News Archive 2005

 
 
 

NEWS ARCHIVES: 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004

OCT 2005:  Awarding of Stage 2 - Implementation Phase

In October 2005 the European Space Agency (ESA) awarded the GSE FM consortium the implementation stage or Stage 2. GAF and the entire GSE FM consortium were delighted with the news of the Stage 2 award which combined a baseline and extension programme such that a full complement of service cases can be developed and offered in the next 3 years.

The expanded user community that is committed for implementing the services in Stage 2 and the geographical scope is illustrated in the Figure below. A strong interest was expressed by the European Environmental Agency (EEA) to obtain GSE FM services for its policy supporting activities which forms the basis for the Pan European service case in Stage 2.

There will also be a continued emphasis on service delivery for the Kyoto Protocol as the Protocol came into legal force in February 2005 and thus an increased demand for the services.





JUN 2005:  Completion of Pilot Cases for Poland, S.Africa and DUP-KYOTO and Final Meeting

The pilot cases for Poland and S.Africa and the DUP-Kyoto harmonisation process were completed with successful delivery of products and services to the partners; a Final Meeting was held with ESA to formally conclude the cases in June 2005.

The GSE FM services for S.Africa provided an excellent opportunity for north-south technology transfer related to improved methods for the application of EO for obtaining quantitative values on areas of land classes (with a higher level of accuracy), as well as areal changes in the forest class and biomass estimates; therefore, the S.African partners are committed to further collaborate on the ESA GSE FM programme.

Similarly in the Polish case the GSE FM services provide a valuable tool for forest area estimation and thus the Ministry of Environment will be more actively involved in developments of the ESA GSE FM programme in the next stage.