ISPRS - UN-GGIM National Mapping and Cadastral Agencies Forum

The International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) together with United Nations Initiation on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM) hereby announce The First ISPRS – UN-GGIM National Mapping and Cadastral Agency Forum.

National Mapping and Cadastral Agencies (NMCAs), many of them organised in UN-GGIM, form a significant group of members of ISPRS, acting as the ISPRS Ordinary Member for many countries. NMCAs play an important role in their countries, providing geospatial data of various levels of detail, types, and scales, which form the basis of today's geospatial data infrastructure - an indispensable national asset for sustainable development of the country and many other applications.

Successful cooperation between ISPRS and the NMCAs on many levels, and since a number of years also with UN-GGIM, is a result of this connection. One of the strategic goals of ISPRS is to provide a better forum for NMCAs to discuss their scientific and technical issues in mapping with international colleagues, and thus to give them better visibility. As a result, ISPRS and UN-GGIM invite National Mapping and Cadastre Agencies worldwide to join the next ISPRS Congress, to be held in Prague in 2016, in the form of a two day meeting, to be known as the ISPRS - UN-GGIM National Mapping and Cadastral Agencies Forum. This Forum will be organized as an integral part of the Congress, and in parallel with the ISPRS-IAA Space Agency Forum.

The ISPRS Congress is the most important ISPRS meeting organized every four years. Each Congress is a meeting of several thousand scientists and professionals. The congresses attract participants from all over the world to discuss the latest in technical, scientific and application oriented development in remote sensing, photogrammetry and spatial information. ISPRS has thus created a platform for specialists from the different but interrelated areas of the geospatial field.

Potential topics to be discussed during the Forum are: consistent feature catalogues across scale; database updating; 3D databases; big data; mobile and smart technology; semantic and geometric data integration; geospatial data infrastructure; visualisation and communication of geodata; earth observation infrastructure (Landsat, Copernicus etc.); remote sensing and photogrammetry applications; crowd sourcing; web mapping and service oriented architectures; open data policy; decision-support systems; international cooperation and standardisation.

Sessions will comprise invited and presented papers. One session of the Forum will be a shared session of the National Mapping and Cadastre Agencies and Space Agencies. It will be dedicated to two questions:

• How do National Mapping and Cadastre Agencies use satellite remote sensing data, what they would like to see improved, etc.
• What are the plans of Space Agencies and Earth Observation Companies in the sphere of data for National Mapping and Cadastre Agencies; how to strengthen this cooperation?

The Form thus provides an ideal platform for mutual discussions, as well as discussions with one of the main producers of space imagery and with the scientific community.

Date: the Forum will be an integral part of the programme of the XXIII ISPRS Congress, and held on 14 – 15 July 2016.

Contact information:

Lena Halounová, Congress Director, congressdirector@isprs2016-prague.com
Václav Šafář, President of Local Programme Committee, program@isprs2016-prague.com

ISPRS-IAA Space Agency Forum at ISPRS Congress 2016

The International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) together with the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) hereby announce The First ISPRS-IAA Space Agency Forum.

Space Agencies enable Earth observation missions and are – directly or indirectly - providers of the up-to-date spatial data of the Earth and form indispensable co-operators for the large community of remote sensing and spatial information. The importance of space agencies to ISPRS and IAA can be witnessed by successful common activities since many years. As a result, ISPRS and IAA invite Space Agencies and the Space Community worldwide to join a two day meeting, named the ISPRS-IAA Space Agency Forum during the next ISPRS Congress, to be held in Prague in 2016. This Forum will be organized as an integral part of the Congress, and in parallel with the National Mapping and Cadastral Agency Forum.

The ISPRS Congress is the most important ISPRS meeting organized every four years. Each Congress is an assembly of several thousand scientists and professionals. The congresses attract participants from all over the world to discuss the latest in technical, scientific and application oriented development in remote sensing, photogrammetry and spatial information. ISPRS has thus created a platform for specialists from the different but interrelated areas of the geospatial field.

Potential topics to be discussed during the Space Agency Forum are: missions and data systems, remote sensing for environmental monitoring, remote sensing for the societal benefit areas of GEO, new applications, 3D and 4D remote sensing, new challenges in remote sensing research, big data, data policy and long-term data continuity, synergy between international Earth Observation programmes such as Landsat and Sentinel-2, data archiving and delivery.

Sessions will comprise invited and presented papers. One session of the Forum will be a joint session between the National Mapping and Cadastral Agencies and the Space Agencies. It will be focussed on two questions:

• How do National Mapping and Cadastral Agencies currently use, or could poten-tially use, Earth Observation data, and what would they like to see improved?
• What are the plans of Space Agencies in the sphere of providing support to Mapping Agencies, and how can this cooperation be strengthened?

For Space Agencies, a clear advantage of the Forum is to better understand current hurdles and improvements necessary for using Earth observation products in the domain of charting, topography and cadastre including nautical mapping. NMCAs, on the other hand, will obtain a better understanding of the potential and limitations of current Earth observation products with respect to their demands. In addition, it will become clear to which extent the Space Agencies can respond to these demands in the future.

The Forum thus provides an ideal platform for Space Agencies for mutual discussions, as well as discussions with one of the main users of space imagery and with the scientific community.

Date: the Forum will be an integral part of the programme of the 2016 ISPRS Congress, and will be held on 14 – 15 July 2016.

Contact information:

Lena Halounová, Congress Director, congressdirector@isprs2016-prague.com
Václav Šafář, President of Local Programme Committee, program@isprs2016-prague.com