PERSPECTIVES
Is it time for focused publications that aim to make sense of change at both the global and local scales?
Change is a constant that is inevitable, but what isn’t inevitable are disruptive impacts. The more we know about our planet and how our built environment interacts with our natural environment, the more we will seamlessly adapt with little or no harm to lives and livelihoods. It’s with the mission in mind — to monitor, analyze and adapt to global change — that the new re-branded Sensors & Systemsis born.
FEATURES
Mapping Carbon in the Forests: Seeing Both the Forest and the Trees
The effects of deforestation are often dramatic. Forest carbon stores can drop from 300 tons per hectare to 20 tons per hectare, says Alessandro Baccini, an assistant scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center. Deforestation in the tropics alone is equal to all of the transportation sources of carbon dioxide globally combined, according to Greg Asner, a staff scientist in the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution for Science. Conversely, “if forests are managed productively and not converted to other uses, if the wood is utilized in long term products and for energy in a substitution benefit, one can use forests to take some carbon out of the atmosphere.”
TOP 5 LINKS OF THE WEEK
- ClimaScope – a data visualization engine providing maps and data on projected climate changes for a range of global greenhouse gas emission scenarios
- Abandoned Bike Tracker – crowdsourcing the mapping of ugly abondoned bikes in New York City
- New Brunswick River Watch – monitoring and flow forecasting in the St. John River Basin
- GeoNode – a platform for the management and publication of geospatial data
- ForWarn – satellite-based change recognition and forest disturbance monitoring
Reader’s Links(submit links to top5vector1media.com)
INTERVIEWS
The Fusion of ERDAS and Intergraph is Just the Start for Hexagon
Over the past year, there has been a great deal of work on the integration of ERDAS and Intergraph software offerings to make a more complete geospatial platform. Matt Ball recently spoke with Mladen Stojic, Vice President – Geospatial at Intergraph, about this ongoing work and the long-term vision. As you’ll read, the focus is on a future generation that demands more rapid answers, and that intuitively streamlines complex geospatial technology stacks into optimized workflows.
Collaborative Visualization to Advance Landscape Planning
Recently the University of British Columbia unveiled a decision theatre, an interactive and immersive computer visualization lab for collaborative advancement of landscape planning. Special correspondent Matteo Luccio spoke with Stephen R.J. Sheppard, the project lead and professor in the Department of Forest Resources Management at the University of British Columbia, Canada about both the technology and the approach.
EVENT COVERAGE
The European Location for the Geospatial World Forum Increases Its Profile
The Geospatial World Forum took place this past week in Amsterdam, drawing an international crowd of more than 1,000 geospatial technology leaders from 78 countries. This is the fourth event in a series, and the first time the event has taken place outside of India. The European location served well to elevate the participation and the program, with a high degree of sessions aimed at cutting-edge policy and technology frontiers, including the sustainable development of the developing world.
