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1. 
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Prof. Cunietti 
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i this heritage, 
td Togliatti are 
The first space images taken by the Large 
Format Camera of NASA were evaluated by 
Giovanna Togliatti. At the EARSeL meeting 
in Venice the foundation was laid to establish 
working groups in space mapping in both 
EARSeL and ISPRS. This led to the 
possibility for Giovanna Togliatti to obtain 
the first high resolution Russian Space images 
in the western world. 
The topic of my paper today is not directed 
toward history but toward the future pro 
fessional challenges, which lie in "mapping 
from space' 5 . 
In this paper I would first like to establish a 
motivation, why I consider mapping from 
space important. I would secondly like to 
report as to what can be accomplished today. 
And I would third like to open the challenging 
scenario for mapping from space in the future. 
Italy, within the European context, with 
agencies such as ESRIN in Frascati, JRC in 
Ispra, and academic institutions such as 
Politecnico di Milano, and the University of 
Naples have much to contribute within the 
networks of ISPRS, OEEPE and EARSeL to 
the further growth of our discipline. 
2. Motivation for Mapping from Space 
The main motivation of human activity is to 
improve the living conditions in this world for 
the individual and for society as a whole. 
Preconditions for this are rooted in the 
historical and geographic economic structures. 
As society moved from nomadic to 
agricultural, to industrial, and to service 
oriented stages it became apparent, that 
different geographic conditions exist for this 
development. These are 
■ climate 
■ soil conditions 
■ availability of mineral resources 
■ labour 
■ education 
■ technical innovation, and 
■ motivation. 
The United Nations Agencies have tried to 
find indicators for the level of development 
achieved in each country controlling the 
economy, such as 
■ the percentage of employees in agriculture, 
industry and services 
■ the gross national product or the gross 
domestic product per inhabitant 
■ the percentage of own food supply 
■ the number of inhabitants 
■ child mortality. 
Taking one of these indicators, the GNP 3 
categories of countries have evolved: 
■ the low level countries with a GNP under 
600 S/inhabitant per year, usually with over 
50 % of the workforce employed in 
agriculture 
■ the medium level countries with a GNP 
between 600 $ and 3000 $ per year and 
inhabitant, usually with a workforce of over 
50 % engaged in industrial production 
■ the high level countries with a GNP over 
3000 $ per year and a service dominated 
economy. 
The nations of the world became concerned 
about the uneven distribution of wealth, and for 
this reason technology transfer was agreed upon. 
Technical cooperation since the 1990’s has been 
agreed upon. In 1991 over 50 % of the 
contributions of 58 B US$ came from 5 high 
level countries alone. 
This contribution primarily went to 32.5 % to 
Subsaharan African countries and to 27.1 % to 
South East Asian countries. Despite the ups and 
downs the development of South East Asia 
would not have been possible without this 
technical cooperation with African countries still 
to follow. 
Looking to the state of the world and its 
predictable future we must note that the global 
population has risen 71 % in a 32 year period. 
Most of this development took place in the 
developing countries in disaster affected coastal 
areas and in the urban areas. 
This happened while only 10 % of agricultural 
area increase took place. The increase of food 
production by 100 % needed for fight against 
malnutrition had to be bought by fertilization 
and irrigation of the soil pushing the capacity of 
available land for agricultural production to a 
limit.