Contact information:

Chair:
open

Assistant
Chair: open

 

Vision

Increased awareness of remote sensing and geospatial information broadly applied in furthering knowledge and understanding of the maritime domain and its relationship with human activities.

Mission

Promote, facilitate, and disseminate thinking and studies on marine applications of remote sensing and geospatial analysis that contribute to information confidence and decision advantage.

Definition

The maritime domain is defined to include navigable inland waters functionally contiguous to the marine environment of saline waters internal, inshore, and offshore to coastal segments, and the oceanic waters. This broad spatial definition affords comparability of islands and continents. 

 

Objectives

·
Identify ASPRS members and constituents interested in the Working Group’s Vision and Mission and willing to participate in accomplishing its objectives. 

·
Develop a framework of contemporary interdisciplinary themes, topics, and issues which could benefit from marine applications of remote sensing. 

·
Maintain a bibliography of works supporting Strategic Objective 2, with attention to visibility of paradigm shifts, concepts, definitive results, analytic resources, and tools.

Contact information:

Chair:
Dr. Giorgos Mountrakis State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry
(315) 470-4824 , gm@esf.edu

Assistant Chair: TBD

Vision
Seamless integration of commercial, governmental and societal needs in academic experiences

Mission
The mission of the Academic Engagement Committee (AEC) is to facilitate a dialogue between academic institutions and external stakeholders such as government
agencies, commercial companies and non-profit organizations.

Objectives

• Establish guidelines for independent studies and internships.
• Establish guidelines for minimum outcomes from an
  undergraduate/graduate RS-related degree.
• Identify/develop low-cost software that provides basic remote
  sensing functionality.
• Establish collaboration mechanisms where external stakeholders
  provide data/expertise for class projects.
• Develop, in collaboration with an industry sponsor, a
  classification competition.
• Develop a repository where interested parties can upload/download reference data for algorithmic development (similar to http://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/datasets.html)

Contact information:

Chair:
open

Assistant
Chair: open

Not a current Working Group, but has been talked about and interest has been shown.

o  Tap into the expertise of ASPRS/RSAD combined with data from vendors, cloud access, open
platforms for rapid response in times of need

o  Would ask companies to open part of their platform/data to selected users for tool/application/product development

o  RSAD would have to develop a directory of “expertise/SME” and determine volunteer willingness to participate

o  Organizations (NGA, FEMA, Red Cross, etc.) could tap into expertise

o  Coordinate with GISCorps, Civil Air Patrol, UN-SPIDER (United Nations Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response), Doctors without
Borders

o  Need to consider software and data requirements, cloud location, MOUs (big topic), licensing, privacy, infrastructure, etc.

o  Need to avoid duplication of effort.  Maybe create a
“suite” of products that ASPRS/RSAD could produce in certain situations.

o  ASPRS becomes liaison between government, business, agencies, etc.  A “neutral” location that can lower barriers for cooperation

Some mention that DigitalGlobe may have performed a multi-user based image classification. “20 sets of eyes on an image, instead of 1 set.”

Contact information:

Chair: open

Assistant Chair: open

 

Vision

Remotely sensed imagery and other geospatial data will be accurately acquired and appropriately used for monitoring and modeling climate change at global, national, continental, and regional scales.

Mission

The Climate Change Working Group falls under the Remote Sensing Applications Division.  Its purpose within ASPRS is to develop guidelines and best practices for the acquisition, documentation, dissemination, and use of remotely sensed and geospatial data within the arena of climate change; promote the understanding and use of geospatial data for climate change; provide an avenue for ASPRS to become more active in national and international climate change organizations and activities.

 

Activities

Geospatial Climate Change Awareness Day

As a way to get the Student Chapters more involved with ASPRS we are investigating the possibility of creating a Geospatial Climate Change Awareness Day.  Although we are still in the planning phases we can mention some of our thoughts to this point.

• The student chapters could pick topics more related to where they are geographically.  Coastal sea level rise crop security in the heartland increases in weather extremes (tornados nor’easters hurricanes etc.)
• From the chosen topic the students could then research issues of geospatial data availability tools and techniques challenges etc.
• The developed material whether it is posters brochures web pages presentations could then be used  elsewhere (e.g. middle/high schools)
• Maybe there is a potential for some sort of ASPRS sponsored competition?  Winning Chapter gets something from ASPRS?

 What do you think about this idea?  Would you be willing to participate in a Geospatial Climate Change Awareness Day?

 Student Involvement

The Climate Change Working Group recognizes that the Student Chapters are key to the growth and long term success of ASPRS.  A primary focus of the RSAD has been to actively engage students and encourage their participation in its activities.  The RSAD has for the Academic Engagement Working Group specifically for this purpose.  The Climate Change Working Group would like to work with students in a variety of ways.

• Possible webinar opportunities: The purpose of the webinar would be to allow students the opportunity to present on a topic or their research to other ASPRS members in a less formal atmosphere.  This will give the students presentation experience and receive feedback or help on questions they may have.
• Use of social media:  The Student Advisory Council and the Early Career Professional Council are probably the most active portions within ASPRS in using social media to communicate and raise overall awareness within and external to the Society.  This seems like a prime area to tap into the Student members particular skill sets
• Student Credit: Individual study credit pairing a student with ASPRS member (professor at University)
  • Approach needs to be defined.  One possibility would be for ASPRS Divisions to create a list of needs or potential topics to be addressed.  The list could be shared with Student Chapter Faculty Advisor (typically professors at universities). The Faculty Advisor could then oversee the work of the student.

 

Guidelines/SOP development

• The idea of developing Guidelines for using remote sensing for climate change continues to be a difficult task to tackle.  The range of topics as well as sensors varies dramatically in scale and approaches.