokyo, and the nextG7 in Italy.

Meanwhile the OECD has published a fascinating and informative report entitled “The Ocean Economy in2030”. The oceans are the subject of numerous initiatives and global conferences such as “Our Ocean”, whose next edition will take place in Malta in 2017.

The challenges raised by the oceans affect the entire planet, but the European Union has had them on its policy agenda for a long time.

The European Parliament, through its committees and intergroup, is strongly involved in ocean-related initiatives. The European Commission is actively engaged in improving international governance of the oceans and seas, to promote sustainable blue growth. It has also set up a service unlike any other in the world: The Copernicus Marine Service.

The progress that has been made since the fi rest attempts at operational oceanography more than 20 years ago and the recent achievements of the Copernicus Marine Service, operational since May2015 are tremendous.

Today it delivers free ocean information to more than8000 users around the world; information that is up-to-date, scientific call qualify demand valuable for commercial companies and scientists, public services and NGOs, European and national policy makers.

The EU’s vision is as follows: the Copernicus Marine Service, one of six in the Copernicus programme, creates value by distributing useful ocean information like ocean forecasts and indicators for the entire world, making the EU an international leader in the field and contributing tithe development of downstream ocean related services in all member states.

In the year that Malta holds the presidency of the Council, the Copernicus Marine Service is gearing up to work with Maltese experts to determine the needs of national users, in the private, public and scientific sectors, and will be contributing to an event to be held in Malta on 27 June 2017 gathering Maltese stakeholders of the blue economy.

The capabilities of the Copernicus Marine Service and its innovative services covering all the world’s oceans provide input for the developers of specialised downstream applications (offshore energy, ports, fishing, aquaculture, transport, etc.): A virtuous alliance boosting Blue Growth and Sustainable Oceans.

About the author

Pierre Bahurel is Director of Mercator Ocean, the French global ocean analysis and forecasting centre entrusted to operate the Copernicus Marine Service
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Between 2001 and 2014, the annual forest loss rate in Cambodia increased by 14.4 percent: a total of 1.44 million hectares—5,560 square miles—of forest.

In broad swaths of the country, densely forested landscapes—even those in protected areas—have been clear-cut during the last decade for rubber plantations and timber. Scientists from the University of Maryland and the World Resources Institute’s Global Forest Watch have been using Landsat satellite data to track the rate of forest loss, demonstrating that changes in global rubber prices and a surge of land-concession deals have played key roles in accelerating Cambodia’s rate of deforestation. Concession lands are leased by the Cambodian government to domestic and foreign investors for agriculture, timber production and other uses. Researchers found that the rate of forest loss within concession lands was anywhere from 29 to 105 percent higher than comparable lands outside the concessions. Work by Matthew Hansen and his University of Maryland Global Land Analysis and Discovery (GLAD) lab played a key role in revealing the scope of deforestation. In conjunction with the World Resources Institute, GLAD developed a weekly alert system: deforestation is detected by satellites with each new Landsat image, and users can subscribe for email updates. The freely available alert system already is operating for Congo, Uganda, Indonesia, Peru and Brazil. The researchers hope to have the system operating for Cambodia and the rest of the tropics in 2017.

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PhotoSat has announced the publication of 21 new satellite surveying accuracy studies on their website—these studies include data from seven different stereo satellite systems, with the best results showing elevation surveying accuracies of better than 15 cm.

The accuracy studies include stereo satellite data from the following satellites:

  • WorldView-1
  • WorldView-2
  • WorldView-3
  • Pleiades-1B
  • KOMPSAT-3A
  • SPOT-7
  • ALOS PRISM

According to Gerry Mitchell, the President of PhotoSat, the company has delivered more than 700 satellite surveying projects since 2007 and accuracy evaluations have been carried out on the majority of them. While most of the actual survey data cannot be publicly published, as that information is proprietary to PhotoSat clients, feedback has been provided on the majority of the projects. The company is able to confirm the results of the 21 new accuracy studies as consistent with both client feedback and the firm’s own project accuracy evaluations.

The accuracy studies were conducted over two test areas: one located west of Asmara, Eritrea, where PhotoSat has access to more than 45,000 ground survey points over a 50 km by 20 km block, and the second in SE California, where PhotoSat uses a very accurate Opentopography.org open source LiDAR survey.

The studies employed different numbers of ground survey control points for each test area and each satellite system, and it was discovered that increasing the number of ground survey points did not necessarily correlate with higher accuracy. For example, the accuracy of the WorldView-3 survey for the California test area was not improved by additional ground survey points. This WorldView-3 survey is accurate to 13 cm in elevation with one ground survey control point and with 153 ground survey control points.

In contrast, some satellite stereo pairs did have accuracy significantly improved by increasing the number of ground survey control points. The WorldView-2 survey for Eritrea was accurate to 19 cm in elevation, with two ground control survey points, and accurate to 14cm in elevation with 21 ground control points. PhotoSat has been continuously producing accuracy studies since 2007 in order to provide objective, quantifiable accuracy data for stereo satellite surveying and mapping. PhotoSat has previously published nine of these studies.

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Monday, 19 December 2016. The new information on Sea Surface Height, Ocean Colour and Sea Surface Temperature, disseminated via EUMETCast, EUMETSAT’s flexible data dissemination system, will ensure improved management of fishing zones and security for fishermen at sea as well as the forecast of harmful algae bloom and coastal protection.

This new service responds to the request of key marine regional centres in Africa and was coordinated by the African Union with the European Commission. It ensures the availability of vital satellite information in support of marine resources and coastal management on the whole African continent.

Disseminating the data via EUMETCast secures the simultaneous availability of data all across the continent and ensures easy access even in remote locations with limited internet access.

“The combination of data from Sentinel-3 and Jason-3 will go a long way to improve the development of Potential Fishing Zone charts”

The introduction of the new service was complemented with training activities for African users on how to use EUMETSAT’s Copernicus Marine data stream for operational marine surface analysis. The course in the Pretoria training centre ran from 12 – 15 December.

The new data stream will also feed the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) and Africa Support Programme of the European Commission and the African Union Commission.

As Georges Wiafe, Coastal and Marine Resources Management Centre at the University of Ghana, points out “The higher-resolution data delivered by Sentinel-3A will flow into enhanced ocean products to support fisheries management and provide better safety at sea for West African users.

“I am convinced the combination of data from Sentinel-3 and Jason-3 will go a long way to improve the development of Potential Fishing Zone charts and the monitoring of ocean conditions in the region.”

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BENGALURU: ISRO today said it would launch a record 83 satellites in one go using its workhorse PSLV-C37 toward the end of January.

“We are working for a January launch. It will be toward the end of January. The date has to be fixed,” Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman A S Kiran Kumar told reporters here.

Of the 83 satellites, 80 belong to Israel, Kazakhstan, Netherlands, Switzerland and the US. They weigh about 500 kg.

The three Indian satellites are Cartosat-2 series, weighing 730 kg as primary payload, and INS-IA and INS-1B, weighing 30 kg.

Setting a record in its space programme, ISRO in June had successfully launched 20 satellites, including its earth observation Cartosat-2 series, in a single mission on board PSLV-C34 from the spaceport in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.

The space agency had earlier sent 10 satellites into orbit in a single mission in 2008.

Calling 2016 a “good” year, Kumar said ISRO would launch at least five communication satellites in 2017.

“It (launches) will be more next year, we are actually looking at almost something like five communication satellites, then many more others. Some earth observation also,” he said in response to a question on the number of launches that can be expected in 2017.

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The German Ministry of Food and Agriculture is funding project “BigPicture – Diagnosis in the field: Big-Data-based determination of causes for satellite-image-derived and site-specific variations” carried out jointly by rasdaman GmbH, Bremen, and Spatial Business Integration GmbH, Darmstadt. Goal is helping farmers to optimize returns and to protect the environment through innovative Big Data technology.

A ceremony marked the official kickoff and underlined importance of this project. “For German agriculture it is important to play in the worldwide ivy league when it comes to hitech services. Projects like BigPicture play an important role due to their outstanding innovation and practical relevance”, says Parliament State Secretary of the Federal Ministry for Food and Agriculture, Peter Bleser, while handing out the funding certificate on October 10.

With this handover of the certificates to rasdaman GmbH and Spatial Business Integration (SBI) the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture officially announced its financial support of the BigPicture research project through its innovation grants program. Overall volume of this 2.5 years project is above one million Euro. Technically, BigPicture aims at interpreting satellite captured variations in farm fields through Big Data technologies so that targeted measures, such as fertilizer placement, application of pesticides, or choice of species to grow, can be derived. Manifold information will be combined in such analyses, including satellite imagery, weather data, as well as the farmers’ experience. This way, the process chain from satellite-based symptoms capturing in the field over diagnosis up to therapy recommendation will be automated completely.

By combining the complementary know-how of both partners Big Picture aims at establishing large-scale automated analysis offering individual insights and support for agricultural production in Germany.

Bremen-based hitech company, rasdaman GmbH, is world leader with its multi-award-winning agile Big Data technology for massive spatio-temporal datacubes. Just this summer US magazine CIOReview has chosen high-speed server rasdaman into their list of top Big Data solutions worldwide. Scaling seamlessly from laptops over clouds to intercontinental federations, rasdaman is in operation at leading data centers. The European Space Agency (ESA) operates a rasdaman database with 145 Terabyte, and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) wants to unleash its world’s largest climate data archive encompassing 90 Petabyte. International “Big Datacube” standards used rasdaman as a blueprint, such as ISO Array SQL and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) “Big Geo Data” suite, WCS.

Spatial Business Integration GmbH (SBI) focuses on providing services on a worldwide scale based on satellite and geospatial data for its customers in the agricultural sector, as well as the agro-chemical and finance industries. “We care about the world, which is why we provide information which can protect food, water and nature”, stated General Manager Dr. Born recently at a conference attended by delegates from the agricultural, agro-chemical and space industries. Providing intelligent information products derived from geospatial data assists SIB’s clients in realizing their business strategies, ensuring efficient business processes, saving time and money, and managing limited resources such as arable land, nutrients and water. Spatial Business Integration’s success is anchored in more than 20 years of experience and expertise in the fields of satellite remote sensing, geospatial technologies, plant sciences, water and agriculture.

The BigPicture project is supported by funds of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) based on a decision of the Parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany via the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE) under the innovation support programme.

Contacts:
rasdaman GmbH
Dr. Peter Baumann
baumann@rasdaman.com
www.rasdaman.com

Spatial Business Integration GmbH
Dr. Jürgen Born
juergen.born@spatial-business-integration.com
www.spatial-business-integration.com

By Geospatial World – October 11, 2016

Countries need to integrate their information systems at a national level, which would then flow up into a regional and global level, believes Greg Scott, Inter-Regional Advisor of the UN Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM)

How will geospatial data be useful in achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)?

The new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which was adopted in September 2015, has provided an important opportunity for earth observations and geospatial information to be better understood within the United Nations system itself. Leveraging this opportunity is important for countries, and we are working very hard to enable them to achieve this visibility, and to provide direction to them. We are making sure that the member countries realize how geospatial information, earth observations, statistics and other new data can support their development agenda, and help them to measure and monitor the goals of the sustainable development process.

Do you see the need to create a new framework to streamline the availability and accessibility of data across nations?

Reinventing the wheel, or even doing something new and revolutionary, is not what is required. We need to begin with the basics by integrating our information systems at a national level, which would then flow up into a regional and global level. So, it is all about how we take some of our existing information systems and structures, and potentially tailor them more for delivering on the environmental, economic and social aspects of our data construct and needs within and across countries.

Having lots of data is great, but being able to use and leverage that data and turn it into valuable information and knowledge to support decision-making is really where the integration and change needs to occur

How would you visualize the structure of such a framework to be?

As a pragmatic solution, the framework would follow a national bottom-up approach. For example, the new SDGs have 17 goals, 169 targets, and 230 initial global indicators. Those indicators will be used in different ways by different countries. The framework on how they use their data to measure the indicators will largely depend on institutional and architectural arrangements that already exist. In developed countries, that is quite easy in terms of how they modify national spatial data infrastructures or other information systems. But, what is also very important is how that applies to developing nations and some of the least developed countries. This mandate hopefully would provide these countries with the opportunity to start building and harnessing the same processes. It would allow them to learn from other countries and also from the institutional arrangements or the governance that goes around those processes and frameworks.

Across the world, we are moving from a data-poor paradigm to data-rich paradigm. So, how can data be best used to monitor SDGs?

Yes, we are moving toward a data-rich world where there seems more data available than we can sometimes use, but the concept of rich and poor countries applies to data as well. While many developed countries are data-rich, not only in data but also in architectural technologies, institutional arrangements, methodologies, standards, etc., many of the developing countries are very data-poor due to considerable capacity and capability resource constraints. That is a very important factor to consider when trying to ensure that, as the 2030 Agenda aspires that ‘no-one is left behind’. Similarly, having lots of data is great, but being able to use and leverage that data and turn it into valuable information and knowledge to support decision-making is really where the integration and change needs to occur.

Agenda 2030 recommends building capacities by 2020 through training and capacity development programs. How does your organization plan to achieve this?

One of the big challenges for the 2030 Agenda is around capacity development and knowledge transfer. We need to figure out how to bring more enabling technologies and capabilities from the data-rich countries to the data-poor countries. Within the UN-GGIM, we are very conscious of this fact, as the entire UN system has a central focus on capacity development. We are working hard toward this end, but, what we require are resources. Many of us are aware of that, but we only have finite resources. So, using the goodwill and the trust that has been provided by many of the countries around the world to support this process is incredibly important. It was certainly reflected in the outcome of what is known as the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, in which governments and civil society looked at financing for development to better provide support to those countries that are not so well-off.

*How can we facilitate improved collaboration between statistical and geospatial communities to achieve the larger goals of SDGs? *

This concept of integration of statistical and geospatial information has been a paramount agenda within the UN system for several years now. UN-GGIM has been working closely with the UN Statistical Commission, via a dedicated Expert Group, looking at these integration challenges for three years, which are also now closely aligned to what we need for SDGs. This is going ahead very quickly and progressing to the point where a global statistical-geospatial framework is being considered by the countries. It will also be a key enabler for statistics in geospatial organizations around the world to work together and to collaborate and coordinate their abilities to measure and monitor the implementation of the SDGs.

We need to consider data as a national information system, so that countries can think about their statistical, environmental, geospatial information and earth observation institutes in a more holistic way

What other geospatial partnerships and collaborations do you think are required to further the SDG agenda?

One of the evolving things that either needs to be changed, or in some degree is already changing, is considering data as more of a national information system, so that countries can think about their statistical, environmental, geospatial information, earth observation institutes in a more holistic way. Then there are new and emerging sources of data, including Big Data, that are becoming available, and need to be integrated into national information systems to provide greater richness and context to the national information base. As this starts to progress, we will see better outcomes. And in that process, its treatment and management would be quite critical.

What are your views about policy recommendations to be adopted by the nations?

One of the important policies that UN-GGIM is trying to consider is not being so much around the governance side, but having the arrangements in place so that information is not only interoperable, standards-based and transferable, but also open and shared across different agencies within and across governments. Adopting such processes will ensure that the information is created only once, but is able to be shared and used many times over.

How can countries align data investments with priority data gaps?

Due to its breadth and depth, one of the requirements that we are seeing in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda is the need for new data sources. Obviously, there will be some data that does not presently exist, but there will also be some data that does exist and is ‘potentially available’ if it is restructured or repurposed for the needs of the goals, targets and indicators of the SDGs. We now have the list of 230 indicators. Within months, we will know the total number of data gaps. Some of them are considerable, not so much in their spatial resolution, but in their temporal resolution. For example, data that is two, three or four years old cannot readily contribute to an annual reporting outcome ― so we need to bring the time lag down. Additionally, some of the data sources and their use pose a degree of challenge to our professional community. We need to partner with agencies, governments, other international organizations as well the private sector and those who often have more agility and ability to bring data such as earth observations into the discussion, rather than some of the more traditional means that we have. So, it is very much a case of evolving and leveraging some of these capabilities.

*What is your perspective about open data as an enabler for the SDGs’ success?

Open data in the context of the SDGs is going to be very important. To have good interoperability and information systems, free, open and timely data that is maintained and sustained is going to be of prime importance. One thing about open data, or the concept of how information can be made available over time, is that the SDG process is going to continue for 15 years. So, when we think about provision of data, it is not a one-off thing; it has to be something that is able to continue over that 15-years cycle. So, having these kinds of contexts — whether it is freely available or at a cost, and the terms of access — is going to be very important, particularly for developing countries.

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