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: ■ - 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