The Australian Earth Observation Coordination Group will hold its second whole of community meeting this Friday, 18th October in webinar form.
This community meeting will build on several key issues raised at the community forum at IGARSS 2013 in Melbourne in July 2013 and tackle two of the most pressing issues facing Australian EO – reliance on foreign data and the role(s) of SAR and optical data sets in our national EO programs and the need to build this significantly, but in a coordinated manner through a data security plan. The meeting will have several key leading questions and will also be interactive with three sets of key discussion questions.
The Presenters
Professor Stuart Phinn is the Director of the Centre for Spatial Environmental Research at the School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Management at The University of Queensland and Director of the Joint Remote Sensing Research Program and Associate Science Director, TERN – Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network. Professor Phinn’s research interests include the use of satellite and airborne images to map, monitor and model biophysical properties of terrestrial and aquatic environments for scientific and management applications.
Adam Lewis leads the National Earth Observation Group (NEO) at Geoscience Australia and has worked for almost ten years toward increasing Australia’s earth observation from space capabilities – through an improved understanding of the importance of EOS to Australia, through increased coordination of effort and planning, through better access to the industry, and through strategic projects to improve the calibration and accessibility of EOS data, in particular Landsat data. Current priorities are progressing the National Earth Observation Infrastructure Plan, and building a high performance ‘data cube’ in the National Computational Infrastructure to enable collaborative development of algorithms to monitor the land and coasts at national scales, taking full advantage of the rich time-series of calibrated data that is now available for Australia.
Stephen Ward is the founder of Symbios Spazio and Symbios Communications in Sydney. He supports a range of clients world-wide in space policy studies and space related projects. He is the author of The Earth Observation Handbook published by the European Space Agency and was a part of the study team for the Continuity of Earth Observation Data for Australia publication. Stephen has worked in the area of international coordination of space programmes, global environment and climate change since 1990. Through his work he has developed a broad understanding of a range of sectors related to Earth observation and climate – including the co-operation processes behind the planning of future programs.
Professor Arnold Dekker is the Director of the Earth Observation and Informatics Transformational Capability Platform at Land and Water Research Division at CSIRO and Adjunct Professor at the University of Queensland. Professor Arnold Dekker is one of Australia’s leading experts on earth observation of inland, estuarine, coastal and benthic ecosystems and represents CSIRO as a significant international player in these four management relevant application areas of earth observation.
Dr. Alex Held is currently a Team Leader of the Terrestrial Remote Sensing Group of the CSIRO Division of Marine and Atmospheric Research. He is also the Director of the “AusCover” remote sensing data facility of Australia’s “Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network” – TERN, and a Co-Lead of the Group on Earth Observation Forest Carbon Tracking task. Previously he served as Head of COSSA (CSIRO Office of Space Science and Applications) from 2004 – December 2007. He is a plant physiologist by training from the University of California, Davis, and has been linking remote sensing and vegetation mapping at CSIRO since arriving in Australia 22 years ago. He is also a technical advisor to Australia’s Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, and their International Forest Carbon Initiative.
To register for this webinar, please click here.
