| <
back
The Conference Summary
Dr. Vladimir Gershenzon, Director General of
the Research and Development Center ScanEx,
Chairman of the Conference Program Committee
Late November the First International Conference “Earth from Space
– the Most Effective Solutions” was held at the Vatutinki resort
hotel of the Russian President Administrative Department (30 km
away from the center of Moscow). The conference was arranged by
the R&D Center
ScanEx and “Transparent
World” NGO. More than 230 conferees from 110 organizations and
15 countries (see the reference) took part
in the conference. Representatives of 34 Federation subjects from
all Federal Districts attended the conference. 83 reports were made
at the plenary session on November 26, at the meetings of sections
“Tasks and specific features of near real time monitoring”, “Earth
images from space: role in education”, “Earth observation data in
Geology”, “Monitoring of industrial facilities” (November 27), “Territories
management for sustainable development”, “Earth observation techniques
and methods”, “Forestry” (November 28).
At the same time near the building of the hotel a mobile ground
station on the basis of UniScan technology was demonstrated to the
visitors (on-line data reception from Meteor-3M (MSU-E), Terra and
Aqua (MODIS), IRS-1C/1D (PAN and LISS), RADARSAT-SAR satellites
since early in the morning till late at night). Liana and Alice
(NOAA-AVHRR) systems were also demonstrated. ScanMagic, ScanEx Image
Processor, ScanEx NeRIS, ScanEx Catalog Manager software products
of R&D Center ScanEx and GIS-Meteo of our partners MapMakers
Group Ltd. (www.mapmakers.ru)
were represented at the stands in the foyer of the hotel.
Besides, a copy of the R&D Center ScanEx’s basic archive was
delivered and presented at the conference. It allowed the participants
to analyze the archive directly at the conference and to determine
the availability of data they need. The territory and infrastructure
of the Vatutinki hotel facilitated a fruitful work and intensive
business communication during the conference. The main aim of the
conference was to establish an effective cooperation among remote
sensing data users. We, as host organization, and many participants
believe, that the aim has been reached, however, future will tell,
whether it is so.
One of the problem raised by the guests was the impossibility to
be present at the meetings of two sections at the same time, if
they had been planned to be held in parallel as per the program.
This dictated the inevitable necessity of making the choice. Perhaps
in future the conference schedule should be changed.
Among the most impressing reports were presentations of new Indian
(RESOURSESAT-1 (IRS-P6)) and Israeli (EROS) programs, interesting
reports by the Russian operators (Meteor-M, Monitor, Condor), reports
about information components of Caspian Pipeline Consortium monitoring,
structure of the Baikal region monitoring system.
Special attention was paid to reports and discussions on the problems
of information support of the Arctic regions and Northern Caspian
area. A number of current techniques were demonstrated in the process.
For example, it was an integration of ice maps data, obtained on
the base of satellite images with a navigation working place, providing
for a forecast of effective ice ships piloting. The participants
also discussed conceptual ways for establishment of information
networks exchange, technologies for forecasting phenomena and processes
(for example, negative and positive water setup phenomena in the
Northern Caspian area), based on models with the use of remote sensing
data.
It is necessary to note the ecological and educational orientation
of many reports: some serious reports were made by students and
post-graduate students; meetings of the educational section were
held with a great enthusiasm. A principle point was the setting
up of several new information centers on the basis of relevant higher
educational institutions (the Barnaul and Belgorog Universities,
Moscow Institute of Engineers of Geodesy, Air-photo survey and Cartography),
where there are not only active students, but also highly qualified
researches and lecturers. As a rule, such centers find a possibility
to actively cooperate with both territorial divisions of the federal
structures (Ministry for Emergency Situations, Land Cadastre Survey,
Ministry for Natural Resources, etc.) and regional administration
offices and enterprises.
Speaking of information sources, the reporters paid the main attention
to MODIS data (direct broadcast of high quality images to EOScan,
UniScan ground stations with a 250 m resolution and a possibility
of data processing for calculation qualitative “masks” of cloudiness,
ice and snow coverage, temperature, vegetation indices, etc.); RADARSAT
SAR data, which are irreplaceable in on-line monitoring; Landsat
7 images distributed free (non-profit libraries are maintained at
“Transparent World” NGO site (www.transparentworld.ru);
IRS-1C/1D data, which are relatively cheap and widely used within
Russia and CIS lately.
At the conclusion discussion Mr. Shankar, Director, IRS Programs,
Space Imaging Inc., mentioned a rich experience in the IRS application
within Russia and CIS countries and promised a further support of
the program. Mr. Liam E. Gumley, representative of the Wisconsin-Madison
University (USA) – one of the world leading developer of software
for MODIS data processing - mentioned that conference was successful
and noticed that such events all over the world were financed from
government funds or structures while present conference was organized
by private company and NGO.
We believe, the conference proved, that users’ society had made
a great progress in understanding the fact, that remote sensing
data from space were not exotic any more, they became a modern widely
accessible information source, which was quite economically effective,
and sometimes the only possible. However, so far we have very few
examples of its effective practical implementation for carrying
out both operating monitoring tasks and missions for management
of territories, industrial enterprises, etc.
We hope, that during the 2nd International Conference, which is
(due to many requests of participants) tentatively planned for November-December
of 2005, we will be able to focus on discussing the effectively
working projects, which include Earth remotely sensed data as their
main part or as their component.
< back
|
