Bernard Denore 
  
sound environmental management (Williams, 1999): firstly through government non-compliance with legal obligations 
under international treaties and conventions and secondly through their unwillingness to make environmental 
information publicly available. Non-government organisations have been responsible for raising awareness of green 
issues and are now called upon by government to help make and implement environmental policy. In Europe for 
instance the WWF and others are currently drawing up shadow lists of sites of European Environmental Importance as 
part of the Natura 2000 programme, and in the UK the Environment Agency explicitly recognises the role of non- 
government sources for the maintenance of their databases. 
Thus in the context of sustainable development, governments and their agencies trying to make policy, regulate and 
monitor compliance, and resource custodians like NGOs, forest managers, water authorities, park keepers and many 
others trying to implement development programmes all recognise the need for appropriate geographic information for 
local decision making. The challenge to the space industry is to respond to this local need through global action. 
2.1 User Needs Analysis 
The analysis of user needs is notoriously difficult often just producing wish lists or simple incomprehension on the part 
of the potential users who are unaware of the value of spatial information and know little about EO. As an FAO official 
noted “it is obvious that cheaper, more accurate, frequent and accessible data will be invaluable for very many users 
concerned with sustainable development, such as crop forecasting, precision farming, and for supporting policy 
relating to conventions on desertification, climate change and biodiversity" but such broad statements do not provide 
much guidance for mission planners. 
One approach to looking at user needs is to assess why EO data is not used more. A recent seminar on the Environment 
and Remote Sensing for Sustainable Development (UN, 1999 pp139-140) concluded that there are two principal 
constraints to greater use of EO data: the lack of capacity (especially in developing countries) for converting data into 
information; and problems related to prices, access and standards. The seminar also noted that planned missions by 
existing space-faring nations would probably just make these problems worse, although positive examples could be 
found in the Indian and Brazilian programmes that specifically addressed the issues of capacity and accessibility. 
2.1.1 Access 
Significant efforts have been made to improve access to archives and databases but, like the CEOS-IGOS initiatives, the 
focus is inevitably global. This is understandable because the users are the international, intergovernmental, big-science 
committees and agencies and not the local decision makers or private information service providers. The UN Principles 
Relating to Remote Sensing of the Earth from Outer Space (UN, 1986) establishes the principle of non-discriminatory 
access to Earth observation data and the first item of the recent Vienna Declaration (UN, 1999 p2) includes the 
declaration that action should be taken “to improve the management of the Earth's natural resources by increasing and 
facilitating the research and operational use of remote sensing data, enhancing the co-ordination of remote sensing 
systems and increasing access to, and the affordability of, imagery” (author’s emphasis). Meanwhile IGOS has 
recognised the need to promote “more effective means of using space-based data in addressing practical problems and 
environmental issues of local, regional and global significance" (UN, 1999 p115, author's emphasis). 
In meteorology open access is understood to mean just that with the public good nature of data enshrined in article 40 of 
the WMO (WMO undated). To put this into effect the Co-ordination Group for Meteorological Satellite (CGMS, 1999) 
has been called on (UN, 1999 p6) to support efforts to standardise spectra, data formats and other aspects of the ground 
segment. Similarly, ground station interoperability is being addressed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for deep 
space missions. But for land applications there is currently neither a recognised co-ordination group (like CGMS) nor 
an undoubted leader in the field (like JPL) to act as the point of reference for such standardising efforts. 
2.1.2 Cost 
The Vienna Declaration explicitly recognises the importance of the cost of data as a key factor affecting its 
accessibility, especially for environmental managers. This responds to concerns of many in the developing world 
notably the G-77 group of countries and China (G-77 and China, 1999). Indeed these countries recognise that as well as 
the need for more standardisation of formats and processes, *only if the data is readily available at a reasonable cost, 
can there be a wider market for it among developing countries". 
Surveys suggest that in the developed world the cost of data is only a fraction of the cost of the value added services 
required to convert the data into information (Ryerson et al, 1999; ESYS, 1999). However this is definitely not the case 
in the developing world, or for NGOs. As Ryerson notes “in less developed countries a satellite image can cost as much 
as one year’s salary for an image analyst”. Despite the supposed “public good” nature of the major EO high resolution 
systems their pricing policies have the paradoxical effect of subsidising rich commercial users whilst making them 
  
72 International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXIII, Part Bl. Amsterdam 2000. 
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