16,325 research outputs found

    Special Issue on Applied Earth Observation and Remote Sensing in Latin America

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    This special Issue focused on recent research led by South American researchers and teams. It is a long overdue pos- sibility offered to researchers in this geographical area to share their excellent work with the international community. Accord- ingly, the response to the call for papers was overwhelming, with more than 60 papers submitted from eight countries. Eventually, 23 articles were accepted, among which 11 are authored from Brazil, while Argentina and Mexico contribute each with five papers, and Colombia and Ecuador have one arti- cle accepted each. Testifying the international breadth of these researches, seven of these contributions have coauthors from outside Latin America: two from Italy, and one from France, Canada, Finland, USA, and Germany. Before describing the contributions that have been selected for this issue, it is worth recalling briefly the history and current situation of remote sensing activities in the three major countries in the area, which, as mentioned, contribute to the large majority of the works published in the following pages.ITESO, A.C

    Potential of using remote sensing techniques for global assessment of water footprint of crops

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    Remote sensing has long been a useful tool in global applications, since it provides physically-based, worldwide, and consistent spatial information. This paper discusses the potential of using these techniques in the research field of water management, particularly for ‘Water Footprint’ (WF) studies. The WF of a crop is defined as the volume of water consumed for its production, where green and blue WF stand for rain and irrigation water usage, respectively. In this paper evapotranspiration, precipitation, water storage, runoff and land use are identified as key variables to potentially be estimated by remote sensing and used for WF assessment. A mass water balance is proposed to calculate the volume of irrigation applied, and green and blue WF are obtained from the green and blue evapotranspiration components. The source of remote sensing data is described and a simplified example is included, which uses evapotranspiration estimates from the geostationary satellite Meteosat 9 and precipitation estimates obtained with the Climatic Prediction Center Morphing Technique (CMORPH). The combination of data in this approach brings several limitations with respect to discrepancies in spatial and temporal resolution and data availability, which are discussed in detail. This work provides new tools for global WF assessment and represents an innovative approach to global irrigation mapping, enabling the estimation of green and blue water use

    the Acto and the Leticia Pact

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    Este estudo examina a introdução do novo pacto para a Amazônia, Pacto de Letícia, com vistas a examinar a criação de novos mecanismos de proteção e desenvolvimento da região pelo compartilhamento de dados de sensoriamento remoto por satélite e a sua interação com a Organização do Tratado de Cooperação Amazônica. Para tanto, será analisado o desenvolvimento do Direito Espacial em conjunto com a posição dos países em desenvolvimento, em especial os estados Amazônicos, quando da elaboração da regulamentação espacial na segunda metade do século XX, em particular dos Princípios de Sensoriamento Remoto. Para esse fim, serão examinadas as resoluções da Assembleia Geral das Nações Unidas sobre o tema. Paralelamente, será apontado o desenvolvimento do Direito Ambiental Internacional e a sua interação com as capacidades espaciais para garantir sua eficácia, por meio das imagens de satélite, para uma melhor política de monitoramento ambiental e seu uso como evidência nos Tribunais. Após examinar os antecedentes de ambos os ramos do Direito Internacional, o cenário da cooperação regional da América Latina para conectar a região Amazônica no setor de sensoriamento remoto por satélite e as iniciativas por meio da Organização do Tratado de Cooperação Amazônica e do recente Pacto de Letícia serão analisados para reconhecer o estágio cooperativo em que os estados Amazônicos se encontram, propondo, por fim, a necessidade de criação de uma estrutura legal para cooperação espacial no compartilhamento de dados de satélite com o objetivo de fortalecer a parceria regional e de criar políticas públicas regionais eficazes.This study examines the introduction of the new Pact for the Amazon, so-called Leticia Pact, with a view to examining the establishment of new mechanisms for the protection and development of the region through the sharing of satellite remote sensing data and the interaction with the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization. To achieve this objective, the development of Space Law will be analysed in conjunction with the position of developing countries, especially the Amazonian ones, when drafting the space regulations in the second half of the 20th century, in particular the Remote Sensing Principles. To that end, the resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly on this topic will be examined. At the same time, the development of International Environmental Law and its interaction with space capabilities to ensure its effectiveness will be pointed out, through satellite images for a better environmental monitoring policy and its use for enforcement as evidence in the Court. After examining the background of both branches of international law, the scenario of Latin American regional cooperation to connect the Amazon region in the satellite remote sensing sector and the initiatives through the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization and the recent Leticia Pact will be analysed to recognize the cooperative stage in which the Amazonian states are, proposing, finally, the need to create a legal structure for space cooperation in the sharing of satellite data in order to strengthen the regional partnership and to create effective regional public policies

    EARLINET: towards an advanced sustainable European aerosol lidar network

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    The European Aerosol Research Lidar Network, EARLINET, was founded in 2000 as a research project for establishing a quantitative, comprehensive, and statistically significant database for the horizontal, vertical, and temporal distribution of aerosols on a continental scale. Since then EARLINET has continued to provide the most extensive collection of ground-based data for the aerosol vertical distribution over Europe. This paper gives an overview of the network's main developments since 2000 and introduces the dedicated EARLINET special issue, which reports on the present innovative and comprehensive technical solutions and scientific results related to the use of advanced lidar remote sensing techniques for the study of aerosol properties as developed within the network in the last 13 years. Since 2000, EARLINET has developed greatly in terms of number of stations and spatial distribution: from 17 stations in 10 countries in 2000 to 27 stations in 16 countries in 2013. EARLINET has developed greatly also in terms of technological advances with the spread of advanced multiwavelength Raman lidar stations in Europe. The developments for the quality assurance strategy, the optimization of instruments and data processing, and the dissemination of data have contributed to a significant improvement of the network towards a more sustainable observing system, with an increase in the observing capability and a reduction of operational costs. Consequently, EARLINET data have already been extensively used for many climatological studies, long-range transport events, Saharan dust outbreaks, plumes from volcanic eruptions, and for model evaluation and satellite data validation and integration. Future plans are aimed at continuous measurements and near-real-time data delivery in close cooperation with other ground-based networks, such as in the ACTRIS (Aerosols, Clouds, and Trace gases Research InfraStructure Network) www.actris.net, and with the modeling and satellite community, linking the research community with the operational world, with the aim of establishing of the atmospheric part of the European component of the integrated global observing system.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

    Tropical Forests and Climate Change Mitigation: The Global Potential and Cases from the Philippines

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    The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC Fourth Assessment report has highlighted the role of tropical forests in mitigating climate change. Deforestation, especially in tropical countries, contributes about 20 percent to total global greenhouse gas emissions. Development projects geared to reduce the rate of deforestation and forest degradation, and to establish forest plantations will help reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and significantly contribute to mitigating climate change. Three cases of forestry carbon projects underway in the Philippines are presented to illustrate the constraints facing project developers in undertaking these climate change mitigation efforts. Among the key lessons identified are: the difficulty in establishing land eligibility, the need for partners or buyers from industrialized countries to shoulder the transaction costs, and the crucial role of the local communities, including indigenous peoples, in the development effort.

    WCDRR and the CEOS activities on disaters

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    Agencies from CEOS (Committee on Earth Observation Satellites) have traditionally focused their efforts on the response phase. Rapid urbanization and increased severity of weather events has led to growing economic and human losses from disasters, requiring international organisations to act now in all disaster risk management (DRM) phases, especially through improved disaster risk reduction policies and programmes. As part of this effort, CEOS agencies have initiated a series of actions aimed at fostering the use of Earth observation (EO) data to support disaster risk reduction and at raising the awareness of policy and decision-makers and major stakeholders of the benefits of using satellite EO in all phases of DRM. CEOS is developing a long-term vision for sustainable application of satellite EO to all phases of DRM. CEOS is collaborating with regional representatives of the DRM user community, on a multi-hazard project involving three thematic pilots (floods, seismic hazards and volcanoes) and a Recovery Observatory that supports resilient recovery from one major disaster. These pilot activities are meant as trail blazers that demonstrate the potential offered by satellite EO for comprehensive DRM. In the framework of the 2015 3rd World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR), the CEOS space agencies intend to partner with major stakeholders, including UN organizations, the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), international relief agencies, leading development banks, and leading regional DRM organisations, to define and implement a 15-year plan of actions (2015- 2030) that responds to high-level Post-2015 Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction priorities. This plan of action will take into account lessons learned from the CEOS pilot activities

    JRC Experience on the Development of Drought Information Systems

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    From the definition of drought to its monitoring and assessment, this report summarizes the main steps towards an integrated drought information system. Europe, Africa and Latin America are examples, based on the experience of the JRC, that illustrate the challenges for establishing continental drought observatory initiatives. The document is structured in the following way: first an introduction explains what drought is and gives some examples of its impact in society; secondly the framework for establishing a drought monitoring system is described giving examples on the European Drought Observatory and on on-going activities in Africa and Latin America; thirdly the fundamental data and information for measuring drought is described; finally the setting up of an Integrated Drought Information System is discussed and two recent case studies, on Europe and on the Horn of Africa, are presented to illustrate the concept.JRC.H.7-Climate Risk Managemen

    Science for Disaster Risk Reduction

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    This thematic report describes JRC's activities in support to disaster management. The JRC develops tools and methodologies to help in all phases of disaster management, from preparedness and risk assessment to recovery and reconstruction through to forecasting and early warning.JRC.A.6-Communicatio

    Developing a forest data portal to support multi-scale decision making

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    Forests play a pivotal role in timber production, maintenance and development of biodiversity and in carbon sequestration and storage in the context of the Kyoto Protocol. Policy makers and forest experts therefore require reliable information on forest extent, type and change for management, planning and modeling purposes. It is becoming increasingly clear that such forest information is frequently inconsistent and unharmonised between countries and continents. This research paper presents a forest information portal that has been developed in line with the GEOSS and INSPIRE frameworks. The web portal provides access to forest resources data at a variety of spatial scales, from global through to regional and local, as well as providing analytical capabilities for monitoring and validating forest change. The system also allows for the utilisation of forest data and processing services within other thematic areas. The web portal has been developed using open standards to facilitate accessibility, interoperability and data transfer
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