16 
: ■ - V,. 
in principle make the isohyet map for example redundant, although it might take a decade 
or more before the scientific and educational community will have fully understood and 
adapted to the new instruments and concepts. Examples of other dynamic land attributes 
that can be mapped more directly and area-wise by remote sensing are: évapotranspiration 
(by the heat balance) and drought (by the vegetation index anomalies). 
New conceptual thinking is incorporated in: 
the ITC/FAO course ARTEMIS/ILWIS 
ARTEMIS is a remote sensing based operational monitoring system at FAO HQ. 
ARTEMIS is an acronym for African Real-Time Environmental Monitoring using 
Imaging Satellites. ARTEMIS products are applicable among others in early warning 
for crop failures. 
Training includes relating satellite measurement (vegetation index) directly to crop 
production models and observed yields by using GIS. Among others a critical review 
of environmental hazard (drought) versus socio-economic phenomena (food prices, 
food security) is included. 
4. Influence Decision Makers 
As scientists our horizons are usually confined to the knowledge and techniques of our 
disciplines. Frequently we see our role as presenting information on which others, the 
planners, policy and decision makers, will act. We often believe that the evidence and logic 
of our analysis and arguments will yield the necessary outcome. 
But can we continue to lead such comfortable lives by holding others responsible? Surely 
those with insights and expertise must spearhead the battle to secure rather than destroy 
our environmental heritage. This means that scientists MUST go beyond mere survey and 
monitoring to predictive models. The challenge then is to develop this sense of responsibil 
ity coupled with strategies and the will to more forcefully influence policies and practices 
which affect our environment. This is essential at all levels of activity - local, regional, 
national and global. For instance the European Commission’s CORINE programme (1985- 
1990) demonstrated the feasibility and utility of an environmental GIS on the superna 
tional scale. The CORINE research certainly influenced the decision to establish this year 
the European Environmental Agency and the European Information and Observation 
Network. 
Educators will also need to create an awareness amongst students (especially at the 
post-graduate level) that the great promises of remote sensing and GIS to efficiently 
integrate data from different sources for administration and planning will face institutional 
and infrastructural problems: (personal communication of Ir. R. Groot, Director 
Geographical Services Division of the Canada Centre for Mapping): 
"when introduced into hierarchical and bureaucratic environments operating in analogue 
ways with long traditions and histories, the integrated GIS perspective inevitably causes 
upheaval in the technology to produce maps and information, in job content and also in the 
power structure of those organizations. The GIS technology is highly decentralizing in 
character and that is in most bureaucracies anything but welcome. The information