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SAN DIEGO, Calif.— SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today unveiled SAP® Geographical Enablement Framework, powered by SAP HANA®, which helps organizations enrich business applications with geographic data from geographic information systems (GIS), such as Esri ArcGIS. This announcement was made at the Esri User Conference being held June 27–July 1 in San Diego.

“In many asset-intensive industries such as energy, transportation and public sector, the ability to visualize business objects on maps is critical to improving efficiency and decision making,” said Irfan Khan, GM and global head, Database & Data Management, SAP. “SAP Geographical Enablement Framework, powered by SAP HANA, can help organizations streamline the processing of both enterprise and spatial data for greater location awareness across business processes.”

Enriching Business Processes with Geospatial Information

To develop spatially enabled business applications, organizations can use the framework to:

  • Enable smooth integration and bidirectional navigation between SAP applications and Esri ArcGIS. * Developers can use application programming interfaces (APIs) published by GIS systems to fetch geospatial data. Also, business data augmented with geometric attributes can be published as a service, so that GIS users can access SAP business data from within their GIS tools.
  • Embed a responsive map user interface (UI) in a business application to display both business and spatial data simultaneously to provide greater insight.
  • Store the geometry of any SAP business object in the SAP HANA platform and accelerate spatial data processing in memory to deliver real-time insights, enriched with spatial context, to improve decision making.
  • Visualize, filter and search for business objects — such as functional location, equipment, linear assets, notifications or work orders — on a map from within a spatially enabled application. From a desktop or a tablet, users can also drill down through multiple map layers to gain better insight.

Accelerating Business and Spatial Data Processing with SAP HANA

With continued collaboration between SAP and Esri, organizations can gain contextual insight from business and spatial data, enabling business and GIS users to work within the same multiuser access and editing environment.

“At EDF Renewable Energy, we have built a truly innovative enterprise business intelligence and data warehouse platform that combines Esri geospatial data along with asset sensor data and ERP transactional data in SAP HANA,” said Devang Shah, manager of database and business intelligence, EDF Renewable Energy. “This provides us with near real-time insights to help us operate more efficiently.”

As an open platform, SAP HANA is certified with the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), enabling organizations to easily consume spatial data from third-party spatial solutions that also adhere to the standard. SAP HANA also supports synchronous and asynchronous imports of data from any spatial reference system (SRS) or coordinate reference system (CRS) to ease access to local, regional or global geographic entities. In addition, native geocoding delivered by SAP HANA smart data quality helps rapidly convert addresses to latitude and longitude within SAP HANA.

“Munich Re is one of the leading reinsurance companies in the world,” said Andreas Siebert, head of geospatial solutions at Munich Re. “We use spatial data processing capabilities in SAP HANA, in conjunction with predictive analytics, to assess risk — such as to identify natural hazard profiles for millions of locations around the globe, to efficiently coordinate loss adjustors after a major catastrophe or to calculate how many hospitals, schools and roads may be impacted by an impending hurricane or flood.”

Increasing Location Intelligence with SAP BusinessObjects™ Solutions

SAP is helping breaking down the silos between GIS and business data. Organizations can use the native geospatial features within SAP BusinessObjects™ Cloud and SAP BusinessObjects Lumira software to enrich data with geographic information and map visualizations. Business users can also contextualize business performance metrics by using powerful location intelligence capabilities within SAP Digital Boardroom, experienced through SAP BusinessObjects Cloud.

Business users can overlay business data on maps with detailed geographic information such as topography and satellite imagery. These maps can have multiple layers of different types of data, enabling business users to visualize information in various ways, such as a heat map layer to visualize data density and a choropleth map layer to highlight statistically significant geographic areas using shades or patterns.

“The SAP BusinessObjects BI Location Intelligence application by Galigeo brings the power of location visualization and analytics from Esri to SAP BusinessObjects Lumira, SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio and SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence®,” said Cristian Tapia, CEO at Galigeo. “Users can seamlessly blend their own spatial data into these SAP tools to gain new insights for decision making by fully exploiting the location dimension of their data.”

For more information, visit the SAP News Center. Follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews.

About SAP

As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP (NYSE: SAP) helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile device – SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable approximately 310,000 business and public sector customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For more information, visit www.sap.com.

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South America’s Amazon basin, El Niño conditions in 2015 and early 2016 reduced rainfall during the wet season, leaving the region drier at the start of the 2016 dry season than any year since 2002.

The Amazon fire forecast analyzes the relationship between certain climate observations and active fire detections from NASA satellites to predict fire-season severity. Developed in 2011 by scientists at the University of California, Irvine, and NASA, the forecast model is focused particularly on the link between sea-surface temperatures and fire activity. Warmer sea-surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific (as observed during an El Niño) and Atlantic oceans shift rainfall away from the Amazon region, increasing the risk of fire during dry months.

“Severe drought conditions at the start of the dry season have set the stage for extreme fire risk in 2016 across the southern Amazon,” said Doug Morton, an Earth scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and a co-creator of the fire forecast.

For 2016, El Niño-driven conditions are far drier than in 2005 and 2010—the last years when the region experienced drought. The prediction team developed a Web tool to track the evolution of the fire season in near-real time by Amazon region. Estimated fire emissions from each region are updated daily based on active fire detections—made by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite—and data from previous years in the Global Fire Emissions Database. So far, the region has seen more fires through June 2016 than in previous years, another indicator of a potentially tough season.

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by Peter B. de Selding — July 6, 2016. PARIS – SI Imaging Services (SIIS) of South Korea on July 6 said it had begun commercial sales of imagery from its Kompsat-3A optical Earth observation satellite, making Korea the second nation, after the United States, to put 50-centimeter-class pictures on the open market.

In a statement, SIIS said Kompsat-3A, launched in March 2015, offers imagery with a ground sampling distance of less than 50 centimeters, making it the sharpest imagery available commercially with the exception of DigitalGlobe of the United States.

Westminster, Colorado-based DigitalGlobe now distributes commercial imagery with a resolution as sharp as 30 centimeters. Its WorldView-4 satellite, scheduled for launch later this year, is capable of producing 25-centimeter imagery.

DigitalGlobe and other companies selling satellite imagery commercially say resolution is not the Alpha and Omega of a successful geospatial-imagery business. Speed of delivery to users, revisit time, the quality of the imagery library and multiple other factors are just as important, depending on the type of customers.

Nonetheless, these companies generally agree the high-resolution end of the market is where demand is increasing most rapidly, and where the business is most profitable.

“The race to higher resolution still exists,” said Eric Morel, director of Airbus Defence and Space Geo-Information’s optical intelligence division. “Yes, revisit time is important, and yes, image freshness is important and we are certainly working to improve that. But the fact is that the race to higher resolution is still here,” Morel said June 29 at the Toulouse Space Show conference.

Airbus shares, with the French Defense Ministry, the use of the two Pleiades optical satellites, both of which are in orbit. Operating from a 694-kilometer polar low Earth orbit, Pleiades satellites produce “native,” or untreated, imagery with a 70-centimeter resolution. Airbus sells resampled imagery, which involves laying one image over another to achieve an apparently sharper picture, at 50 centimeters in resolution.

Imagery specialists say resampling does not change the size of each pixel. But Airbus says many of its customers like it.

Kompsat-3A’s imaging assembly was built with assistance from Airbus Defence and Space’s German division and from the German Aerospace Center, DLR. For the global market, Airbus France is in charge of the optical images, with Airbus Germany providing Germany’s radar satellites.

Kompsat-3A carries the same basic imager as the Kompsat-3 satellite launched in 2012. But Kompsat-3A operates from 528 kilometers, whereas Kompsat-3 is in a 675-kilometer orbit. Being closer to the Earth, Kompsat-3A can offer what SIIS says is “better than 50 centimeters” images, compared to 70-centimeter-resolution products from Kompsat-3. The satellite produces images with a 12-kilometer-diameter swath. Color imagery is taken with a 2.2-meter resolution. The satellite’s infrared sensor can image at 5.5 meters.

The Korean Aerospace Research Institute had billed Kompsat-3A as having a 55-centimeter resolution for black-and-white images when pointing straight down.

SIIS did not immediately respond to questions of whether the sub-50-centimeter claim was a result of image resampling or an update of Kompsat-3A’s capabilities after a year of in-orbit testing.

Israel Aircraft Industries has sold an Optsat 3000 optical Earth observation satellite to the Italian Defense Ministry as part of a trade involving Italian jet trainer aircraft. The satellite has a 38-centimeter resolution from a 450-kilometer orbit, with an 11-kilometer swath, and weighs 380 kilograms. The Italian government has signaled no intent to commercialize the imagery.

IAI has said is own ImageSat International commercial Earth observation company is readying a 30-centimeter-class satellite, which is scheduled to be launched by the end of the decade.

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Costa Rica aims to be climate-neutral by 2021 – an ambitious target. This Central American country has been focusing on environmentally friendly development and the sustainable use of natural resources for some years. Satellite observations of the Earth can document the development of land use and the condition of protected areas.

After clearance work stopped at the end of the 1980s, the tree cover in Costa Rica grew from 20% to more than 50% of the country. However, Costa Rica’s agricultural industry is also growing and currently covers around 40% of the country: between 2000 and 2012, for example, the area used to cultivate pineapples grew sixfold.

This information was obtained with the aid of the European Earth observation program Copernicus. Copernicus guarantees the long-term availability of satellite data, thus supporting politics, companies and administration in the long term by helping them create an objective information base for tax measures.

Topics in common include monitoring protected areas, which account for one quarter of Costa Rica’s land surface, calculating the country’s climate balance and evaluating the influence of agriculture on natural ecosystems. The beneficiaries are the environmental authorities in the region that are integrated into the ongoing development processes.

Biomass growth declined between 2008 and 2012

MONROSA uses time series of satellite sensors to calculate biomass production in Costa Rica. These calculations constitute the basis of the country’s carbon balance. The illustration shows the net primary production (NPP) of biomass for Costa Rica during the years from 2002 to 2012. The dark green areas show the high productivity of Costa Rica’s densely forested mountain regions. The dry and cloud forests in the north-east achieve similar NPP figures. Comparing the NPP figures for individual years with average production over several years facilitates the detection of trends or exceptions. Production sank to well below average between 2008 and 2012, for example, an effect associated with the El Niño phenomenon of 2009 followed by La Niña in 2010. Positive anomalies are evident between 2003 and 2008. If developments are observed over lengthy periods, it is possible to make assertions about the effect of climate change on the various natural ecosystems influenced by man and thus also on the development of biodiversity.

Other scientific fields benefit from Copernicus data

Several factors have to work together if Copernicus data is to be used successfully in Costa Rica and Central America: high-performance IT solutions, scientifically sound data processing and product development must be optimally attuned to the ecological, socioeconomic and political circumstances in Costa Rica and the region. To this end, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research is supporting cooperation between scientific institutions in Costa Rica and the German Aerospace Center (DLR).

Originally, MONROSA was to use observations of the Earth and site surveys to monitor tropical forests in Guanacaste’s protected area of Santa Rosa. After obtaining the first and very promising results, the project partners quickly identified other scientific areas that would benefit significantly from Copernicus.

The resulting project proposal MONEO (Monitoring the Neotropical Environment through Earth Observation) bundles geoscientific activities and developments in and with Costa Rica using the European space program Copernicus, lays the technical foundations for processing the enormous quantities of data supplied by Copernicus, and thus paves the way to establishing Earth observation services for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Added value of international cooperation

The most important Costa Rican partner is the National High Technology Center (CeNAT), funded by all the country’s universities.
DLR and CeNAT intensified their close cooperation in the field of earth observation by concluding a cooperative agreement that was signed in February 2016 in Costa Rica in the presence of Federal Minister of Research Johanna Wanka. Along with scientific and technical cooperation, dialogue between scientists is also to be intensified. The project may come to a successful conclusion in August 2016 after a two-year period.

All stakeholders will benefit from this international partnership. The DLR scientists in Germany will have the opportunity to adapt their processes to local conditions by drawing on the regional knowledge of their Latin American colleagues. This will make the processes more robust, making them suitable for use in global monitoring. In turn, Earth observation services will be provided for Costa Rica and Central America with the assistance of the Earth Observation Center (EOC); these will primarily be fed by the free data stream from Copernicus. International partnerships of this calibre testify to the DLR’s leading role in the Copernicus program. The exchange of up-and-coming researchers is strengthening Costa Rica’s pioneering role in the field of technology and deepening the close climate partnership between Germany and Costa Rica.
Contact

DLR Project Management Agency | International Bureau
Stephanie Splett-Rudolph
Tel.: +49 228 3821 1430
German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Andreas Müller
Tel.: +49 8153 28 1533

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According to Bulelwa Semoli – the 1st Afrigeoss Symposium was a success with a good turnout from 32 African countries. She further notes that “the Afrigeoss supports the implementation of the African Union 2063 Agenda. It provides a platform to implement the Societal Benefits Areas (SBAs) in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is also important that national and regional GEO initiatives are linked to the AU’s policies in order to make a meaningful impact.”

One of the outstanding presentations was the Australian Geoscience Data Cube and its result in unlocking the Landsat Archive spanning forty years of data. It’s a tool to be explored and was developed using open source software and standards.
(See http://www.datacube.org.au/ for more information)

The broad outcomes of the symposium are:

  • Strengthening AfriGEOSS governance structure to improve information flow between national, regional and global structures. The members of the steering committee shall be increased to 2 per region, and the steering committee should undertake the regional promotion and participation in AfriGEOSS.
  • Establishing national GEO coordination mechanisms through the establishment of national GEO structures in all member states, with the aim of improving the use of earth observation for policy formulation and decision making.
  • To continuing the demonstration of the relevance of EO by showcasing applications, information products and services that respond to societal challenges, particularly in the proposed priority areas of forest management, food security, urban planning and water resource management.
  • Investigating the implementation of a continental level body on Food Security and Agriculture (AfriGAM) for the harmonization of on-going projects and initiatives.
  • Developing a community of practice for forest management in Africa and bringing together all existing projects and initiatives.

Dr. Sias Mostert foresees AfriGEOSS “as a platform for effective consensus building with regards to the needs and priorities of Africa and to unlock the potential of Africa when it comes to environmental and city management.”

Dr. Jane Bemigisha places the emphasis on the private sector: “Strengthening engagement of the private sector with Governments and the AfriGEOSS community will enhance access and use of the vast Earth Observation products, knowledge and expertise within the private business communities. However, the capacities of SMEs needs to be enhanced for them to deliver at required scales.”

AARSE is looking forward to participate in the activities of AfriGEOSS and invite all AfriGEOSS participants to attend the upcoming AARSE conference which is being held this October in Uganda

Click here to see the outcomes of the AfriGEOSS symposium

GEO-CRADLE brings together key players representing the whole (Balkans, N. Africa and M. East) region with the overarching objective of establishing a multi-regional coordination network (the GEO-CRADLE network) that will support the effective integration of existing EO capacities, and contributes to the improved implementation of GEO, GEOSS, and Copernicus in response to the regional needs.

In this context, GEO-CRADLE lays out an action plan for the definition of region specific (G)EO Maturity Indicators and common priority needs. Through showcasing pilot studies, in the four thematic priority areas of the project which are Climate Change, Raw Materials, Food Security, and Energy, the project attempts to demonstrate how the regional priorities can be tackled by the GEO-CRADLE Network. As outcome of this, the project seek to define the roadmap for the future implementation of GEOSS and Copernicus in the region.

To maximise the impact of the GEO-CRADLE activities, welldefined Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are used for the quantified assessment of the impact, identifying potential enabling or constraining factors, while pursuing realistic but also ambitious exploitation scenarios. For efficient project coordination, the project management is assisted by a regional coordination structure, and active liaison with EC, GEO and UN initiatives.

By Project Coordinator Dr. Haris Kontoes

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Posted on May 31, 2016 by Kathy Fey. Space mining company Planetary Resources has plans to refit its asteroid prospecting satellite system to create an Earth observation platform.
According to Gizmag, the observation system, named Ceres, will involve the company’s Arkyd spacecraft being outfitted with infrared and hyperspectral sensors. The craft will monitor Earth industries and resources from orbit.

Planetary Resources has raised $21.1 million for the project, which will put ten satellites into low-Earth orbit. The refitted Arkyd space telescope will be turned toward Earth to provide lower-cost, on-demand information about natural resources and industrial activity anywhere on the surface.

The next-generation Arkyd satellite will be delivered into orbit by a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster.

“As we continue toward our vision of the expansion of humanity and our economy into the Solar System, our team has been working on the critical technologies required to detect and identify the most commercially viable near-Earth asteroids and their resources,” Chris Lewicki of Planetary Resources said in a statement. “To characterize these resources, it required more than just a picture, and our team has developed advanced spectral sensors to serve this need. We have also created new technologies for onboard computing, low-cost space platforms, and are now applying these transformative technologies in additional markets.”

The craft will collect data in 40 color bands ranging from the visible to near-infrared spectrum. Ceres will also have thermal and night imaging capabilities.

The company anticipates being able to provide analysis for a number of industries, including mineral prospecting, agriculture, gas, oil, forestry and industrial operations. The system will also be able to provide data on algae blooms, wildfires, and water pollution.

“With Ceres, Planetary Resources has leapfrogged traditional images for monitoring Earth’s natural resources, creating far-ranging opportunity. It’s a seismic shift for the new space economy,” Bryan Johnson of Planetary Resources said.

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Geospatial technology is aggressively helping in various sectors in India. The key to its usage lies in data acquisition and visualisation. The report “India’s Geospatial Market and Prospects” is an in depth study and analysis of geospatial industry in India. It provides a detailed view of the market; its behaviour and trends related to the consumption and applications of geospatial technology in the region.

The report focuses on various sectors like infrastructure, urban development, agriculture, electricity, disaster management, water, environment, forestry and climate change. These sectors are analyzed based on parameters like GDP growth, government initiatives, programs, investments by the government and private sector, technology application areas, growth segments, benefits and challenges. The current level of adoption of geospatial technologies in the country and the future business prospects of the technology are highlighted in the report.

Key features:

  • 500+ users surveyed for the report
  • Professional and in-depth study on the current status and future growth drivers of Geospatial Industry in India
  • 200+ tables and figures in the report provide key statistics on the state of the industry and acts as a valuable source of market insight
  • Overview of the industry including ecosystem, growth sectors, market behavior, major programs/schemes and initiatives, investment areas, challenges and user’s perspective on the applicability of the technology in different sectors, spheres and industries
  • Market analysis for India including development trends, sectors, opportunities and major focus areas in various industry sectors
  • Key statistics on the state of the industry which can be a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the market

Key Findings

  • Though it’s not in an advanced stage of implementation in most sectors, the applications of geospatial technology has definitely found new avenues in recent times.
  • Satellite imagery and GIS are two of the most used technologies in the agriculture sector. Increased demand of onboard sensors for mapping and monitoring is visible.
  • Policy mandates drive usage of GNSS, remote sensing and GIS in the areas of disaster management Visualization and interpretation of disasters is the key to usage of digital maps.
  • GIS is widely used for asset management and network planning in electric utilities. Availability of real-time/updated information about assets and consumers is a key driver in usage of geospatial technologies.
  • Majorly geospatial technologies are implemented for forest cover assessment and environmental modelling.
  • Infrastructure development is aided by surveying & mapping related technologies like total stations and GNSS.
  • Higher adoption of geospatial technologies in urban development is towards data creation, followed by monitoring.
  • Usage of GIS, GNSS deriving helps in project management and resource allocation in the water sector.

Respondents Profile

To understand the market dynamics and strategies in detail, a primary research and analysis has been carried out with more than 500+ organizations across the country. The distribution of the stakeholders participated in the primary research is provided below:
Scope of the Report

The research report categorizes the Indian Geospatial Market into the following segments:

Geospatial market by technology
– Aerial imagery
– Electronic total stations
GIS
GNSS
– LiDAR/Laser Scanning
– Radar
– Satellite imagery
UAVs/Drone

Geospatial market by industry verticals
– Agriculture
– Disaster management
– Electricity
– Forest, environment and climate change
– Infrastructure
– Urban development
– Water resources

Geospatial market by application areas

  • Assets and resource management
  • Data acquisition and visualization
  • Information systems
  • Monitoring
  • Planning and analysis
  • Surveying and mapping

Benefits of usage of geospatial technologies

  • Better precision and accuracy
  • Enhanced data safety, security and control
  • Faster decision making
  • Improved cost efficiency
  • Improved productivity
  • Increased transparency and planning

Challenges in usage of geospatial technologies across various levels

– Data
– Field level
– Operational
– Organizational

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Written by Monika Hohlmeier on 1 June 2016 in Opinion. The EU is in need of a strategic vision that can enable the development of space-based applications and services, argues Monika Hohlmeier.

Space is a strategic key growth sector, where Europe is firmly established in a leadership position. With more than €12bn of investments in the current financial framework both for research and for its flagship programmes, the European Union expects to boost growth and job creation by creating new market opportunities for European businesses and SMEs.

How can Europe capitalise on its investment? How can we bridge the gap between investment in space technology development and its concrete contributions to the lives of people across Europe, the economic and social growth of member states and the competitiveness of our companies?

The answer is a comprehensive European space strategy which takes into account the new challenges and market opportunities that are changing the global space industry. There is an urgent need to set strategic objectives and concrete targets on market share, revenue, job creation and emerging opportunities.

Recent technological innovations have shaken up the competitive landscape, enabling an increasing number of private players – using space-borne data – to develop new products and services. In this respect, Europe is behind the United States, which has anticipated change and has already developed and implemented national strategies to support their space industries. In a time of budgetary constraint, even Russia, China and Japan are providing support.

This has successfully increased their industries’ market share of downstream services and applications, all thanks to massive funding for research and development, a friendly regulatory environment and public procurement support. We lack such a comprehensive framework in Europe.

In addition, the full implementation of Europe’s flagship Galileo and Copernicus programmes is expected to create tremendous downstream market opportunities. However, in a global competitive environment, these are not necessarily going to benefit Europe’s businesses and create jobs.

Unless Europe manages to get a considerable share of the downstream market, such benefits will profit other players and Europe will fail to achieve a positive return on its investment. This is why we have to strengthen our efforts.

With the development of connectivity and the digital economy, Galileo will offer fantastic prospects for European downstream players. New generations of connected vehicles and driverless cars, the Internet of Things and sophisticated apps with indoor positioning all rely on global navigation satellite systems (GNSS).

For Europe to grasp the unexplored opportunities for new GNSS applications and services, policymakers must make efforts to support businesses, including SMEs and the downstream industry.

Copernicus is already providing huge amounts of accurate and easily accessible data, which could be used to improve the management of the environment, understand and mitigate the effects of climate change and safeguard civil security.

Nevertheless, there is a gap between research and availability of information and operational capability. It is striking that the EU, a pioneer in climate change policies, does not yet possess its own emissions monitoring and measuring systems and remains dependant on other space nations.

With the imminent multiannual financial framework mid-term revision in front of us, it is now the right time for the European Parliament to get involved in the priority setting of European space policy. Supported by the sky and space intergroup, the Parliament will be an active player bringing its full support to ensure that Europe benefits from its investments in space.

About the author
Monika Hohlmeier (EPP, DE) is Chair of Parliament’s sky and space intergroup

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