The push to define community remote sensing (CRS), with real-world project examples, will culminate at the IEEE International Geoscience Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS) in Honolulu, Hawaii this July. The event will feature a plenary session on, “Remote Sensing: Global Vision for Local Action,” that discusses the combination of citizen science with social networks and remote sensing data to better understand our world.
“Information technologies will provide the foundation for society’s rapid progress in the 21st century. Information about the environment (both natural and human-built) is central to this progress. The enormity of the required undertaking – observing and understanding our world at all space and time scales – takes your breath away. Accomplishing it will be enabled in part by citizens who contribute to ‘remotely sensed’ versions of the world around them. Governments will depend on such information to understand local details of climate change and respond to natural disasters. The private sector will use it to build online maps and virtual worlds that make commerce more efficient and accessible. Within just a decade or so, the influence of community remote sensing will be as profound for understanding our Earth as the satellite revolution has been over the last five decades.”
The event has attracted the interest of many organizations and research efforts that include the University of Washington’s NatureMapping Program for biodiversity inventory, to a Fire Alert and Fire Risk System from Conservation International, to Indigenous Remote Sensing by the Indigenous Mapping Network, and more. There are a number of exciting projects here that involve a combination of community involvement and the harnessing of geospatial technology and sensors for the better management of the planet.
The conference agenda has drawn the participation of two leaders of the US Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), including Aneesh Chopra, President Obama’s Chief Technology Officer, and Shere Abbott, Associate Director for Environment. With this level of interest, and the quality of the program, it’s hopeful that there will be meaningful outcomes from this inaugural event, seeding future projects, and perhaps funding for international efforts.
