————Q
Table III
Public Expenditures in U. S. Dollars
; Per pus Per %
Continent or Region Population la Es Inhabitant Public Sue Inhabitant| of Nat.
U.S.$ ET U.S.$ Rev.
Africa 311,000,000 50,500,000,000 162 10,600,000,000 34 21
North America, Canada
& USA 214,000,000 626,500,000,000 2928 150,350,000,000 703 24
Central and South
America 246,000,000 32,600,000,000 132 8,800,000,000 36 27
Asia, without USSR 1,830,000,000 252,000,000,000 138 75,600,000,000 41 30
Europe, without USSR 445,000,000 488,000,000,000 1096 161,000,000,000 362 33
Oceania 18,000,000 24,600,000,000 1406 9,350,000,000 534 38
USSR 231,000,000 221,000,000,000 956 108,000,000,000 468 49
| 3 515 = 160 31
Total or Average 3,295,000,000 1,695,200,000,000 Avo 523,700,000,000 X
; verage | Average | Average
As already mentioned, the expenditure for the
cartographic exploration of a country. must be to a
certain extent proportioned to the national revenue
and the yearly public expenditures. To be more ex-
plicit, it is necessary to determine first the amount
spent respectively for that purpose in various coun-
tries as well as for the entire world. The determina-
tion of these values is not an easy task due to the fact
that a large amount of information must be collected.
We have made an attempt to determine some approx-
imative values based on the available information
from more than 50 countries spread over various con-
tinents. Using these approximative values, the follow-
ing estimations were obtained for the year 1966:
— Total yearly expenditures for cartographic ex-
ploration in the entire world: approximately US
$ 1,350,000,000.
— Or 0.08 % (or approximately 1/1000) of the
National Revenue (1).
— Or 0.26 % (or approximately Ya of a percent)
of the Public Expenditures (2).
— Or 10.30 US dollars (or approximately 10 U. S.
$) per sq. km (3).
— Or 0.41 US dollars (or approximately half a
U. S. dollar) per inhabitant (4).
These approximative values could be used as a
preliminary thumb rule to estimate the average yearly
funds that might be spent in various countries for
the cartographic exploration. When using formulas
(1), (2), (3), (4) successively for one given coun-
try, one must be aware that four different values will
be obtained and it is up to the authorities involved
to decide which one is the most adequate and relevant.
Generally speaking, it is recommendable that coun-
tries with very little cartographic coverage and eager
to make an inventory of the natural resources as soon
as possible should use formula (3); this especially if
the population density of that country is lower than
the average. For a country with a high population
density, formula (4) would be more adequate. The
problem is rather complex and more statistical ma-
terial must be collected and analyzed. This is pre-
sently done at the Department of Photogrammetry,
Faculty of Forestry and Geodesy, Laval University,
Quebec, with the purpose of arriving at more definite
and accurate values for Formulas (1) to (4).
Based on these values, it is intended to deter-
mine what are the annual losses in billions of dollars
in the world’s economy due to a too slow annual pro-
gress in cartographic exploration and consequently,
by what rate the annual progress in cartographic
exploration must be increased in the interest of an
efficient economical and technical development
throughout the world.
New Problems and New Systems in Future
Cartographic Exploration and Their Impact on
Economy
It is obvious that the problem of fast changing
planimetric and occasionally of topographic features
particularly in urban areas and its impact on map
compilation, map revision and remapping is a serious
one and deserves all our attention. As a matter of
fact, our present map compilation and map revision
procedures possibly do not offer a satisfactory answer
to this problem for a distant future, say the years
alter 2000. More frequent conventional air photo
coverage might help, but even this might no longer
be a satisfactory approach at a later date. As a con-
sequence, we must necessarily concentrate our future
efforts on searching for much faster terrain data ac-
quisition procedures and consequently we must also
develope much faster terrain data reduction and map
compilation procedures.
With regard to planimetric and topographic in-
formation acquisition, satellite photography could of-
fer a real breakthrough at least for small and medium
scale map compilation, map revision and remapping.
Also, there are at the present time automatic map
compilation systems under development using aerial
photography as input, and some of these systems are