Welcome back to Spatial Snippets for 2026.

We hope you had a chance to take a break over the festive season and recharge your batteries for the new year.

Spatial Snippets is our weekly round-up of all the bits and pieces of geospatial news that didn’t make it into our normal daily coverage. If you have a Spatial Snippet to share with our 8,000-strong newsletter list, please send us an email.

This week we have a lot of job vacancies to report.

First up, MapAI is looking for a new CEO. Following the departure of Phil Delaney (who left to become CEO of Outline Global) at the beginning of last year, the role has been filled on an interim basis by FrontierSI’s CEO, Graeme Kernich. Now, MapAI is seeking a “bold, commercially minded” CEO to lead its next growth phase. Full details of the role and how to apply can be found online.

Speaking of Outline Global, the company is looking for a LiDAR Specialist Level 2 to join its team, ideally in Melbourne. The successful applicant will take part in “end-to-end LiDAR processing, quality assurance and delivery workflows” for the business’ national airborne survey programs.

Geoscience Australia has a number of roles that need to be filled, but you’ll have to be quick — the application deadline is today. Up for grabs are Senior Technical Officer on the Emergency Management Data Team, Senior Geospatial Analyst on the Foundation Vector Data Team, Senior Geospatial Data Specialist on the Data Coordination Team, Senior Geospatial Analyst with the Digital Atlas of Australia, and Senior Geospatial Content Officer with the Digital Atlas of Australia. Details can be found on the APS jobs site.

Curtin University’s School of Earth and Planetary Sciences has an opening for a lecturer in surveying, based at its Bentley Campus in Perth. According to the job posting, the successful candidate will “conduct independent research in fields related to Surveying and Geomatics and develop high-quality teaching programs within the Bachelor of Surveying (Honours) and Bachelor of Mine and Engineering Surveying. This role includes teaching and supervising research projects at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.”

Queensland’s Department of Transport and Main Roads is looking for a surveyor to join its team at Buderim on the Sunshine Coast. The fulltime role will focus on engineering surveying.

Also in Queensland, the Department of Natural Resources and Mines, Manufacturing and Regional and Rural Development is seeking a surveyor to join the Surveying Services team at Mackay.

The ACT government’s City and Environment directorate has an opening for a Director – eDevelopment Program (Surveying & Leasing SME). The full-time temporary (with possibility of extension) role will involve leading the surveying and leasing aspects of the new eDevelopment system and associated business processes.

Also in the ACT, the directorate of Emergency Services Agency is looking for Geospatial Intelligence Officer to join the team on a full-time temporary basis, with the possibility of permanency. The role will involve helping to deliver the Agency’s contemporary centralised spatial intelligence/GIS capabilities.

The City of Kwinina in Perth has an opening for a Marketing Intern 2: Public Open Space Digital Content (SpacetoCo and Mapping). The successful applicant “will compile and enhance digital content for key parks and POS areas, including search engine optimisation (SEO), descriptions, and imagery on SpacetoCo and the City’s website. Using aerial mapping tools, the intern will assist in creating or refining simple layout diagrams that show site features such as activation zones, nodes, facilities and infrastructure.”

In Victoria, the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action is seeking a Manager for the role of District Forest & Fire Planning (Far South West). The successful applicant should have knowledge of tactical planning of forest and fuel management programs/services, with experience working with planning systems including FMS, eMAP and ArcGIS (or similar).

Finally, the City of Gold Coast has an opening for a hydrographic surveyor, to be based at Ashmore. The role will involve delivering hydrographic surveys across coastal, nearshore and inland environments.

That’s enough jobs postings for this week!

If you do business with the Queensland Government, you’ll probably need to know about its recently published 2026 procurement policy, described as “the biggest overhaul of procurement policies in decades”. The policy document is available online, or you can watch a briefing video.

NSW’s SEED (Sharing and Enabling Environmental Data) program has released the third annual update of the Integrated BioNet Vegetation Data. SEED is a vital resource for those interested in plant community types and the NSW State Vegetation Map.

If you’re an early riser, you might like to take part in an International Association of Geodesy webinar on the morning of 28 January. The event will bring together “researchers and practitioners to discuss recent advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning applied to GNSS-based Earth observation. The program covers AI-driven approaches for atmospheric and ionospheric sensing, tropospheric modelling, uncertainty quantification, and GNSS reflectometry.”

NASA’s Applied Remote Sensing Training program will conduct online training on 25 and 27 February, during which participants will learn how classification models implemented in RStudio can be used to produce maps and metrics of land cover and land use change. The free training is open to the public and recommended for professionals interested in coding to quantify land cover change.

The global High Seas Treaty will come into effect on 17 January 2026. Formally known as the Agreement on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction, it is a legally binding framework for conserving and sustainably using marine biodiversity in those areas of the seas that are beyond national jurisdiction, which comprises nearly half the planet. Both Australia and New Zealand signed up to the Treaty on the first day it was opened for signature, 20 September 2023, but neither has yet ratified it.

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