1992-1996 NATIONAL REPORT OF THE 
AMERICAN Society FOR PHOTOGRAMMETRY AND REMOTE SENSING 
Maurice O. Nyquist, Ph.D. 
(ASPRS National President, 1994/95) 
National Biological Service 
Technology Transfer Center 
Denver, CO 80225-0387 
KEY WORDS: United States. National Report. ASPRS. 
ABSTRACT: 
The National Report of the U.S. summarizes the structure and membership of ASPRS since the XVII Congress in 
Washington, D.C., describes the three main service sectors provided by the Society, highlights advances in the core 
technologies, and briefly comments on the future prospects of the Society and the profession. The primary service sectors 
of ASPRS are represented by meetings, publications and member services while the three membership sectors are private 
practice, government civil service and academia. Membership in the Society is approximately 7500 spread more or less 
equally between the three membership sectors. 
1. INTRODUCTION 
The “mapping sciences”, which collectively includes photo- 
grammetry, remote sensing, image interpretation, GIS, GPS 
and other related fields, has matured and continues to 
expand in the U.S. (U.S.). In government and private sec- 
tors the use of these technologies is commonplace and is 
being applied in many innovative ways related to visualiza- 
tion, modeling, enterprise location, real estate, disaster relief 
and future-mitigation planning, vehicle navigation, tracking 
and routing, virtual workplace GIS applications via the 
Internet, insurance, intensive agriculture and direct mail 
marketing. 
The future of the mapping sciences should be even more 
. promising in the U.S. and elsewhere because of several 
synergistic trends and likely future occurrences. The recent 
past continues to show the trends of computer equipment 
becoming more powerful and less costly, applications soft- 
ware is also becoming more robust and useable by a larger 
sector of the population, more geospatial data is becoming 
available and its cost of development is declining, more 
people and business sectors are becoming aware of the 
utility of the technologies or are being trained in their use, 
and the core technologies of photogrammetry, remote sens- 
ing, GIS and GPS are becoming more fully integrated. In 
addition, standards for data exchange, content standards for 
geospatial metadata and tools for searching those files, 
expanded Internet access and utility, and federal govern- 
ment initiatives like the National Spatial Data Infrastruc- 
ture, all make the availability and access to data easier and 
more economical. The pending promises of new commer- 
cial high resolution satellites, additional suites of govern- 
ment-sponsored satellites for environmental monitoring and 
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International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXI, Part B6. Vienna 1996 
modeling and less restricted use of intelligence community 
data and technology should further stimulate growth of the 
mapping sciences. 
A more complete National Report of ASPRS is envisioned 
for publication in Photogrammetric Engineering and Re- 
mote Sensing (July, 1996). It will contain more comprehen- 
sive treatment of the topics addressed in this report. Nev- 
ertheless, we hope this shortened report will portray the 
most salient information related to the ASPRS and the 
mapping sciences that have occurred in the U.S. since the 
last National Report. 
2. SOCIETY STRUCTURE AND MEMBERSHIP 
The American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote 
Sensing (ASPRS) is the U.S. Ordinary Member to the 
International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sens- 
ing (ISPRS). ASPRS was founded in 1934 and currently 
has a total of approximately 7500 active, student, and other 
categories of members worldwide. There are also 152 
corporate Regular Sustaining Members and 2 Multiple 
Sustaining Members with 6 Subsidiaries. 
Membership in ASPRS has remained fairly stable since the 
last national report in 1992, with a current retention rate of 
80% for active members. Membership demographics 
categor-ized into general professional sectors indicate the 
following composition: Private (30%), Academic - includ- 
ing students (28%), Federal and State Government Service 
(2496) and Other - including no data (18%). There has been 
a noticeable shift in the number of members from govern- 
ment service to private sector caused by various govern-. 
mental streamlining, downsizing and outsourcing activi- 
ties. Information about those members reporting specializa- 
  
  
  
    
  
  
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