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for Quantitative Application. PhD thesis. Telford Institute of 
Environmental Systems, University of Salford, Salford, Greater 
Manchester, UK, 281 pp. 
10. THE SWEDISH FOREST ADMINISTRATION 
10.1 Organisation 
The Swedish Forest Administration consists of The National 
Board of Forestry and The Regional Forestry Boards. The 
administration is among the largest users of remotely sensed 
data in Europe. Aerial photos has been used extensively for 
many, many years. Since 2003 is also digital ortho-photos 
among the standardised data sets that's being used in the whole 
administration all over the country. 
10.2 Research 
The organisation has already today an operational use of Earth 
Observation-data. We are using it on a recurrent basis since 
1996. National coverage of either SPOT XS or Landsat TM 
data has been collected every year since 1999 and is now an 
essential part of the reforestation monitoring process. 
A link between our GIS system and a remote sensing 
application called ENFORMA has been established in which 
the best part of both system can be fully exploited. Through the 
link are all the regeneration fellings detected in the whole 
country on a yearly basis. A total of about 40,000 — 50,000 
cuttings are detected and mapped this way. All analysis 
activities are based on local knowledge and actual performance 
which means that more than 100 people are engaged in only the 
first step of this process. 
Change detection is made on a pixel to pixel basis with image 
pairs from different years and the result is a single band 8-bit 
image. The resulting image is further refined through 
thresholding and minimum area filtering into a resulting clear- 
cut image. The clear-cut image is vectorised and imported to 
our GIS system were each and every found cutting is verified 
against other reference data as well as local knowledge. 
The evolution potential is very strong. EO data has successfully 
proved to be a very powerful tool in the area of change 
detection. We have only seen the start of the use of it and are 
expecting to have several operational processes that deal with 
mainly monitoring tasks, just within a few years from now. 
The organisation has adopted an image supply policy that not 
only deals with the basic supply of images but also the overall 
remote sensing competence for the main part of all employees 
and decision makers within the organisation. During 2004 will a 
comprehensive program start that will focus on improved 
competence and the use of EO data in conjunction with the 
organisations main goals. 
11. THE LOCAL AUTHORITIES 
11.1 Organisation 
The 290 local authorities in Sweden have a well-developed self- 
governance and are by constitution, autonomic. They are, by 
law, responsible for such things as social services, schools, 
health and environmental protection; refuse collection and 
269 
waste disposal, rescue services, water and sewerage, order and 
security, spatial planning and building. To perform their tasks, 
geographical data and maps are used in several ways. There is a 
considerable need for different maps in a variety of activities 
and operations. The role of the local authorities in providing 
basic large-scale geographic data becomes more important as its 
usage increases in a lot of old and new applications, where GIS 
offers good support. There is also municipal co-operation 
within regions as well as between the municipalities and the 
state, in order to provide society with quality controlled 
geographic data. Most local authorities produce and update 
geographical databases or maps within their organisation. 
11.2 Production 
In approximately 10 municipalities the photogrammetric 
production is performed inside the organisation. Wide ranges of 
geographical information for different purposes at different 
scales are produced in digital photogrammetric workstations. 
Experiences show that production and revision of large-scale 
maps, digital elevation models, 3D-city models and 
visualisation are handled more cost and time efficient. 
Environmental and vegetation studies in Norrtälje are handled 
in Erdas. In Umeä, Stockholm, Malmô, Linkóping, Norrkóping, 
Jónkóping, Járfálla and Falun the Finnish ESPA system is used 
for different types of 3D mapping. 
11.3 Education 
Unfortunately employees without photogrammetric education 
or practical experiences are introduced to 3D mapping. 
Training, including some education is usually supplied by the 
photogrammetric software company. Consequences are seen in 
quality discrepancies including geometrical errors as well as 
object classification. 
11.4 Address 
Swedish Association of Local Authorities 
SE-118 82 Stockholm, SWEDEN 
Home page: www.svekom.se 
12. PRIVATE PHOTOGRAMMETRY CONSULTANTS 
The status of Swedish economy has influenced the size of 
grants for research and development to universities and 
governmental organisations. Consequently, a major part of the 
research and development of photogrammetry and remote 
sensing is performed by commercial consultant companies in 
Sweden. Below, a sample of organisations and their research 
projects are briefly described. 
12.1 Digpro AB 
12.1.1 Organisation 
Digpro is an IT consulting company with long experience of 
consulting and application development in the geographie IT 
field. Digpro has always used front-end technology and is today 
one of the leading providers of products and services in this 
field in Sweden. 
12.1.2 Research and products 
Digpro is actively taking part in the development of Laser 
scanning and use of this front-end technique. The method is 
marketed together with Topeye AB, who sells and operates the 
airborne laser scanning system. Digpro offers services like 
filtering and classification of laser data, production of digital