Remote sensing for resources development and environmental management: Remote sensing for resources development and environmental management

damen, m. c. j.

Bibliographic data

Multivolume work

Persistent identifier:: 856342815

Title:: Remote sensing for resources development and environmental management

Sub title:: proceedings of the 7th international Symposium, Enschede, 25 - 29 August 1986

Year of publication:: 1986

Place of publication:: Rotterdam; Boston

Publisher of the original:: A. A. Balkema

Identifier (digital):: 856342815

Language:: English

Additional Notes:: Volume 1-3 erschienen von 1986-1988

Editor:: Damen, M. C. J.

Document type:: Multivolume work

Volume

Persistent identifier:: 856662364

Title:: Remote sensing for resources development and environmental management

Sub title:: proceedings of the 7th international Symposium, Enschede, 25 - 29 August 1986

Scope:: VI, Seiten 959-1074

Year of publication:: 2016

Place of publication:: Rotterdam; Boston

Publisher of the original:: A. A. Balkema

Identifier (digital):: 856662364

Signature of the source:: ZS 312(26,7,3)

Language:: English

Usage licence:: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Editor:: Damen, M. C. J.

Publisher of the digital copy:: Technische Informationsbibliothek Hannover

Place of publication of the digital copy:: Hannover

Year of publication of the original:: 2016

Document type:: Volume

Collection:: Earth sciences

Chapter

Title:: Opening ceremoney

Document type:: Multivolume work

Structure type:: Chapter

Chapter

Title:: Opening session. K. J. Beek President of ISPRS Commission VII

Document type:: Multivolume work

Structure type:: Chapter

Symposium on Remote Sensing for Resources Development and Environmental Management/Enschede/August 1986 © 1987Balkema, Rotterdam. ISBN 90 6191 674 7 959 Opening session K.J.Beek President ofISPRS Commission VII Ladies and Gentlemen, On behalf of Commission VII of the ISPRS I welcome you all at our Symposium. We are very grateful that you have accepted our invitation. I welcome espe cially the honorary committee members and the sponsors of our meeting. I thank Dr. Van Spiegel, Director General for Science Policy for his willing ness to address and open this conference. Welcome to Professor Konecny and Dr. Tbrlegard, president and secretary general of ISPRS and a special welcome to our French colleagues who have organized the pre vious conference of this Commission in Toulouse. 450 Specialists and 50 students are participating in this conference. Against the background of almost 200 papers we are expected to make progress in two closely related subjects: 1. in resources development; 2. in environmental management. Resources development is a pressing need in the first place in the developing countries with rapidly growing populations: especially in Africa where food production and distribution problems are reaching dramatic proportions. The process of land develop ment in the tropics includes the uncontrolled destruction of tropical forests in an unprecedented way: the F AO estimates that each year at least. 11 million hectares are deforested, three times the size of The Netherlands. The resulting land degrada tion is posing a global threat to our environment. By organizing this Symposium at the ITC we in tended to draw special attention to the developing countries. I am very pleased with the many papers and participants from these countries, including a large number of ITC-alumni. I should like to mention here that both ITC and Commission VII were an in itiative of Professor Schermerhorn, taken during the ISPRS Congress in The Hague in 1948. In the developed countries quite a different situation is now emerging, here the production of agriculture commodities is reaching the point of market saturation, new technologies continue to increase the productivity per hectare. Thus remote sensing is expected to support processes of re allocation of land from agriculture to other uses. Furthermore the social cost of the environmental pollution caused by industry and modern farming has reached levels which are no longer acceptable to the commuai ty. In The Netherlands for instance we do not know anymore how to recycle all animal manure produced in the livestock sector. These very intensive farming systems use imported animal feedstuffs produced abroad on the equivalent land area of 2 million hectares, while the livestock sector in The Netherlands occupies only one million hectares. What to do about forests which suffer from acid rain? Also recycling of chemical wastes and radio active materials is apparently presenting new challenges to environmental management. During the previous Commission VII meeting in The Netherlands in Delft in 1962, the President Professor Edelman emphasized - especially in developing countries - the urgency of aerial photo interpretation for natural resources inventory. There should be no doubt that aero-space survey is still one of the most important tools for investigat ing a country’s potentialities. But now, six Symposia later, there seems to be a shift in priorities. 1. Resource inventory field techniques need to be re-assessed in view of the relevancy of the informa tion they produce, the speed with which the information can reach the user and the corresponding cost. Already new digital data processing techniques are posing challenging questions about the data collection techniques. 2. There seem to be no fundamental differences between the developed and the developing countries in the kind of advanced remote sensing techniques, which can play a role in resources development and environ mental management. But the lack of qualified human resources is becoming a major constraint while the information needs are more pressing that ever before. To illustrate this: During the past 40 years a tremendous uncontrolled growth of urban centres has taken place in the developing countries. During the next 15 years the population of these urban areas will double. India now has one hundred cities with more than one million inhabitants. To manage this growth process in a positive way requires an enormous production of large scale town maps, preferably at a very low cost. After World War II Europe achieved a very rapid reconstruc tion, not only thanks to the USA Marshall aid, but also thanks to the availability of qualified human resources and experience, including topographic maps and survey facilities. In the developing countries the urban growth process is a new experience, there are very few maps avail able and the trained manpower is almost absent. We should keep this in mind during our deliberations on the application of remote sensing technology. At this moment remote sensing and computer assisted information management techniques seem to become promising tools for tackling the development and environmental issues I have touched upon. The suc cessful operation of the SPOT satellite, to be presented this week by Dr. Brachet, the advances with low cost aerial photography and the first results with geographical information systems will illustrate this. Nevertheless the problems of development, facing us, are of an overwhelming magnitude and complexity. This situation must have been the challenge of mankind through the ages. It explains the long tradition of modesty and understatement which characterize the true scientist. The International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, during its 75 years of existence, has developed a scientific tradition of setting standards of precision and reliability, in par ticular for reaching cartographic standards in the production of maps. The society has become an essen tial forum for dialogue beween the industries which produce the technology, the instruments, the systems and the usei—community.

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