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Technical University of Surveying and Mapping
and Peking University, China, the Asian
Institute of Technology, Bangkok ‚Thailand, the
University of New South Wales, Sydney,
Australia, and the Indian Institute of Remote
Sensing, Dehradun, India. Many short course
and project oriented training programmes are
organised and coordinated through the ESCAP
Regional Remote Sensing Programme, with offices
located in Bangkok, Thailand, and in addition
many bilateral education and training
programmes are conducted each year throughout
the region.
Supportive of all the training, research and
application activities is the Asian Association
on Remote Sensing, which assists, coordinates,
collaborates, publishers and general brings
together the scientists and application
specialists of this very diverse region. Each
year the Association holds a conference in one
of the member countries of the region, and for
those readers who have attended any of these
conferences they will surely remember the
warm, family of nation atmosphere that prevails.
The Association has been the major catalyst in
developing the very strong links that now exist
in the region.
5. REGIONAL TRAINING NEEDS
While the region is well served by training and
educational institutions these are unable to
train all the skilled staff that are required to
support operational applications of remote
sensing. The numbers required can be
estimated from a comparison with developed
countries, particularly Europe and North
America.
It is considered that there is a close
relationship between a countries requirements
for surveying and mapping personnel and those
required for remote sensing. For example China
has approximately 100,000 surveying and
mapping personnel (Brandenberger, 1991) and
10,000 remote sensing specialists, India 40,000
and 5,000, and Australia 20,000 and 2,000
(estimate), respectively. Thus an approximate
10 to 1 relationship would seem to exist.
It would also be reasonable to assume that the
number of surveying and mapping personnel,
and thus remote sensing specialists would be
directly related to the area and population of
countries, as this is a measure of the countries
resource, Infrastructure and mapping needs.
More precisely the personnel numbers required
should be closely related to the countries
population density. Figures from
Brandenberger (1991) supports this contention
for advanced industrial countries or regions, as
can be seen from Table 2, which are assumed to
have optimum personnel for there needs.
Table 2 Comparison of Surveying and
Mapping Personnel, and Population
Density
Country or |Personnel, Population
Region 1000 km?2 Density,km
A
Europe 67.7 99.8
N.America 10.8 17.0
France 64.0 100.5
Australia 2 0 2. |
Canada 2 22 2.6
USA 1972 23,9
New Zealand 11.2 12.6
Sweden 14.4 18.5
Switzerland 90.8 154.6
55
Thus a good relationship between the optimum
number of surveying and mapping personnel can
be given by
S= 0.65 x A XP
where A - area in thousand km?.
P = population density per km?.
and S = total number of surveying and
mapping personnel.
or more simply
S = 650 x TP
where TP = total population in millions
Considering the 10 to 1 relationship to give
remote sensing specialist numbers and assuming
a need to replace or retrain staff every ten
years, then
R = 6.5 x TP
where R - remote sensing specialists
required to be trained per annum.
Table 3 provides an estimate of the remote
sensing personnel required to be trained each
year (based on their population) with a
guesstimate of the numbers currently being
trained in some countries of the Asia-Pacific
region. These latter figures are based on
various country reports and the author's
personal experience in the region. The numbers
represent both postgraduate degree level and
intensive short course training.
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXI, Part B6. Vienna 1996
