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Much time is spent this time of year looking forward. Sensors & Systems has been doing this for the past nine years now, and we’ve taken another stab with this latest list. We did some reflecting on emerging issues, innovative approaches and technology trends to come up with the following predictions for 2016. On the list are hardware advancements, policy decisions and directions, and a whole lot more inputs to mapmaking.

1. New Reality – This year is set to kick off a whole new level of virtual reality adoption given the wide number of new platforms from major players that include Microsoft (HoloLens), Samsung (GearVR), Oculus (Rift), Sony (Project Morpheus), and more. Given this explosion of hardware with relatively low price points, and the obvious extension of these viewing environments into geospatial application space, this could be the year that virtual reality becomes real. It’s not a big leap from there to augmented reality, and that’s where it starts to get really interesting.

2. Automated Mapping – The rise of machine learning is just getting started in terms of interesting map-related applications. The research team at Bentley Systems recently presented technology that takes street level imagery and classifies road type, turn lanes, curbs and other street-related details. This is an exciting application with a whole new level of attributes that are determined automatically and accurately. We can expect similar efforts that do much to reduce the cost of geospatial data while also improving its timeliness and accuracy.

3. Drones (or UAV, UAS, etc.) – The commercial race is on now that the Federal Aviation Administration has made a great deal of 333 exemptions for commercial drone data capture. Thousands of exemptions have been granted to date, with many focused on aerial photography and surveying applications. With the door open for serious applications, the types of reality capture applications are set to explode, with much more frequent flights. Geospatial software will take some time to adapt to these readily available inputs, and a great many new players will enter the market in this space.

4. Improved Insights – Companies like Orbital Insight and Reality Analytics are forging new ground with big data analysis for automated decision support. They both use artificial intelligence with sophisticated algorithms that tease out patterns and return results from imagery, often with data rather than imagery as the final output. This trend had its start some years ago for military purposes, where it continues to thrive and expand for a situational intelligence edge. These companies and others are expanding the use and application for classification and detection of petabyte scale imagery for increased utility of ever-expanding imagery datasets, including all of the inputs from UAVs.

5. Alternative Positioning – The U.S. Secretary of Defense has been making clear he supports moving past GPS to a distributed network based on microelectromechanical systems or MEMS for position, navigation, and timing (PNT) information. He has expressed frustration with the high cost of GPS satellites, the fact that GPS doesn’t work indoors and under certain conditions. Instead, he sees the Internet of Things as the answer for positioning. With this high-level DOD endorsement, and his past role as undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, this dialogue is likely to spur action. Indoor mapping is the final frontier of geospatial data acquisition and could certainly use this push. It will be interesting to see if there are meaningful inroads in MEMS-based positioning in the coming year.

6. Disruption Wins — The millennials have taken over with a dramatic demographic shift. Doing things in a new way is a hallmark of market success with this generation, so disruption is the word of the decade. Expect more new in the coming year, with further hits to institutions and organizations that cling to business plans of the past.

7. Map Ecosystems — There’s a growing number of sensor-laden managed ecosystems from precision farming to more mechanized mining. Machine control benefits from an accurate map, so this sector will continue to drive field data collection efforts. We can expect more closed loops in this sector where the machines are constantly doing the mapping, and communicating to each other about ongoing change. The constant updates and the massive volumes of data that are collected in the process will provide new big data insights.

8. Government Investment – The 2016 spending bill passed just before Christmas. Early analysis of the outcome shows a nice boost for science, with the USGS seeing a nearly two percent increase, NASA earth science with a more than an eight percent increase and NOAA receiving an eight percent increase. The U.S. Census received a 31 percent boost as it prepares for the next decadal survey. Together, these significant increases will certainly benefit the geospatial marketplace. Notable is ongoing mineral mapping program funding and a rejection of a plan to develop a thermal imaging observation platform.

9. Making Models – In the infrastructure modeling and mapping space, we are seeing an incredible increase in efficiency for converting aerial imagery into realistic models. The automation of photogrammetric techniques is continuing and just in time to take advantage of the advancements that drone-based platforms provide.

10. Monitoring Baselines – The news late this last year that the National Science Foundation had lost confidence in Neon Inc. as the manager of the National Ecological Observatory Network was a bit shocking given that much of the construction phase is complete. Thankfully, the NSF is still committed in this continental-scale observation system and perhaps the injection of a new team will make more of the operational phase of this integrated big data effort. The readings from the sites are already impacting research and science and could certainly greatly aid our understanding of Earth systems.

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The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) have agreed to work together more closely in the application and promotion of standards and best practices for the location and geospatial industries.


“The advancement of standards and best practices in areas such as point clouds benefits from the partnership of key organizations,” said Mark Reichardt, OGC’s president and CEO. “We are deeply appreciative of the alliance recently established between ASPRS and OGC. This alliance encourages our respective members to join forces in collaborative activity that will result in benefits for the whole global community as photogrammetry and remote sensing grow in importance.”

“Both the OGC and the ASPRS have long-established roles in the expanding field of location and geospatial technologies,” said Michael Hauck, ASPRS’s Executive Director.

“The two organizations share a mission to advance technical interoperability in this field. They share many members and both have active and complementary standards processes.

“The organizations recognize the synergies that can accrue to their members and the general public if the organizations more closely align some of their activities and work together to promote interoperability in the geospatial technology industry.”

The OGC and ASPRS will work jointly to develop use cases and requirements for open geospatial standards in the domains of data acquisition and dissemination, image processing, and remote sensing science.

An early priority is to jointly assess the current state of adopted and de facto standards for Point Cloud data and consider collaborative publication of one or more standards where there is a mutual benefit of both organizations. The two organizations invite the public to participate in the Point Cloud standards discussion. The members of the OGC Point Cloud Domain Working Group DWG have made the Working Group open to members and the public by allowing open membership to the email list and all meetings.

The two organizations will identify the scope of future standards that will facilitate interoperability of other kinds of remotely sensed data besides point clouds, such as photogrammetric measurements and imagery data of various types.

They will also cooperatively promote and participate in relevant OGC and ASPRS initiatives, including working groups, committee activities, Testbed and Pilot initiatives, regional forums, and workshops.

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Dr. Mohammed Al Ahbabi, Director General of the United Arab Emirates Space Agency (UAE) reinforced the agency’s commitment to strengthen international collaboration through space agency cooperation for the use of space assets in environmental research.

In his speech at the Eye on Earth Summit 2015 in Abu Dhabi, Dr. Mohammed Al Ahbabi highlighted: “Space assets are our ‘Eyes on Earth’ and enable us to perform Earth Observation. GNSS and satellite communications are indispensable tools for environmental monitoring and management and help pave the way for a sustainable, safe and ecologically balanced environment.”

Dr. Mohammed Al Ahbabi further emphasized that the mandate of the UAE to promote earth monitoring and tracking will benefit all mankind and future generations.

The Eye on Earth Summit was first established in 2011 with a partnership of the Abu Dhabi Global Environmental Data Initiative (AGEDI) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), following the Eye on Earth Summit Declaration 2011 for the promotion and integration of data for sustainable development.

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Monitoring for Environment and Security in Africa (MESA) from 31st August – 4th September 2015 in Kenya, participants discussed the use of Earth Observation data for policy, planning and decision making processes in Africa, provided by the MESA project.

The Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture of the African Union Commission, H.E. Tumusiime Rhoda Peace highlighted that MESA incorporates a variety of stakeholders, such as African decision-makers, experts, service providers and the user community, which enables comprehensive communication and interaction in different fields of expertise.

Prof. Judi Wakhungu, Cabinet Secretary of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources and Regional Development Authority of the Republic of Kenya explained her experience with MESA: “Before this, my office and team members had to travel physically to protected areas which took several days and incurred huge costs. Thanks to the MESA projects, KWS can now get a snapshot of satellite images of the protected areas on a single page. That is a clear example of how these technologies and the ones to be discussed here over the next five days impact our everyday lives. The funds saved from such initiatives can be now channeled by Government to further research and innovation towards safeguarding our environment”.

The MESA project is funded by the European Union and implemented with the coordination of the African Union Commission, as well as steered by the Regional Economic Communities and Inter-Governmental Organizations.

Read full story:
MESA FORUM: A GREAT OPPORTUNITY FOR AFRICAN DECISION-MAKERS, EXPERTS, SERVICE PROVIDERS AND THE USER COMMUNITY TO EXCHANGE VIEWS

Making a Difference Locally, Where People Live

13 October 2015, Geneva, Switzerland – UNOSAT continues its campaign for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Earth observations. Our DRR activities are focused on increasing the capacity of governments and regional actors in reducing disaster risk, spanning from preparedness to emergency response through the use of GIS and Remote Sensing (RS) applications. A blend of collaborative training, and in-country capacity development forms the basis of our activities which include:

  • Strengthening technical knowledge and skills in the use of GIS and RS technologies for DRR;
  • Raising awareness on use of geospatial technologies for DRR for decision making;
  • Data production and technical backstopping for DRR related matters;
  • Providing global alerts for flood preparedness.

We work in the Horn of Africa in collaboration with the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) to mainstream DRR across IGAD member states with an integrated approach to disaster management, climate change and human rights / security. In the Southeast Asia region, we are collaborating with the Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre (ADPC) to provide government agencies and stakeholders with geospatial solutions for risk reduction and satellite imagery based analysis and mapping in disaster situations. We are also partnering with the Chadian Ministry of the Hydraulic Urban and Rural (MHUR) in the implementation of the ResEau project, aimed at strengthening national capacities in the fields of geology, hydrogeology and GIS for improved knowledge of water resources management.

UNOSAT has also developed a flood modelling tool “Flood-FINDER’ to produce global early warning and simulated flood scenarios. The flood modelling tool aims to enhance flood resilience by providing forecast information in the form of alert bulletins to effectively help the population during preparedness and planning activities. We have successfully used the tool in forecasting the Malawi and Mozambique floods. Currently, we are releasing flood forecasting in Chad and implementing the use of the flood modelling tool in the IGAD region.

Our regional liaison offices in Bangkok, N’Djamena and Nairobi continue campaigning for an increased outreach of our DRR activities to local actors. Thanks to the generous contribution of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation that our DRR activities have benefitted over 800 disaster management professionals from 104 countries worldwide.

Related links www.geodrr.org
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TORONTO, Ontario (August 30th, 2015) – A group of geospatial veterans have identified the need to address the global commercial UAS/drone mapping market and have formed The GPS Group to meet the needs of this rapidly expanding segment within the geospatial and mapping industry.

The GPS Group takes a unique approach to delivering custom image processing services. Many companies are supplying products derived from “black box” solutions that don’t permit operator intervention or incremental editing of the results, The GPS Group goes a step beyond and provides fully customized products and solutions using commercial-grade photogrammetry software products.

“Drones offer a timely, high resolution alternative to conventional imaging platforms and have the ability to get very high quality geospatial information in front of decision makers quickly and affordably,” said Mike Agnes, managing partner of The GPS Group “However, what must also be considered as part of a successful UAS implementation are the techniques and tools used to create those products”

Although The GPS Group is a new company, its founding partners have well-established track records in the industry. Each member of the team brings complementary and extensive geospatial experience to their clients projects, including commercial UAS operations, remote sensing + GIS, consulting, and geospatial software solutions.

In addition, the company provides coaching and managed services to meet the unique needs of its target market. “UAS professionals and those thinking about embracing this technology, with all of its nuances and special needs, require the same level of sophistication, if not more, than the rest of the commercial mapping industry; we strive to provide these services from a single trusted source,” adds John Dobson, partner and technical operations manager at The GPS Group, “ By providing option of managed services, this gives our clients the ability to leverage our expertise and experience at a fraction of the cost of implementing them alone.”

The GPS Group brings a deep understanding of the photogrammetric process and are excited to apply their knowledge to the UAS community. In fact, the partners view their service capabilities and market knowledge as having significant value to anyone seeking to establish a UAS solution within their organizations.

Being a good corporate citizen is also important to the company. Hence, The GPS Group plans to devote a percentage of its available resources to supporting non-profit groups who are seeking to incorporate UAS for the betterment of their organization’s goals.

About The GPS Group

Every day, The GPS Group helps companies who are seeking to add insight and clarity to the geospatial products they develop for themselves and their clients. The GPS Group specializes in custom image processing services for UAV / drone operators who are looking for a higher standard of accuracy for their terrain and orthoimagery products.

Learn more at www.gpsgroup.ca or by emailing contact@gpsgroup.ca.

Email: agnes@gpsgroup.ca
Web: www.gpsgroup.ca
Twitter: @thegpsgroup

Ice shelves modulate Antarctic contributions to sea-level rise1 and thereby represent a critical, climate-sensitive interface between the Antarctic ice sheet and the global ocean.

Following rapid atmospheric warming over the past decades2, 3, Antarctic Peninsula ice shelves have progressively retreated4, at times catastrophically5. This decay supports hypotheses of thermal limits of viability for ice shelves via surface melt forcing3, 5, 6. Here we use a polar-adapted regional climate model7 and satellite observations8 to quantify the nonlinear relationship between surface melting and summer air temperature. Combining observations and multimodel simulations, we examine melt evolution and intensification before observed ice shelf collapse on the Antarctic Peninsula. We then assess the twenty-first-century evolution of surface melt across Antarctica under intermediate and high emissions climate scenarios. Our projections reveal a scenario-independent doubling of Antarctic-wide melt by 2050. Between 2050 and 2100, however, significant divergence in melt occurs between the two climate scenarios. Under the high emissions pathway by 2100, melt on several ice shelves approaches or surpasses intensities that have historically been associated with ice shelf collapse, at least on the northeast Antarctic Peninsula.

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Harwell, Oxfordshire, 3rd September 2015 – Rezatec, the innovative landscape intelligence company, has been working with Northern Ireland Water to undertake an innovative study of its Dungonnell catchment, on the Garron Plateau, to the North of Belfast, using its cutting edge Earth Observation (EO) techniques. The aim of the project is to look at the integrity of peatland in the catchment area and its risk to water quality, as well as to provide a prioritisation assessment for restoration activities.

To measure peatland integrity Rezatec used a range of Earth Observation sensors from high resolution satellite imagery to ground based peat depth measurements, to analyse numerous aspects of peatland structure including the depth and volume of organic soil, the classification of vegetation types and the identification of man-made disturbances such as peat cutting and ditching.

With this focus on peatland degradation and disturbance and their subsequent threat to water quality, the project has provided Northern Ireland Water with risk assessments of the catchments to understand the extent to which the elevated quantities of carbon often found in degraded peat are contributing to the level of water treatment required to achieve Drinking Water Standards. Ultimately, this understanding will enable Northern Ireland Water to make decisions that will result in lower costs and better water quality.

Roy Taylor, Catchment Manager for Northern Ireland Water, commented: “This project has been a unique new opportunity to use cutting edge earth observation techniques to understand our water catchments. The project with Rezatec is giving us new insights into the environment from which we take our water supply, and how we can improve water quality and ultimately reduce water treatment costs by implementing the most effective restoration activities.”

Philip Briscoe of Rezatec added: “Our EO techniques have proved extremely useful in meeting the challenges of peatland management, giving Northern Ireland Water quantified information on ecosystem integrity presented through an online, interactive geospatial portal.”

Rezatec uses advanced, scalable techniques to offer what it has termed ‘landscape intelligence’, which takes large volumes of Earth Observation data and uses it to analyse environmental risk and changes in agricultural land use. Rezatec now works with five UK water companies, including Scottish Water and Bristol Water, leading the market in supporting catchment management by identifying potential threats to water supply, in particular from different sources of diffuse pollution such as degraded peatland and agricultural land use.

Editor’s notes

About Rezatec
Rezatec™ applies new science to Earth Observation (EO) data to produce high value data products that substantially reduce the cost of quantifying, monitoring and verifying land use change and environmental risk. Rezatec’s unique strength lies in its ability to aggregate large amounts of diverse data from satellite, airborne and ground instruments to provide critical decision support for science and non-science users. Headquartered within the UK Space Gateway in Oxfordshire, in the UK, Rezatec customers today are spread across the Water, Agribusiness, Energy, FMCG and Forestry sectors. For more information about Rezatec visit www.rezatec.com.

For editorial enquiries contact:
Philip Briscoe, Marketing Director, Rezatec Limited
Tel: 01235 567396, Email: philip.briscoe@rezatec.com

The Sentinel-2A satellite has been in orbit for only a matter of weeks, but new images of an algal bloom in the Baltic Sea show that it is already exceeding expectations. Built essentially as a land monitoring mission, Sentinel-2 will also certainly find its way into marine applications.

©Sentinel-2A captured this detailed image of an algal bloom in the middle of the Baltic Sea on 7 August 2015. The image, which has a spatial resolution of 10 m, reveals the bloom in exquisite detail as well as a ship heading into the ‘eye of this algal storm’. The ship’s wake can be seen as a straight dark line where the bloom has been disturbed by the ship’s propellers. Image courtesy Copernicus Sentinel data (2015)/ESA

Warm weather and calm seas this August have increased the amount of biological activity in the central Baltic Sea, with the Finnish algae monitoring service Alg@line reporting a dominance of cyanobacteria in the region at this time.

The Baltic Sea faces many serious challenges, including toxic pollutants, deep-water oxygen deficiencies, and toxic blooms of cyanobacteria affecting the ecosystem, aquaculture and tourism.

The situation was so bad that in 1974 the Helsinki Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area was created to improve the state of the sea. Since then, the health of the Baltic Sea has improved dramatically.

Sentinel-2A was launched on 23 June, primarily to monitor land and vegetation for Europe’s environmental monitoring Copernicus programme. This new satellite carries a high-resolution instrument that covers 13 spectral bands with a swath width of 290 km.

This instrument is already exceeding expectations when it comes to monitoring the biology of coastal waters, as seen in these spectacular images of the central Baltic Sea taken on 7 August.

The images, showing detail down to 10 m across, reveal exquisite detail of an algal bloom.

Blooms in the Baltic Sea usually appear as a green-yellow soup or a mass of blue-green threads along density gradients within the sea. The streaks and filaments, eddies and whirls of biological activity are clearly visible in these new images.

Cyanobacteria have qualities similar to algae and thrive on phosphorus in the water. High water temperature and sunny, calm weather often lead to particularly large blooms that pose problems to the ecosystem and, therefore, aquaculture and tourism.

Toxicity varies between different species, but can also vary within the same species. Because of this, several teams monitor the status of blooms in the region using ships.

However, satellites can provide a synoptic view that ships alone cannot.

Sentinel-2A’s resolution of 10 m in multiple bands allows Copernicus services to monitor biological activity in the region. While it was optimised for land applications, it is clearly a valuable tool for monitoring ocean colour.

A ship can even be seen in the top image heading into the ‘eye’ of this algal storm. The ship’s track is visible as straight dark feature where the algae have been disturbed by turbulence created by the ship’s propellers as it mixes water in its wake.

Fine-scale filaments of biological activity reveal the vertical movement associated with ocean density fronts and dynamics.

ESA ocean scientist Craig Donlon said, “Sentinel-2A multispectral imager data of biological activity are delivered at a much higher spatial resolution than current operational numerical ocean prediction systems.

“This provides unique and complementary information to monitor the development of potentially harmful blooms.

“To support safe aquaculture and tourism we need to have better knowledge of the ecosystem and physical dynamics in the upper ocean, which is expressed in the horizontal structures we can see in the Sentinel-2A imagery.

“For example, the linear features in the algal bloom signature across the image suggest that internal waves are present. As these waves propagate and break, they energise the upper layers of the water column mixing typically deeper oxygen-depleted waters and change the distribution of the bloom.”

Betrand Chapron, scientific leader of ESA’s GlobCurrent project, added, “The challenge is to work with Sentinel-2 data in synergy with other satellite data. This includes data from Sentinel-1 and the upcoming Sentinel-3 missions to maximise our understanding of how the ecosystem develops and to provide warnings to decision-makers about harmful algal blooms.

“The upper-ocean vertical activity revealed through the fine-scale horizontal structures seen in the fantastic Sentinel-2 images and understating how the multiple-scale interaction of different ocean processes relates to ocean currents and dynamics, is frontier science that underpins the operational Copernicus Marine Environmental Monitoring Service.”

Fabrice Collard from Oceandatalab said, “To help discover and analyse this synergy between Sentinel-1, -2 and -3 together with other satellite, in situ and model datasets, an Ocean Virtual Laboratory is under development. This will exploit the fantastic Sentinel-2 data as soon as the commissioning is done.”

China on Monday quietly launched the Gaofen-9 high-resolution Earth observation satellite on a Long March 2D rocket from the Jiuquan satellite launch centre in the Gobi desert.

The launch went ahead at 12:42 Beijing time (04:42 UTC) with the only warning coming from a prior airspace notification. The successful launch was confirmed by state-run CCTV.

Gaofen-9 is the fourth to be launched from what is expected to be eight or nine satellites forming the China High-resolution Earth Observation System (CHEOS).

Chinese state media report it will be used to provide sub-meter resolution optical images for use in land surveying, urban planning, land ownership, road network design, estimating crop yields, as well as disaster preparedness and reduction.

China High-resolution Earth Observation System

Gaofen-1 was the first in the series, and delivered a number of incredible hi-res, false colour images of land features in China. It was also involved in locating ‘dozens of illegal cross-border paths’ and the curious case of detecting the country’s largest-ever discovered marijuana plantation – which subsequently ‘disappeared’.

This was followed by the previous satellite, Gaofen-2, which launched on August 19, 2014. With a spatial resolution of 1 metre – the highest of the series – Gaofen-2 returned the stunning images below.

According to the China National Space Administration (CNSA), CHEOS is a planned advanced earth observation system with high spatial, spectral and radiometric resolution with the satellites placed in various orbits.

Approved in 2010, CHEOS plans to provide real-time, all-day global earth observation in any weather and is expected to be completed by 2020. The constellation may also be utilised in Chinese president Xi Jinping’s ‘One belt one road’ regional development project.

China’s 6th launch in 2015

The launch was China’s sixth for the year, following missions sending three Beidou global positioning satellites, Gaofen-8, Yaogan Weixing-27, and on Saturday the classified satellite ‘Communication Engineering Test Satellite One’ into orbit.

On September 19, China will launch the first of a new generation of rocket, the Long March 6, which uses new engines fuelled by relatively clean kerosene and liquid oxygen propellant, and will eventually replace the current launch vehicles which run on highly toxic hydrazine.

Next year the new heavy-lift Long March 5 and medium-lift Long March 7 rockets, designed to launch and service China’s future space station and perform lunar sample return missions, will make their debut launches.

Today’s launch was the 209th in the Long March series. The first, in April 1970, put China’s first satellite – Dong Fang Hong-1 – into orbit.

In an intense period of activity, China is expected to attempt around ten more launches before the end of 2015.

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