International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing Commission IV - Geo-databases and Digital Mapping, 2004-2008 Home ISPRS

The ISPRS Technical Commission (TC) IV on Geo-databases and Digital Mapping has organized an International Symposium on ‘Geospatial databases for Sustainable Development’ along with the Indian Society of Remote Sensing (ISRS) during September 27-30, 2006 along with two pre-symposium tutorials and two pre-symposium conferences during Sep. 25-26, 2006.

Dr. R.R. Navalgund, Director, Space Applications Centre (ISRO), Ahmedabad welcomed the delegates and made his opening remarks. He briefed on the activities of Space Applications Centre (SAC) and emphasized SAC is helping in capacity building, which is a vital requirement in a developing country like India. He has also said that since the inception of ISPRS, ISRS has been working closely with it on a variety of issues concerning remote sensing and Photogrammetry and hoped to continue the association and organize the ISPRS congress sometime in future.

Dr. Shailesh Nayak, President, ISPRS TC-IV and Director, INCOIS, Govt. of India, Hyderabad presented the activities of ISPRS TC-IV gave a detailed account of the activities of ISPRS TC-IV. He has listed out the areas where ISPRS TC-IV is actively working i.e. automatic extraction of spatial data, visualization, location based services, capturing of 3D objects, emergency response and homeland security. He has also said that the data is being generated many manifold but the issue of concern is updating the same. Therefore, he felt that there is a long way to go for research in issues like automatic extraction and visual representation, which the symposium would take up for discussion.

Dr. K. Radhakrishnan, President, Indian Society of Remote Sensing (ISRS) and Director, National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA), Hyderabad gave an account of ISRS activities in the country. He said that ISRS is a dynamic and strong society of 3000 life members, 50 fellows and 22 chapters spread across the country and members are doing extremely good work in promoting remote sensing among the student and scientific community of their respective regions. Industry too is working for the broader application of remote sensing beyond the government arena. Tracking the history of remote sensing in India, he said that year 1969 has been a landmark for remote sensing and now the country boasts of a constellation of satellites that can provide inputs and help deal with the food, water and energy security, education, tele-medicine and disaster management.

Prof. John Trinder, the First Vice President, ISPRS talked about ISPRS. He said that restructuring of ISPRS commissions in 2002 has brought the applications of digital databases under the purview of TC-IV and the present symposium offers the opportunity to all the working group chairs to get together and interact. He has conveyed the council message to the delegates which exhorted them to work hard and make sure that the technology and applications in this area make a difference to the population of the world. He has also inaugurated the “Industry Exhibition” and opened to the delegates.

Dr. S.K. Saha, Secretary, ISRS has organized a ceremony of presentation of ISRS awards viz. Bhaskara award, Geospatial award, Geospatial awards, PR Pisharoty Memorial award and Best paper award in ISRS journal to the winners for their excellent contributions in the field of Remote Sensing and  Geoinformatics.

The Symposium was inaugurated by Dr. P. S. Goel, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Govt. of India. In his keynote address, he emphasized that creation of “Synergy between Science and Application of Geospatial Databases” is the need of the hour for sustainable development. He has also said that it is important to identify what exactly is needed for each aspect of development and each branch of development (industry and municipal administration). The issues of development are not necessarily the issues of population alone, they also come while exercising the development. Therefore, India is looking for a database for development and not just about the creation of databases but to make them available to the right person at right time.

In all 325 scientists including 125 scientists from 23 countries attended the symposium and participated in deliberations. Three plenary sessions, highlighting the main theme of the symposium was organized. On the first day, ten invited talks were delivered by eminent scientists and working group chair/co-chairs of the ISPRS TC-IV.  Twenty-four technical sessions, two poster sessions and one special session on ‘Digital Asia’ were organized.  All technical sessions were initiated by a lead talk.  In all, 211 papers were presented in both oral (161 papers) and poster (50 papers) presentations. Symposium proceedings (two volumes) have been brought out. In addition to this, abstract volume was also brought out. Soft copy of both abstract and proceedings volume with navigational tools were brought out and distributed to all the participants.

In addition to the main symposium, two pre-symposiums and two tutorials were also organized during September 25-27, 2006. The details are as follows.

Geoinformation for disaster management:

A two day symposium on ‘Geo-information for Disaster Management’ was organized during September 25-26, 2006 for monitoring and prediction of disasters. The symposium was attended by about 60 participants.

The symposium was inaugurated by Dr. Irvin Itzkovitch and delivered the keynote address. In his address, he said that there is huge difference between the developed and the developing countries in relation to the effects of natural disasters. He compared the loss of life and property and said that there is enormous loss of life in developing countries in relation to less loss of life in developed countries when the disasters occur. He said that there is great deal of geographic information is available which can be used for better disaster planning and management. In this connection he said that Canada possess lot of information on prevention of floods, seismic monitoring, tsunami monitoring and warning systems or storm surges management and is ready to share this information and expertise with the world.

Dr. Shailesh Nayak, President, ISPRS TC-IV said in his opening remarks that India is witnessing a strange phenomena like floods in the desert of Rajasthan and cyclones on the Arabian coast. Therefore, he said that it is necessary to understand this changing weather pattern using a combination of satellite data and weather data to monitor disasters and develop predictive models for disaster management.

In all 60 delegates from various countries participated in the symposium and a number of papers were presented discussing on different disasters and their management using geospatial technologies.

ISRO-ISPRS-IEEE-GEOSS Workshop:

Indian Space Research Organisation, in collaboration with IEEE, ISPRS and OGC organised a one-day workshop on “The User and the GEOSS Architecture VI – Applications in Public Health for the Indian Ocean Region” at Goa, India. This workshop was held on 26th September, 2006, prior to the ISPRS Technical Commission-IV symposium. The workshop was attended by 42 participants including 14 foreign participants. The workshop was hosted by the Space Applications Centre, ISRO, Ahmedabad, India.

Dr. Shailesh Nayak, President ISPRS TC-IV, in his welcome address emphasized the complex nature of Human Health and its relation with environmental factors. Dr. Jay S. Pearlman of IEEE, then gave an overview of GEOSS (Global Earth Observation System of Systems). Dr. Stanley Morain, Treasurer, ISPRS talked about health issues with respect to ISPRS and GEOSS.. This was followed by six lectures on Indian Perspective of GEOSS, Public Health, Drinking Water Quality, OGC, Health & GIS and Telemdeicine by experts from India and outside. Thre was a demo on on utilization of OGC standards for monitoring Leptospirosis outbreak following monsoon flooding in Mumbai. These lectures were followed by four Breakout Groups Meeting on GEO User and Architecture, Public Health and GIS, Telemedicine and OGC: Open Standards for GEOSS Interoperability.

The workshop was conducted by the organizing secretary Dr. S. S. Ray of SAC, Ahmedabad

Urban Planning and Infrastructure Development:

A two day tutorial on “Urban Planning and Infrastructure Development” was conducted during September 25-26, 2006 addressing RS and GIS concepts as well as application of Geospatial data for urban planning.

Dr. Shailesh Nayak, President, ISPRS TC-IV inaugurated the tutorial and said that gone are the days when artists used to map the cities and countries. Explaining the relevance of the tutorial, he pointed out that the Union Government had undertaken mapping of over 500 cities and towns in the country using RS and GIS technologies.

Dr. S.K. Pathan along with eminent experts in the field of urban planning conducted the tutorials. The experts dealt with fundamental of RS, creation of geospatial databases using GIS techniques and application of these techniques in the preparation of Perspective and Master plans with specific case studies. The tutorial comprised both theory classes as well as hands-on exercises.

18 candidates  (lecturers, professors, research scholars and students) participated in the tutorials. They were appraised of fundamentals of Remote Sensing, GIS along with basics of urban planning with specific case studies conducted utilizing the geospatial databases. In addition to this they were given hands-on experience on “Image Processing and GIS practicals” on both the days. An examination was conducted at the end of two day tutorial where the candidates have scored from a minimum 54 % to a maximum of 82 %. Certificates were distributed to all the candidates after the successful completion of two day course on “Geospatial Databases for Urban Planning”.

Extraction of features from High Resolution data:

A one day tutorial on “Extraction features from High Resolution data” was also organized on September 26, 2006 emphasing the need of high resolution data for grass root level applications.

Dr. Shailesh Nayak inaugurated the tutorial and said the main purpose of the tutorial is to train young minds on high spatial resolution, particularly extraction of information. Later Dr. E. Baltsavais introduced students to the world of high spatial resolution starting from the role satellite imagery to various methods involved in attaining high resolution imagery.

Dr. P.K. Srivastava co-ordinated the tutorials and emphasized the significance of Cartosat-I data for various applications.

10 students from Ajmer University attended the tutorials. They were appraised on high resolution imagery acquired from Cartosat, IKONOS and  QuickBird satellites and their applications in different levels of planning. Certificates were distributed to all the students who have successfully completed the one day tutorial.

In addition to this, a popular Vikram Sarabhai Memorial lecture on “Mission to Moon, Chandrayan-1” was organized on 27^th September, 2006 and was delivered by Dr. J.N. Goswami, Director, Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad. He said that Chadrayan-1 mission will be experimental in nature and is meant for the traces of water, surface concentration of elements and minerals and mapping the terrain of Moon. He said that the mission is planned to complete lunar mapping using RS technology in one and half years and hoped to answer many questions related to the depth of lunar crust, presence water, minerals etc.

The ISPRS TC-IV symposium with all above mentioned activities concluded on September 30, 2006 with the distribution of prizes to all best presentations in both ‘Oral’ and ‘Poster’ by Prof. Ian Dowman, President, ISPRS.