content

Main featuresOpening Academic Year 2Geonedis project phase 2 7

Staff news 14

Visiting ITCDirectors TNO Space 15Officials MLR China 15

Education newsApplied Earth Science 17New European MSc course 19Joint MSc course SUS/ITC 22GFM diploma course in Dar es Salaam 23

Obituary: Riet Allessie 24

AnnouncementsGFM MSc students at ISPRS 25Second World Urban Forum 26ITC Textbooks translated into Malaysian and Korean 27SVG Open 2005 28Best Poster award Phem and Grabmaier 28Map Asia 2004 29Honorary degree Ard Somrang,LDD Thailand 30Klaas Jan Beek Award 30Best poster presentation Farifteh 31

Life after ITCAlumni meeting Istanbul,Turkey 32Alumni meeting San Diego,U.S.A. 33Ethiopian Alumni Association 34Turkish Alumni Association 34Letter to the Editor 35

CONFERENCE CALENDAR 35

Apparently whistled languages such as Silbo on the island La Gomera canbe heard some 1 to 2 km away, or even more under favourable conditions.With origins dating back centuries, could they be considered an early formof remote sensing? One thing is certain, however, not only do languagescome in many guises ... they're still coming!

Those fortunate enough to have been present at the Opening of theAcademic Year (pages 2- 6) were introduced to a recent addition: "GIS andgeography: a new language for society". This was the title of the lecture de-livered by Dr Jack Dangermond, president of ESRI and a name well knownto the global geo-information community. As Professor Molenaar said: "Jack is an often-invited keynote speaker at conferences worldwide, and it'salways exciting to listen to him when he shares with the audience his viewsof the future and his forecasts of new applications of geo-information tech-nology, and to witness his drive for improvement." Moreover, this year's official opening saw the installation of Dr Dangermond as a Fellow of ITC.He was presented with a diploma to mark the occasion, together with amagnificent bouquet of flowers, which quickly found its way to ESRI's vice-president: Ms Laura Dangermond.

Getting to grips with the nuts and bolts of syntax and vocabulary can causemany a headache, but the painstaking efforts of a group of translators andeditors have recently borne fruit (page 27): Korean and Malaysian versionsof an ITC textbook now grace the library shelves (Korean-English dictionaryavailable!). Nor has the spoken word withered away from neglect. San Diego (33) and Istanbul (32) have been the scenes of lively reunions,with alumni comparing notes on the "torments and pleasures of life atITC". Perhaps the torments tend to weigh less heavily, as increasingly thereare plans afoot to establish alumni associations in home countries. In thisissue you can read about such initiatives in Ethiopia (34) and Turkey (34) -and perhaps lend your support!

One special feature traces the roadmap of the Geonedis project (7), illustrat-ing not only the achievements but also the sheer hard work involved. Andwhat with new courses, awards, conferences and graduations, not to men-tion a royal visit (15), the key word for this issue must surely be "variety".We do hope you enjoy ITC News 2004-3 and trust we speak the same lan-guage!

Janneke KalfManaging Editor

1ITC News 2004-3

I N T R O

introduction

Managing Editor: Janneke Kalf

Editing: Janice CollinsDesign&PrePress: Henk Scharrenborg

(Composer DTP service)Andries Menning

Printing: PlantijnCasparie Zwolle

Correspondence to: Managing EditorITC NEWSP.O.Box 6

7500 AA EnschedePhone: +31 (0)53 487 44 11Fax: +31 (0)53 487 45 54E-mail: itcnews@itc.nl

colofonITC NEWS is published quarterly, by ITC, Enschede, the Netherlands

The views expressed by the contributors do not necessarily reflect those of ITC2004number 3

Perhaps satellite

images had been

consulted, perhaps

it was simply great

good fortune, but in

a summer notable

for the absence of

sun ITC's new

academic year

opened on a day

without an umbrella

in sight.

And the clement weather was certainly ap-preciated by many an amateur photographerwho had a digital camera at the ready torecord the colourful event. Although theOpening of the Academic Year is naturally atraditional occasion, each bears its own hall-mark, thanks to the new students, newspeakers, and naturally new artistic contribu-tions. For example, visitors to the GroteKerk, Enschede, on 30 September 2004,who had flown in from all over the world,were left in no doubt they had toucheddown in the land of Van Gogh: the vibrantsunflowers were an eloquent reminder!

In his opening speech Rector MartienMolenaar welcomed representatives of theembassies of Kenya and Ethiopia; and ofcourse Dr Jack Dangermond, ITC's new fel-low, and Ms Laura Dangermond; and Mr Dick Visser of ESRI, the Netherlands. "But most of all," he said, "I welcome ournew course participants, who decided toleave their families and jobs for 12 or 18months to join our degree programmes.

I hope you will have a worthwhile stay hereat ITC." The next speaker to take the standwas Mr Gustavo Zarrate, acting president ofthe Student Association Board, who encour-aged the newly arrived students to take fulladvantage of ITC's excellent state-of-the-artfacilities, and to remain focused on theirprojects, combining an open mind with asense of adventure.

The Pepusch Ensemble, with Anke Leffers onviolin, Vera Scholten, soprano, and Gijs vanSchoonhoven on organ, provided a strikingexample of the language of music. They en-tertained the audience with three piecesfrom the Cantata "The Spring" by J.C.Pepusch: Aria: Fragrant Flora, Recitativo:Thus on a fruitful hill and Aria: Love andpleasures gaily flowing. Readers with an eyefor detail will have noticed from the pro-gramme that it was also Mr vanSchoonhoven who greeted them as they en-tered the Grote Kerk with his magnificentplaying on the larger and loftier permanentorgan.

Next on the programme came the official in-stallation of a new ITC fellow: Dr JackDangermond, president of ESRI and keynotespeaker of the day. Introducing DrDangermond to the audience, ProfessorMolenaar said that he was "undoubtedlyone of the founding fathers of GIS and GIStechnology", and that the main beneficiaryof his work and vision was the commonman, as everyone benefited from improveddecision making in land use planning and re-source management, as well as all otherareas of GIS applications.

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Delivering the Schermerhorn lecture, Dr JackDangermond produced a raft of convincingarguments to explain the significance of thefield of geoscience, the mission of ITC, andthe role of its students at this particular junc-ture in history. He said that as the studentsgrew as GIS or GI professionals the foot-prints they put down would be very impor-tant, and that they would be participating inthe creation and application of a new lan-guage for society: the language of GIS andgeography.

Dr Dangermond gave his audience consider-able food for thought concerning the pathahead and, with the closing of the openingceremony, those present made their wayacross the square to the reception at theTwentse Schouwburg in search of fortifica-tion for the journey.

Opening Speech:Rector Martien MolenaarIn his opening address Professor Molenaarexplained that the present debate on the in-ternationalisation of higher educationtended to concentrate on the rather selfishissue of brain gain to strengthen Westernknowledge economics, with relatively scantattention being paid to capacity building inlesser developed and emerging economies.However, the vision that the more developedeconomies should shoulder their responsibil-ity by supporting and facilitating capacitybuilding to strengthen the weakereconomies was as valid today as it was 50

years ago when the five Dutch institutionsfor international education were created.

ITC, as one of these institutions, was morethan ready to play its part and ProfessorMolenaar went on to deal with two particu-lar aspects: the disciplinary and professionalfield of geo-information science and earthobservation and the issue of capacity build-ing. He said that: "Geo-information sciencerequires an interdisciplinary setting.Professionals operating in the GSDI areaware of this fact. Application, however,covers a wide variety of domains, such asland registration and administration, naturalresources management, and disaster mitiga-tion. This implies that a certain level of spe-cialisation will be required so thatprofessionals can keep up to date withintheir field of expertise. These apparentlyconflicting criteria imply that not all require-ments can be fulfilled by one single pro-gramme. We should rather think of acoherent family of education programmes toeducate the members of the geoinformaticscommunity."

"Many universities provide education in thisarea, but generally in the context of otherdisciplines and covering only one or two par-ticular aspects. Because of ITC's disciplinaryniche and its international stature, ITC canprovide such a coherent family of educa-tional programmes, covering most aspects ofthis field. These programmes are not only atan academic level but also at different pro-fessional levels."

Professor Molenaar said that whereas thegoal of education was to prepare (young)professionals for their tasks ahead, the goalof capacity building - comprising human re-sources development, and organisationaland institutional strengthening - was to si-multaneously shake up the organisation thatwould employ them, so that it could assumeresponsibility for designing, managing andsustaining development. He added that"ITC's education and training activitiesshould be seen as an important means of ca-pacity building rather than an aim in itself.The educational activities are complementedby advisory services and joint projects on re-search and knowledge valorisation - a com-bination that helps organisations in

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developing and introducing new products,services and working procedures and inmodernising institutional arrangements."

There was both bad news and good news.This year ITC had been shocked by the factthat the number of fellowships that theInstitute used to enjoy under theNetherlands Fellowship Programme hadbeen drastically cut by approximately twothirds. The good news was that the Ministerof Development Cooperation was raising theNFP fund not only this year but also in theyears to come. Moreover, recognising thequality of both ITC education and ITC staff,increasing numbers of students were findingtheir way to Enschede via other networksand other arrangements. To quote from thefollowing speaker: "... when the going getstough, the tough get going ... [and] thecharacter of people can be proved."

Student Association BoardMr Gustavo Zarrate, acting president of theSAB, empathised with the new students, re-membering how he too had undergone theprocess of adaptation a year ago - adjustingto a different country, with different weatherand a different language, as well as becom-ing a student once more. He said: "Foremostwe have to keep in mind what we came for:to gain advanced knowledge and get a de-gree. We have to build our social life inEnschede as well [...] and finally we have tokeep our personal life in order, with respon-sibility and common sense." He also advisedstudents to take advantage of the many pos-sibilities to travel and broaden their horizons,as well as of the unique opportunity pre-sented by an international environment andexceptional mix of cultures not only to dis-cover Dutch customs but also to learn aboutthe traditions and way of life of their class-mates.

Mr Zarrate was firm in his opinion: "You canbe sure that you and your organisationshave made one of the best decisions in yourlife: to follow an advanced postgraduateprogramme at ITC. This is a great privilege, aunique opportunity and a very important re-sponsibility. You are ambassadors of yourown countries, your own organisations andyour own families. And from now on, youare ITC ambassadors as well."

Official InstallationDr Jack Dangermond and his wife Laurafounded the Environmental SystemsResearch Institute (ESRI), with its headquar-ters in Redlands, California, in 1969. Andtoday they are respectively president andvice-president of the company, as well as theowners. As Professor Molenaar explained tothe audience: "He is one of GIS's biggest ad-vocates, he is also a captain of industry, en-joying the full respect of his peers on thenational and international political scene. Hehas earned the deepest respect from his ESRIstaff, and to ITC he is a very valuable ally inprojects that matter to both our institutes.Last but not least, his deeper ambitions gobeyond the commercial success of his com-pany. We believe that few people could de-serve ITC's honour more."

With that, Ir Ton Heddema, chairman ofITC's Supervisory Board, presented DrDangermond with a diploma bestowing"the honorary title of Fellow of theInternational Institute for Geo-InformationScience and Earth Observation in recognition

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Mr Gustavo Zarrate, acting president of the SAB, em-pathised with the new students, remembering howhe too had undergone the process of adaptation ayear ago

of his accomplishments of exceptional merit,furthering ITC's development, the realisationof ITC's objects, and the development of thescientific fields in which ITC is engaged". Inaccepting this honour Dr Dangermond saidthere were different reasons for acknowl-edgement and one was to show good prac-tice. "It's not just about me as an individual,but my colleagues have done a lot of goodwork ... and the notion of acknowledge-ment as spotlighting good footprints forothers to follow - I like that process!"

Schermerhorn Lecture:Dr Jack Dangermond"GIS and Geography: A New Language for Society"Setting the context for his central theme oflanguage, Dr Dangermond painted a pictureof a dynamic world, a complex world, where"population growth, urbanisation, globalisa-tion, economic development and even con-flicts ... put us at the edge of civilisation aswe know it." However, he said that at thesame time we were growing our knowledgeabout how the world worked, and techno-logical and scientific advances made it clearthat we could do better.

Dr Dangermond said that languages, whichtake many forms - the language of music,the language of mathematics, the languageof art, for example - were used to describeour world, to organise how we see theworld, and provide a lens for how we think

and conceptualise. Geography, on the otherhand, was the science of our world, and "isthe framework within which we conceive ofnot only the way it is, but also how it couldbe. A more liveable planet, a more sustain-able place. It helps us model explicitly; ithelps us visualise; it's integrative, bringingthe different disciplines together to see thewhole." Geography was not only about con-tent but also about process.

Dr Dangermond proceeded to guide his au-dience through the evolution and growth ofgeographical information systems, and thebuilding blocks of geographical knowledge(geodata sets, content models, process mod-els, maps and globes, and metadata), trans-mitting to his listeners his enthusiasm forthis integrative technology and its practicalapplications. And in his vision for the future,he conjured up "a kind of digital Earth. Theresult of this will be that geographic knowl-edge - models, data sets, data models, maps- will be available to us any time anywhereabout any place on Earth. It will make virtualcollaborations possible. You and I can workon projects together; you and I can shareour data; you and I can share our methodsand our models."

"Our world is evolving rapidly. It's not aneasy world right now. We need better un-derstanding and cooperation and collabora-tion, that's clear. GIS is emerging as a newlanguage, and it's becoming more intelligentand collaborative. It encompasses many op-portunities - in advancing science ... bettermanaging natural resources, and designingwith nature in making more liveable commu-nities. Improving human health, mitigatingconflicts, this language will enable it. Andactually I think it's particularly well suited forimagining our future, better than the writtenlanguage, because we can see it and intu-itively understand our world through thislanguage. In fact, I think it's essential.Empowering geography and all of its relatedfields with a language, I think, will help usbuild a better future."

Speaking more directly to the new studentsin the audience, Dr Dangermond, who ad-mitted to being a little jealous of them andtheir opportunity to study at ITC, said hewas "angry about ITC's change in funding

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Introducing Dr Dangermond to the audience, Professor Molenaar said that he was"undoubtedly one of the founding fathers of GIS and GIS technology"

status. That would suggest in a time of hugegrowth and need for geoscience that some-one would be so audacious to think thatthey should cut back on fellowships - it's justastounding to me. We need people who un-derstand how to design these systems, howto build them, how to plan, and you aregoing to be learning that." He wished themgood fortune in the exciting months and,maybe for some of them, years ahead: "Weneed GIS professionals; you will be the oneswho apply this language [and] ITC will be ateacher of the language. I believe your mis-sion will create a better future."

ConclusionThanking Dr Dangermond for his engrossingand challenging lecture, Professor Molenaarsaid that the new academic year could nowbe considered officially open. And with that,he invited the audience to join him at the re-ception for a second opening, one that re-quired a certain dexterity of wrist: theopening of some bottles of wine. Let therecord show that not a single voice wasraised in objection!

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Reception

BackgroundOn 30 June this year, a long-duration ITCSAIL project with the Indian Institute ofRemote Sensing (IIRS) of the NationalRemote Sensing Agency (NRSA) came to asuccessful conclusion. Geonedis(Geoinformatics for EnvironmentalAssessment and Disaster Management) wasa collaborative project involving IIRS, ITC, IHEand Wageningen University.

Collaboration between IIRS and ITC spansmore than 38 years, with uninterrupted con-tact and cooperation at both institution andpersonal scientific levels during this period.Over three distinct periods this collaborationwas supported with funds from the Dutchgovernment. ITC was involved in establishingthe institute, which was then called theIndian Institute for Photo-interpretation (IPI),under the Survey of India. From its initiationin 1966 until 1972, emphasis was placed oncreating basic capability in training and edu-cation in aerial photo interpretation for arange of applications. Later, IPI came underNRSA and was renamed the Indian Instituteof Remote Sensing (IIRS). During the secondphase of project-supported collaboration,from 1983 to 1990, emphasis was directed

towards establishing the Human SettlementAnalysis Group. The third period of project-supported collaboration covered the years1994 to 2004. The first part (1994 to 1999)was directed towards upgrading staff capa-bilities and facilities in the field of GIS appli-cations for natural resources developmentand environmental planning and manage-ment. The focus of the last four years wason strengthening IIRS as a national and re-gional educational institute in the field ofgeoinformatics, as well as strengthening itsapplications in natural hazard and risk as-sessment. The last phase fundamentally dif-fered from the previous phases ofcollaboration, with emphasis being given toequal partnership in carrying out joint re-search and joint MSc courses.

Why Focus on Geoinformatics and NaturalHazard and Risk Assessment?India is among the countries with the high-est occurrence of natural disasters inSoutheast Asia, with about 85% of thecountry prone to some type of disaster. Thedrought-prone area constitutes 68% of thetotal crop area, while one-eighth of thecountry is estimated to be subject to fre-quent flooding. The long coastline is ex-posed to one or two tropical cyclones everyyear. More than half the country is vulnera-ble to seismic activity of varying degree.Most of the Himalayan part of India is sub-ject to landslides, and the highest parts tosnow avalanches. These natural disasters areso devastating that economic development,social stability and environmental quality areseverely affected.

The growing population (over 1 billion), withincreasing life expectancy, is putting tremen-dous pressure on the finite natural resourcesto provide substantial increases in the pro-duction of food, water, energy, living space

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Geonedis Project Phase 2,2000-2004

Cees van Westen vanwesten@itc.nlSabine Maresch maresch@itc.nl

Some of the audience duringthe technical presentations

and other necessities. This leads to decreas-ing forest cover, increasing urbanisation, thedepletion of natural resources, and increas-ing vulnerability to environmental degrada-tion and natural disasters.

The impact of natural disasters can be re-duced by proper disaster management, in-cluding disaster prevention (hazard and riskassessment, land use planning and legisla-tion, building codes), disaster preparedness(forecasts, warning, prediction), and rapidand adequate disaster relief. India is one ofthe very few countries in the world that usesspace technology for near-real-time monitor-ing of drought, floods and cyclones in a na-tional programme. In the wake of the severe1987 drought that affected the entire popu-lation, and which was followed by devastat-ing floods in 1988, significant technologicalprogrammes have been launched by theIndian government, including space technol-ogy as information support for the monitor-ing and rapid assessment of floods anddrought.

Project Objectives The overall objective of the Geonedis projectphase 2 was to reinforce the IIRS as a na-tional and regional educational institute inthe field of geoinformatics, as well as its ap-plications in environmental planning and dis-aster management. The specific objectivesstipulated at the beginning of the project aregiven below, together with comments re-garding their achievement.

1. IIRS staff will have an up-to-date knowl-edge level in geo-informatics.Comment: This objective has beenachieved over the last eight years by train-ing most of the IIRS staff through joint re-search and several PhD researches.

2. IIRS will have an appropriate infrastructureto carry out training and projects in thefield of geo-information and disaster andenvironmental management.Comment: IIRS infrastructure has beenupgraded, also through substantial invest-ments by NRSA, and IIRS now has modernbuildings, student amenities and com-puter facilities.

3. IIRS will have course curricula on the ap-plication of geo-information to environ-mental assessment and disaster

management, aimed at professionals ofdifferent levels (decision makers, technicalpersonnel and end users).Comment: IIRS now has courses in geoin-formatics at MSc level, and in geo-infor-mation for hazard and risk analysis atdifferent levels (decision makers' seminar,awareness, Certificate, Postgraduate andMSc). There is considerable demand forsuch courses, as shown by the large num-ber of self-sponsored candidates.

4. IIRS will have a number of case studiesthat show the practical applications ofgeo-information in the management ofdifferent types of disasters, such as flood-ing, drought, landslides, coastal hazards,urban hazards.Comment: IIRS and ITC staff have devel-oped several case studies over the lastyears, partly within the framework of theCASITA project (seehttp://www.adpc.net/casita/).

5. IIRS will have established close contactswith the end users of disaster and envi-ronmental information, will have carriedout a number of projects on the use ofgeo-information for disaster and environ-mental management, and will initiate andmaintain a feedback mechanism on thesubject with the stakeholders.Comment: IIRS has established good con-tacts with end users on disaster manage-ment in India.

6. IIRS will have established a network withnational and international organisationsworking in the field of disaster and envi-ronmental management.Comment: Regionally IIRS has establishedcontacts with ADPC and with a number ofother institutes and universities that alsooffer courses on disaster managementwithin the framework of the EC-sup-ported CASITA project, and these will alsocontinue for at least two more years afterthe end of the Geonedis project.

In summary, it can be stated that the originalobjectives have been met quite well. In thefollowing sections the different project com-ponents will be evaluated in greater detail.

Short-Duration Training CoursesMost of the short courses were conducted atITC. Apart from the IIRS staff, several staffmembers from NRSA in Hyderabad came to

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ITC for short-duration courses. The durationof the short courses was reduced to threemonths to avoid lengthy visa procedures.Finally 21 staff members came to ITC forshort courses, of which eight were fromNRSA, and one from Andhra University. Thisis substantially more than the originally pro-posed number of 12 staff members, andeven more than the adjusted value in the in-ception report of 18 staff members for shorttraining. This was caused by the shift fromlonger-duration courses to shorter-durationcourses.

Postgraduate and MSc CoursesThe number of long training courses wassubstantially less than originally planned,owing to the lengthy visa application proce-dures. Finally only two staff members (onefrom IIRS and one from NRSA) followed aProfessional Master's (PM) course at ITC dur-ing the project period. One originallyplanned PM course had to be cancelled atthe last minute for personal reasons of thecandidate. It was a similar situation with theMSc courses. Originally four MSc courseshad been planned, but this was adjusted inthe implementation document to two, whilethe others were converted to postdoctoralfellowships. The two candidates from IIRSthat followed the MSc in geoinformatics atITC did an excellent job, and one of them,Mr C. Jeganathan, even received the 2003award for the best ITC MSc thesis. Theaward was presented during the Opening ofthe Academic Year 2003.

Sandwich PhD ProgrammeDuring the project period four PhD re-searchers were able to come to ITC andWageningen University. Mr P.L.N. Raju(Geoinformatics Division) was at ITC fromOctober 2003 to September 2004. The topicof his study was "Evaluation of national poli-cies governing the Indian Satellite RemoteSensing Programme, within the context ofthe Indian NSDI initiative". Mr S.K. Srivastavis working on a topic related to the ground-water modelling of Doon valley, under thesupervision of ITC's Dr Lubzyinski. Mr B.Barath is working on his PhD research"Modelling and monitoring of urban heat is-land" under the supervision of Professor F.van der Meer of ITC. Mr S. Saran is workingon soil erosion modelling under the supervi-sion of Dr Sterk of Wageningen University.

Upgrading InfrastructureAll the equipment originally planned, includ-ing all the computer hardware, was pur-chased and installed in the first year of theproject. A technical staff member from ITCprovided support on several occasions. Theappropriate types of software licence(ERDAS, ESRI) were selected and orderedthrough Indian suppliers. IIRS's own contri-bution was delivered in two phases. The ad-ditional hostel rooms and guesthouse forvisiting faculty were constructed and the lab-oratory space for disaster management andthe extra classroom were also completed.

Development and Implementation ofCourse CurriculaIn the project period two joint IIRS-ITC MSccourses were implemented:• MSc course Geoinformatics.• MSc course Hazard and Risk Analysis

The curriculum was developed in close coop-eration with ITC staff involved in theGeoinformatics programme. Several staff vis-its to IIRS were realised in order to designthe curriculum together with the IIRS coun-terpart, as well as to jointly teach the MSccourse for the first time in 2002-2003. Thefirst MSc course on geoinformatics started inJuly 2002 and finished successfully inDecember 2003. The 10 course participantsfollowed the last three months of this MSccourse at ITC (from September to December2003). During these three months they

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During the concluding work-shop, Dr P.S. Roy, dean of IIRS,who was to leave IIRS directly

after, was thanked for his greatenthusiasm, which had

contributed to making the project a success

worked on their theses under the supervi-sion of ITC staff. A total of nine people re-ceived their MSc degrees in a ceremony atITC on 18 December 2003, which was at-tended by Dr P.S. Roy (former IIRS dean).One graduate received the MSc degree withdistinction; an additional student receivedthe MSc diploma a few weeks later.

The second MSc course on geoinformaticsstarted in July 2003. Nine students success-fully completed the four-month Certificatecourse, 10 students finished the 10-monthPostgraduate course, and 10 students arefollowing the 18-month MSc course. These10 students came to ITC in the period Marchto May 2004 to follow advanced modulesand to work on their research proposals.Since then they have returned to India andare working on their MSc research theses,with support from IIRS and ITC staff. Theyare expected to finish their studies inDecember 2004.

The first joint MSc course on hazard and riskanalysis (at that time still entitled "Geo-in-formation for Environmental Assessmentand Disaster Management") started in July2003, and three people followed theAwareness course, two the three-monthCertificate course, one the Postgraduatecourse, and eight the MSc course. Theseeight students also came to ITC in the periodMarch to June 2004 to follow advancedmodules and to work on their research pro-posals. Since then they have returned toIndia to work on their MSc theses, with sup-port from IIRS and ITC staff. They are ex-

pected to finish their studies in December2004. The ITC and IIRS Directorates have de-cided to continue both the MSc courses es-tablished within the framework of theGeonedis project when the project periodcomes to an end. For each course ITC willprovide a maximum of five fellowships forthree months during a period of two years(from 2004 to 2006). IIRS, together with ITC,will attract matching funding for these fel-lowships.

Joint Research and WorkshopsJoint research projects were carried out ondifferent themes, such as soil erosion, envi-ronmental mapping and seismic microzona-tion. Within the framework of the jointresearch various staff exchange visits tookplace and several joint publications havebeen written or are in preparation. Also anumber of workshops and seminars were or-ganised:

• The preparation workshop for thePostgraduate course in disaster manage-ment and environmental assessment tookplace in December 2001, with the majorIndian client organisations participating.The most important result of this work-shop was the finalisation of the curricu-lum for the Postgraduate course.

• In December 2001 a two-week refreshercourse in geo-information for disastermanagement was held in Dehra Dun,India. The course was organised by ITCand IIRS, with guest lectures from theWadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, theMussoorie-Dehra Dun DevelopmentAuthority, and the Town and CountryPlanning Department. A total of 31 partic-ipants from Bangladesh, Bhutan, Japan,India, Nepal and Sri Lanka attended thecourse. Among these participants weregeographers, geomorphologists, geolo-gists and urban planners - illustrating themultidisciplinary nature of disaster man-agement.

• As part of the research collaboration onseismic hazard and risk assessment forDehradun, the workshop "Methodologyfor seismic microzonation and its applica-tions for society" was organised on 10and 11 November 2003 in the Wadia

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Graduates with Dr P.S. Roy (former dean) of IIRS and the ITC staff involved in theGeonedis project

Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun,India. It was co-organised by the WadiaInstitute, IIRS and ITC, and attracted manyparticipants from Indian and internationalorganisations. The proceedings were dis-tributed on CD-ROM.

• The workshop "Spatial data infrastructurefor urban planning and management"was organised as an ISPRS working groupIV/4 tutorial from 6 to 8 November 2003.It was organised by IIRS in collaborationwith ISPRS and the Indian Society forRemote Sensing.

• A four-day workshop of the CASITA uni-versity network was organised from 16 to19 March in IIRS, Dehradun. Eighteenteaching staff from 14 universities andtraining institutes in Asia attended theworkshop. The workshop was givenjointly with staff from the Asian DisasterPreparedness Center (ADPC) and theEcole National de Sciences Gèographiquesof France. The objectives of the workshopwere to establish a network of universitiesfrom various Asian countries that are im-plementing disaster management courseswithin their curricula. The project enabledsupport to be given to these universities indeveloping curricula and GIS case studies.Experience and training materials wereshared by the universities.

• A workshop related to research collabora-tion between NRSA and ITC was held on25 and 26 March at NRSA, Hyderabad.The workshop was attended by the NRSAdirector and ITC head of research, as wellas researchers from NRSA and the princi-pal investigators of the ITC research pro-grammes. A programme for joint researchwas outlined.

• The joint NRSA-ITC workshop "Flood disaster management: space inputs" washeld in Hyderabad, India, on the NRSAcampus on 3 and 4 June 2004. Along with scientists from India, ITC's DrsD. Alkema also attended the workshop.

• The joint NRSA-ITC workshop "Droughtassessment and management throughspace technology" was held at KSRSAC,Bangalore, India, on 27 and 28 May 2004.

• The closing workshop "Earth observationsystems for disaster management: capac-ity building, methods and challenges" washeld on 29 and 30 June 2004 at IIRS inDehradun. Several themes dealing withthe use of earth observation data in disas-ter management and with capacity build-ing were discussed. During the workshop,Dr P.S. Roy, dean of IIRS, who was to leaveIIRS directly after, was thanked for hisgreat enthusiasm, which had contributedto making the project a success. SeveralITC staff members and many ITC and IIRSalumni attended the seminar. A proposalfor future directions in research collabora-tion between DOS/ISRO agencies and ITC,prepared by Professor Martin Hale, waswell received by the agency representa-tives (see also p.14-15).

General ConclusionsThe training activities in the Netherlandswere successfully implemented, and IIRSstaff members have developed from reliablehard-working students into equal partners intraining and research.

The curriculum development activities in IIRShave been very successful. Both joint MSccourses have been implemented and bothattract more students than can be taken onboard. IIRS is developing its national and in-ternational networks of partners who are active in geoinformatics and the field of en-vironmental assessment and disaster man-agement. Contacts have been made withAndhra University and the University ofPoonah with respect to collaborating in MSc degrees. Contacts have also beenmade with some research centres, such asthe Wadia Institute for Himalayan Geologyin Dehradun, the Asian Disaster Prepared-ness Center in Bangkok, and the Center forSpatial Database Management and Solu-tions in India. Strong ties have developedwith the UN Center for Space Science andTechnology Education in Asia and thePacific, located on the IIRS campus inDehradun.

Finally, we would like to take this opportu-nity to express our thanks to several people:• first of all to Dr P.S. Roy, former dean of

IIRS, who was the main driver behind thewheel of this project, and who was always

11ITC News 2004-3

M A I N F E A T U R E S

Aim and Objectives of SeminarIn the Geonedis project proposal, work-shops/seminars were envisaged on topics re-lated to the project objective. Theconcluding seminar was scheduled for 29and 30 June 2004 at IIRS, Dehradun. Theaim of this seminar was to appraise the ben-efits of the Geonedis project in developingIIRS capacity to impart training and educa-tion in geoinformatics for disaster manage-

ment. Moreover, it was to enable futurechallenges to be assessed and possible strat-egy to be incorporated in the IIRS educa-tional programme in order to meet userrequirements in a sustained manner.Additional aims of the seminar were to pro-vide (1) the opportunity to strengthen con-tacts with user departments in order toinstitutionalise the application of geoinfor-matics in disaster management, and (2) di-rections for research on thrust/gap areas inorder to further develop capacity in geoin-formatics and its applications.

Themes• Earth observation for environmental

analysis and disaster management• Institutionalisation of disaster manage-

ment• Capacity building in geoinformatics for

disaster management• Earth observation systems for hazard miti-

gation: state of the art in India• Future directions on research themes for

ISRO/DOS/ITC (discussion)

InaugurationDr P.S. Roy, dean of IIRS, welcomed the dig-nitaries to the workshop, and in his brief

very supportive and was able to steer theproject through difficult periods

• to Dr R.R. Navalgund, NRSA director, forhis support throughout the project

• to the IIRS staff involved in coordinatingthe project - P.L.N. Raju, Hari Prasad andC. Jeganathan - for their dedication andgood collaboration

• to the staff of IIRS, ITC, IHE andWageningen University who participatedas colleagues in making the project a suc-cess

• and finally we would like to thank theSAIL project programme for financiallysupporting this collaboratve programme.

12 ITC News 2004-3

M A I N F E A T U R E S

Dr R.S. Tolia, chief secretary of the government of Uttaranchal, delivering his inauguraladdress

Concluding Workshop IIRS-ITC Geonedis Project29 and 30 June 2004, IIRS DehradunD. Mitra, IIRS mitra@iirs.gov.in

The two candidates from IIRS that followed the MSc in geoinformatics at ITC did anexcellent job, and one of them, Mr C. Jeganathan (first row, second from left), evenreceived the 2003 award for the best ITC MSc thesis

opening remarks he emphasised the useful-ness of remote sensing and GIS for disastermonitoring and management. Dr R.S. Tolia,chief secretary of the government ofUttaranchal, opened the workshop and gavehis inaugural address. He briefed the audi-ence on the major disasters in the state(landslides, earthquakes etc.) and also on thepotential of satellite data for combatingthese disasters. He praised the role played byIIRS in this respect. He also highlighted thehandholding activities of IIRS and state de-partments in Uttaranchal.

Sjaak Beerens, ITC's director external affairs,gave a talk on the general activities of theGeonedis project and ITC's role in capacitybuilding in geoinformatics. He compli-mented IIRS on its role in the successfulcompletion of this phase of the project, andinformed the audience about the future col-laboration between ITC and the Departmentof Space. He also highlighted the variousearlier phases of collaboration between ITCand IIRS.

Dr P.S. Roy, dean of IIRS, gave a talk underthe heading "Earth observation systems fordisaster management". In his presentation,he explained the role of satellite remotesensing in disaster management and alsoused some excellent case studies to illustratethe workshop theme.

Technical PresentationsEighteen technical papers were presentedduring the two-day workshop by speakers

from such organisations as the AsianDisaster Preparedness Center, Bangkok; theIndian Space Research Organisation,Bangalore; ITC, the Netherlands; the WadiaInstitute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun;the North-Eastern Space Application Center,Shilong; the Space Applications Centers,Ahmedabad; the University of Assam,Gauhati; the Disaster Mitigation andManagement Center, Dehradun; theNational Remote Sensing Center,Hyderabad; the Karnataka State RemoteSensing Center, Bangalore; the HaryanaInstitute of Public Administration, Gurgaon;and IIRS, Dehradun.

In the foyer of the IIRS auditorium, variousposters on the workshop theme were pre-sented by alumni of IIRS, ITC and CSSTEAP.

Almost 100 registered delegates attendedthe workshop. The delegates representedvarious organisations involved in disaster-re-lated activities. Invitations had also been sentto IIRS-ITC alumni of the courseGeoinformatics and Hazard & Risk Analysis,selected CSSTEAP students working on dis-aster-related themes, ITC alumni and the2003-2004 cohort of CSSTEAP students. Allretired scientists of IIRS who had contributedto the successful completion of this projecthad also been invited. Professor KarlHarmsen, director of CSSTEAP, and ProfessorV.K. Jha, head of RRSSC-D, were also amongthe distinguished delegates.

Future Directions of Research Themes forITC/DOSDr Paul van Dijk (on the behalf of ProfessorMartin Hale, who was indisposed and couldnot attend the workshop) gave a presenta-tion on future research collaboration be-tween ITC and DOS/ISRO, highlightingvarious new areas. From the ISRO/DOS side,Dr V.K. Dadhwal gave a presentation inwhich he showed the potential areas for col-laboration in times to come.

Contribution of Professor MeijerinkProfessor A.M.J. Meijerink, head of ITC'sWater Resources Division, received manycongratulations on this occasion. ProfessorMeijerink had had a long association withIIRS, and was among the few of the ITC fac-ulty who had delivered lectures in the first

13ITC News 2004-3

M A I N F E A T U R E S

Sjaak Beerens addressing the audience

Postgraduate diploma programme of IIRS.Professor Meijerink delivered a technical talkentitled "Remote sensing for groundwatermanagement, with implications for capacitybuilding". Various distinguished personali-ties, such as Dr D.P. Rao, ex-director ofNRSA, Dr P.S. Roy, dean of IIRS, ProfessorA.K. Roy, ex-head of the IIRS GeosciencesDivision, and Dr B.M. Singh, ex-head of theIIRS Soil Science Division, spoke about thecontribution of Professor Meijerink to theIIRS-ITC project.

Concluding SessionIn the concluding session, Dr P.S. Roythanked all the ITC and other delegates andexpressed the wish that ITC and DOS wouldwork towards future collaboration. ProfessorMeijerink, on behalf of Mr Beerens, thankedIIRS for the warm hospitality and the effi-cient organisation of the workshop. Finally, aformal vote of thanks was proposed by theorganisers.

14 ITC News 2004-3

M A I N F E A T U R E S

Jantien Stoter Assistant Professor, Department of Geo-information Processing (per 1 April 2004)

Carlos Valenzuela Associate Professor Department of Earth Systems Analysis (per 1 July 2004)

Clement Atzberger Assistant Professor Department of Natural Resources (per 5 July 2004)

Eric Smaling Visiting Professor Sustainable Agriculture, Department of Natural Resources (per 1 September 2004)

George Vosselman Professor of Geo-Information Extraction with Sensor Systems, Department of Earth Observation Science (per 1 September 2004)

Freek Scholten Photographer/Photolab assistant (per 1 July 2004)

Douglas Webster Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, Department of Urban and Regional Planning and Geo-information Management (per 16 July 2004)

Lorena Montoya Morales Lecturer Department of Urban and Regional Planning and Geo-informationManagement (per 1 August 2004)

Allard Meijerink Professor Department of Water Resources (per 1 September 2004)

Arko Lucieer AIO Department of Earth Observation Science and Department of GeoInformation Processing (per 25 September 2004)

Dr. Richard V. Sliuzas Managing informal settlements: a study using geo-information in Dar es Salaam,Tanzania (10 June 2004)

Dr. Arbind M. Tuladhar Parcel-based Geo-Information System: Concept and Guidelines (11 October 2004)

Mr. Corné P. van Elzakker The use of maps in the exploration of geographic data (5 November 2004)

Welcometo ITC

Staffleaving

Staffpromotions

staff news

Congratulating Professor Allard M.J. Meijerink of ITC

Formal vote of thanks at the concluding session

On 20 September TNO's directorsHis Royal Highness Prince Friso vanOranje MSc, MBA and Dr Gerard J.Blaauw paid a working visit to ITC.

Prince Johan Friso became a directorof TNO Space on 1 March 2004. TNOSpace, which is based in Delft, clustersthe marketing of five TNO institutesactive in the field of aerospace tech-nology. Their specialist fields includesensors, earth observation, precisionmechanics, rocket starters and fuels,biomedical instrumentation, radar sys-tems, the interpretation of satellitedata and manned space flight.

Specific subjects of study were pre-sented by ITC students and staff:• Coalfire hazard monitoring using

remote sensing: examples fromChinaPresentation by Paul van Dijk(vandijk@itc.nl)

• Geo-information science and earthobservation for municipal risk man-agement: the SLARIM projectPresentation by Cees van Westen(vanwesten@itc.nl), Enrique

Groups of Chinese often come toITC for a study visit or a special shortcourse, and this year has been noexception. In June 2004 a group ofofficials from the Ministry of LandResources, China, visited ITC, and atpresent a group of some 20 partici-pants from the Heilongjiang Bureau

of Surveying and Mapping in Chinaare engaged in the special pro-gramme Advanced Training inGeoinformatics.

The programmes of both groups in-cluded a study tour of the Dutchpolders so they could understand

something of the Dutch way of plan-ning and the Dutch struggle withwater. This tour normally starts with avisit to the polders on the "old land"in northwest Overijssel. A walkthrough the scenic village ofDwarsgracht, with its canals, archedwooden bridges and "camel-backed"

Castallanos (castallanos@itc.nl)• Use of commercial satellites in sup-

port of the Comprehensive NuclearTest Ban Treaty organisationPresentation by Ben Maathuis(maathuis@itc.nl)

• Food security in space and timePresentation by Valentijn Venus(venus@itc.nl), Uday BhaskarNidumol (uday@itc.nl)

Prince Johan Friso is the third memberof the Royal House to pay a visit toITC. His late father, His RoyalHighness Prince Claus of theNetherlands, and his brother CrownPrince of the Netherlands, WillemAlexander, Prince of Orange, pre-ceded him.

15ITC News 2004-3

V I S I T I N G I T C

visiting itc

Directors TNO Space Visit ITC

Janneke Kalf kalf@itc.nl

Chinese in the Polder

Dick van der Zee vanderzee@itc.nl

Enrique Castallanos (left) and TNO's directors His Royal Highness Prince Friso van Oranje MSc,MBA (center) and Dr Gerard J. Blaauw (right)

houses, gives a good impression oflife in such an old polder. From therethe tour goes into the North EastPolder (dyke completed in 1942),with a stop at the former island ofSchokland (now a UNESCO worldheritage site) to experience how itfeels to stand with your feet on thebottom of the sea. Still in the samepolder, on another former island, Urk,the group enjoyed not only the viewover Lake Yssel, but also a Dutchlunch, which involved wrestling witha knife and fork to eat fish on bread.Then the tour continued into the

third polder, South East Flevoland(dyke completed in 1959), with astop on the dyke to have a look at aseries of modern windmills for elec-tricity generation. A short tourthrough modern Lelystad and the restof the polder brought the group backto the old land in Elburg, a smalltown founded in medieval times ac-cording to a well designed plan.

16 ITC News 2004-3

V I S I T I N G I T C

On the bottom of the sea in front of the former island of Schokland Exercise in eating with fork and knife...

It is picture time on the dike of East Flevoland... ... with the modern windmills and the thermal power plant

Applied Earth Sciences will be of-fered for the first time starting inSeptember 2005. As a new pro-gramme, it is building on a strongtradition in earth science education,and has its roots in ITC's EarthResources and EnvironmentalGeosciences programme (EREG).

The new AES programme offers acurriculum that integrates modernprinciples of geo-information andearth observation with sound earthscience application development. A fundamental change with respectto the old earth science educationalprogramme (EREG) is that an impor-tant component of the coursestaught in the new curriculum isbased on project-based education,where students are challenged tocombine their scientific competencieswith technological and managerialskills in assignments on solving real-world problems.

Paul van Dijk, the programme direc-tor, speaking on behalf of the ITCworking group that designed the cur-riculum, says: "After an extensivemarket survey and discussions withexperts from industry, governmentand academia, which represent ourclient organisations, we are con-vinced that project-based educationin the new AES curriculum is a signifi-cant improvement. Although the oldcurriculum taught our students theapplication of state-of-the-art GIS/RStechnology, the coherent integrationof these subjects with earth scientificknow-how - so essential for solvingthe problems our students face intheir home organisations - was notoptimal. With the present curriculumwe believe that the ITC-AES graduate

will be in a much better position tomeet the ever-pressing demands fromsociety to deliver high-quality and rel-evant earth science information.Students following the new AES pro-gramme will, in close consultationwith their personal tutor, assemble apersonal course profile of optional

GIS/RS lecture topics and a number oflogically arranged assignments thatresemble the workflow and matchwith their background and profes-sional interests. In combination withsupporting lectures in an earth sci-ence discipline, this defines a per-sonal course profile or stream."

17ITC News 2004-3

E D U C A T I O N N E W S

education news

Applied Earth Sciences: A New Education Programme at ITC

Paul van Dijk vandijk@itc.nl

The four streams offered in the newAES curriculum also reflect the lead-ing objective - to better address socie-tal demands - because they addressthe most significant problems facedby nations and communities whereearth scientists can contribute to so-lutions:• Geo-hazards: the prediction and

monitoring of natural hazards andland degradation

• Earth Resources Exploration: theexploration and sound exploitationof earth resources

• Geo-engineering: the site investi-gations needed for developing civilinfrastructure, with assessments ofits environmental impact

• Earth Science Data Provision: acompletely new stream integratingmodern mapping methods with thelatest developments in spatial data-base design and data acquisitiontechnology. Although worldwide ITtechnologies have revolutionisedthis field of activity dramatically,digital earth science foundationdata acquired by geological, geo-morphological and soil surveys areoften outdated or lacking, particu-larly in the developing world. Thisstream will contribute to leapfrog-ging this backlog by teaching stu-dents how gains in quality, usabilityand dissemination efficiency can beobtained by the sound applicationof geo-information and earth ob-servation technology - perfectly inline with the core expertise forwhich ITC is world famous. Thechallenge of this new stream lies inthe integration of IT technology inthe workflow of earth science or-ganisations, with base-line data ac-quisition and digital archiving oflegacy data, formalisation of (field)procedures, separation of data frominterpretation, and on-demand re-trieval of thematic information.

MSc Degree, Postgraduate Diplomaand Short CoursesThe AES programme (see Figure 1)consists of nine months of course-work, with an additional nine monthsof research.• The coursework (first nine months)

is divided into three blocks of threemonths each. Successful comple-tion of this part of the course canlead to a Postgraduate diploma.These blocks are also available asseparate short courses.

• The research (second nine months)consists of research preparation, lit-erature study and proposal writing;fieldwork preparation and data col-lection fieldwork; research execu-tion and interaction with otherresearchers; thesis writing and fi-nally the thesis defence before aboard of examiners. Successfulcompletion of this second part ofthe course leads to an MSc degreeaccredited under Dutch law.

Who Should Apply?The new AES programme focusesspecifically on recent university gradu-ates or mid-career professionalsworking in government or private or-ganisations or NGOs in the field ofearth sciences. Candidates shouldhave an interest in applying solidearth scientific knowledge and ex-ploring new methods in geo-informa-tion processing and remote sensingtechnology, as well as have the ambi-tion to further develop into a versatileearth science professional, capable ofindependent thinking and respondingto changing demands in society.

Please note that NFP applicationshave to be processed by 31 January2005 for the programme startingSeptember 2005. Prospective appli-cants are also encouraged to look foralternative funding (see http://www.itc.nl/education/fellowships.asp).

18 ITC News 2004-3

E D U C A T I O N N E W S

Applied Earth Sciences 2005 – 2007Module Dates Master of Science Degree Course

19-09-05 Arrival, opening, remedial teaching

1 03-10-05

2 24-10-05 Short course 1:

3 14-11-05 Introduction to System Earth

4 05-12-05 and Basic GI and EO for Applied Earth Science

Christmas break

5 03-01-06

6 23-01-06 Short course 2:

7 13-02-06 GI/EO Assignments in Solving

8 06-03-06 AES-related Problems

9 27-03-06

10 24-04-06 Short course 3a: Short course 3b:

11 15-05-06 Postgraduate Diploma MSc Degree

12 06-06-06 Final Field Project Research Training

<19-06-06 PGD graduation

13 26-06-06

14 17-07-06MSc individual research phase

15 07-08-06

16 04-09-06 (including proposal, fieldwork, elective, capita selecta,

17-23 25-09-07 mid-term presentation, thesis and MSc examination)

< 02-03-07 MSc graduation

Figure 1 Modules grouped together in blocks, coinciding with possible short courses

More detailed, and regularly updated, information can be obtained via the AES web page:

http://www.itc.nl/education/programme_info/earthresources.asp

Dr Paul M. van Dijk, AES Programme Director, P.O. Box 6, 7500 AA Enschede, The NetherlandsPhone: +31-(0)53-487 42 91Fax: +31-(0)53-487 43 79E-mail: vandijk@itc.nl

The partners and contacts for the GEMcourse are as follows:

International Institute for Geo-Information Science and EarthObservation (ITC)Department of Natural Resources SurveysEnschede, The Netherlands, Website: www.itc.nlContact person: Esther HondebrinkE-mail: hondebrink@itc.nl

University of SouthamptonSchool of GeographySouthampton, United KingdomWebsite: www.soton.ac.ukContact person: Sue SaundersE-mail: S.J.Saunders@soton.ac.uk

Lund UniversityCentre for Geographical Information SystemsLund, SwedenWebsite: www.giscentrum.lu.seContact person: Petter PilesjöE-mail: petter.pilesjo@giscentrum.lu.se

A new European MSc course calledGeo-information Science and EarthObservation for EnvironmentalModelling and Management startedin September 2004, with threeworld-class institutes, SouthamptonUniversity (UK), Lund University(Sweden) and ITC (Netherlands), offering a joint degree at Master'slevel. Seven students commencedthis course at Southampton Univer-sity; they will move to Sweden inJanuary and then to the Netherlandsin May. The three national coursecoordinators - Professor Atkinson ofSouthampton University, ProfessorSkidmore of ITC, and ProfessorPilesjö of Lund University - werepresent when the course was offi-cially opened by Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Curranand Head of the School ofGeography Professor Nigel Arnell(see photo).

The course develops competencies tobridge the gap between informationproduction and information use, andits targets have attracted students ofthe highest quality from around theworld. During the course, studentsacquire technical skills in analysingraw spatial data (e.g. satellite and air-borne remote sensing data, as well asreadily available geographical datasuch as topographical maps, censusdata and climate data). With its focuson processing and using informationto solve real-world environmentalproblems relevant to society, thiscourse targets a gap in the market.The environmental domains studiedinclude terrestrial (vegetation, agricul-ture, environment, soil, geology), at-mospheric and fresh-water systems.The course links these application do-

mains, and staff, scholars and stu-dents are challenged to cross the tra-ditional lines of their disciplines.Society and industry will both benefitfrom the availability of high-levelgraduates who have skills that are indemand and who have been trainedto "think".

The emphasis is on real-world prob-lems and on solving these problemsby using modern technology in com-bination with solid theoretical knowl-edge and management techniques.The course integrates technical skills(e.g. in the fields of environmentalscience, GIS, remote sensing, socialscience) with management and policyskills. Problem-based teaching meth-ods challenge students to think aboutproblems and then solve them. Theresult is an interdisciplinary umbrellacourse.

The three consortium institutes enjoyinternational reputations in the fieldof geo-information for environmentalmodelling and management. Theseinstitutes and their staff have a longhistory of cooperation, which forms asolid basis for the sustainability of atop-level European Master's course.We believe that the sum of theseconsortium institutes has greatervalue than the individual parts.Southampton University has remotesensing and management expertise interrestrial systems, and focuses onnorthern Europe. Lund University isstrong on geospatial analysis integrat-ing biophysical and socio-economicsystems, and deals with global sys-tems. ITC specialises in geo-informa-tion and earth observationmanagement applications applied inless developed countries and tropical

environments, and offers first-classresearch and teaching facilities.

The 18-month MSc joint course Geo-information Science and EarthObservation for EnvironmentalModelling and Management (GEM) isoffered to full-fee-paying students.An application has been submittedfor Erasmus Mundus funding fromthe European Union, and, if success-ful, a number of scholarships will beavailable for this course.

For more details, please regularlycheck the GEM website(http://www.gem-msc.org).

19ITC News 2004-3

E D U C A T I O N N E W S

New European MSc Course: Geo-information Science and Earth Observation for

Environmental Modelling and Management

Lyande Eelderink eelderink@itc.nl

Andre Kooiman kooiman@itc.nl

Andrew Skidmore skidmore@itc.nl

Current GEM Students

Sritakae Apichart

I'm from Thailand and my background is in forestry. Beforefollowing this course, I worked for the National Center forGenetic Engineering and Biotechnology, and my workdealt with biodiversity conservation and management. Thiscourse is very interesting because it is about geo-informa-tion, which would definitely be useful in the field of biodi-versity conservation and management.

I see myself in 10 years' time as a geoinformatics expertwho is keen on environmental modelling and manage-ment, especially in the biodiversity field.

Assefa Kumsa Afeta

When your longtime wishes come true...I graduated from Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, with aBSc degree in geology and went on to follow aPostgraduate diploma course in mineral exploration at ITC,the Netherlands, some years back. For the past 10 years orso, I have been working as a geologist in different capaci-ties for organisations such as national geological surveysand the regional government Water, Mines and EnergyResources Development Bureau in Ethiopia, which aremostly responsible for natural resources exploration andmanagement. I have enthusiastically aspired to further ed-ucation and research at the PhD level and have applied forprogrammes related to my field of study and experience atvarious educational and research institutes (mainly ITC),but without success, owing to lack of funds.

Now my longtime ambitions are coming true through the

Erasmus Mundus programme, which awarded me a schol-arship for the MSc course Geo-information Science andEarth Observation for Environmental Modelling andManagement. The course is being offered for the first timeby three renowned European institutions (SouthamptonUniversity, UK; Lund University, Sweden; ITC, theNetherlands). From my experience so far, the course isunique. Currently I am studying in Southampton and cer-tainly my stay in the three countries will give me a greatopportunity not only to develop my skills in the field ofstudy but also to gain international experience. After suc-cessful completion of my MSc studies, hopefully I will stillhave a keen interest to continue further with PhD researchin geo-information science related to environmental man-agement, with the ultimate aim of becoming a capable in-ternational researcher and consultant.

When your longtime wishes come true, you enjoy real sat-isfaction and happiness in your life, but it happens rarelyand to few people. I think I am, and will be, one of thosefew beneficiaries of such rare chances.

Laura Zalazar

I'm from Mendoza, a place in the west of Argentina. Ihave a degree in geography from the National Universityof Cuyo in my country. For the last five years, I have beenworking in a programme called Ecoatlas at the Institute ofRural Development Mendoza, undertaking different tasksrelated to the application of geographical information sys-tems and remote sensing to the study of rural areas. NowI'm taking part in the very innovative and exciting MSc

20 ITC News 2004-3

E D U C A T I O N N E W S

From left to right: Professor Peter Atkinson (course coordinator,Southampton University), Professor Petter Pilesjö (course coordinator,Lund University) and Professor Andrew Skidmore (course coordinator,ITC) meeting in Southampton

Head of Southampton's School of Geography, Professor Nigel Arnell,welcoming the new students to the GEM MSc course

course Geo-information Science and Earth Observation forEnvironmental Modelling and Management.

I hope in the next years to have the opportunity to work inan environmental institution or in environmental projectsin my country, and to be able to contribute to its develop-ment, especially in rural areas.

Busingye Lilian

I hold a BA social sciences degree in economics and socialadministration from Makerere University.

Ten years down the line, I see myself among the global en-vironmental managers, applying the knowledge and skillsacquired from the course Geo-information Science andEarth Observation for Environmental Modelling andManagement in viewing, monitoring and solving globalenvironmental problems.

Habtamu Mulatu Mesgano

I am from Ethiopia. I graduated from Addis AbabaUniversity with a BA degree in geography in 1999. Iworked in a middle-level institute as a geography and in-formation technology teacher for three years. Then I trans-ferred to the National Urban Planning Institute, where Istayed for a short time. Finally I joined the EthiopianMapping Authority, where I worked as a photogrammetryexpert in the Department of Photogrammetry until I joinedthis course. My ambition in 10 years' time is to be a well-informed expert who plays a great role in decision makingand management related to geo-information science, es-pecially regarding environmental issues.

Gregory Muthungu

I am from Kenya and in 1990 graduated from theUniversity of Nairobi with a BSc in civil engineering. I alsocompleted the PM Geoinformatics course (photogramme-try and remote sensing) at ITC in 1997. From 1991 to2004 I worked in the Department of Building and CivilEngineering at Mombasa Polytechnic, where I lectured onconstruction management. Since 2000 I have wished toget an opportunity for further studies in the field of geo-information science, and in 2003 I was admitted toUniversity College London for a MPhil/PhD in geomatic en-gineering but could not take up the offer owing to lack ofsponsorship. In 2004 I gained admission to WageningenUniversity for the MSc course in geo-information science,but failed to get a study scholarship. The MSc course Geo-information Science and Earth Observation for

Environmental Modelling and Management is an answerto my dream.

I look forward to completing the course and even continu-ing to a PhD. My vision is to become a university lecturerand researcher in geo-information science, particularly inenvironmental applications of remote sensing.

Dan Peter Omolo

I come from Kenya and my background lies in environ-mental sciences and tropical ecology. Recently I have beenworking as a GIS and RS analyst at ILRI. In 10 years' time,God willing, I hope to have successfully completed a PhDfocusing on remote sensing and spatial analysis/modellingapplications in landscape ecology, and I would like to be-come an operational project leader/manager with either aninternational research institute or a university, focusing ongeo-information science applications in developing worldnatural resource management issues.

OK, quite ambitious, but the sky's the limit!

21ITC News 2004-3

E D U C A T I O N N E W S

The joint MSc course in urban plan-ning and management that ITC of-fers in partnership with the Schoolof Urban Studies (SUS), WuhanUniversity, China, continues to bearfruit. ITC News 2004-2 contained anarticle about the graduation of thefirst double-degree graduates inJune. In September, however, thespotlights were on the 10 students(seven women and three men, in-cluding two SUS staff members),who were to complete the six-month research period at ITC by de-fending their ITC thesis.

Their joint course has a total durationof three years, which includes a six-month stay at ITC, where studentsparticipate in one of the regular elec-tives and complete an English lan-guage research project. On theirreturn to China, the students willcomplete an additional research proj-ect to satisfy the requirements ofWuhan University, and, if successful,will be awarded an ITC and a WuhanMSc degree in June 2005.

Although it was a period of intensivework, the group did not lose sight ofthe additional benefits of a stay inEurope, and they made use of today'sbudget airlines to visit many historicEuropean cities, adding an element ofarchitectural appreciation to their GISand urban planning curriculum.Happily, their enthusiasm for travelwas not at the expense of academicperformance. They all successfully de-fended their work, and several evenhave the potential to finish theircourse with distinction.Congratulations to one and all!

The studies undertaken includedcasework in Wuhan and several othercities, and addressed a wide range ofsubjects, such as urban growth moni-toring, the evaluation of planning ef-fectiveness, urban heritageconservation, social facility locationplanning, and a multicriteria evalua-tion of cemetery locations, and alsoentailed some quite advanced urbangrowth modelling. The work was su-pervised by ITC staff, with the assis-tance of Dr Huang Zhengdong andMs Xiao Yinghui from SUS, who pro-vided invaluable assistance at key mo-ments in the programme.

We hope to build further on the suc-cess of the first two cohorts of stu-dents produced by this longstandingpartnership. But there are many chal-lenges ahead too. Changes inChinese MSc education required us to

design a new model for the course,which includes options for an 18-month (ITC degree only) and a two-year (double-degree) programme,which is now to be offered on a com-mercial basis at very attractive prices.Under the new model, students willspend six months at ITC for electivesand coursework before completingtheir thesis in Wuhan. Students willwork on projects with the support ofboth institutes. Full implementationof the new model will start inSeptember 2005, and more informa-tion can be obtained from MsYinghui Xiao (yhxiaoitc@yahoo.com)or Richard Sliuzas (sliuzas@itc.nl).

22 ITC News 2004-3

E D U C A T I O N N E W S

Chinese Students on Track for Double Degree

Richard Sliuzas sliuzas@itc.nl

The course participants of the joint MSc course in urban planning and management and theITC staff involved

Together with its partner institutesin the Geo-Information Network(GI-Net), ITC is aiming to developjoint educational programmes. Onesuch initiative is being developedwith the University College of Landsand Architectural Studies (UCLAS) inTanzania. On Monday, 13September, 14 participants startedtheir training in the joint UCLAS-ITCDiploma course Geoinformatics. Thecourse was launched after the offi-cial agreement on cooperation be-tween UCLAS and ITC had beensigned.

The joint GFM.4 course, which ishosted by the UCLAS GeomaticsDepartment, will be run entirely inDar es Salaam. The programme isbased on the original GFM.4 courseat ITC and, although the course con-tent is largely similar, some adapta-tions will be made to ensure anoptimal fit with local conditions. Thecourse is offered in the English lan-guage and leads to a diploma that isissued jointly by both institutes.

UCLASOriginally established as the ArdhiInstitute (the training branch of theMinistry of Lands in Tanzania), UCLASbecame a constituent college of the

University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) inJuly 1996. UCLAS and ITC have al-ready been working together for anumber of years, and have now em-barked on offering educational pro-grammes in geoinformatics and earthobservation.

Course DescriptionThe Diploma course that has nowstarted focuses on the use of geoin-formatics, and deals with the technol-ogy that supports the processes ofacquiring, analysing and visualisingspatial data. The nine-month courseis meant for technological staff whoare responsible for implementing pro-duction tasks, for supervising the vari-ous processes in map andgeo-information production, and fortechnical training in these subjects. Itprovides participants with the theo-retical education and practical train-ing needed to contribute to theproduction of maps and geo-informa-tion using appropriate state-of-the-arttechnology, as well as with in-depthknowledge of one specific aspect ofthe production process. Special atten-tion is given to implementing the dig-ital production of geo-information.

As at ITC, the course consists of anumber of common three-week

modules, containing lectures on the-ory, practical assignments and groupworkshops, followed by specialisationmodules. The course offers three spe-cialisations: Digital Photogrammetryand Remote Sensing, GIS Operation,and Cartography and Geo-visualisa-tion. The course culminates in an in-dividual final assignment (IFA), wherevarious stages in a true productionenvironment are simulated. Using theskills and techniques learned in theprevious modules, the participantscarry out a project that emphasisesthe different stages of data produc-tion, data exchange and data qualitycontrol.

Course Management andOrganisationThe course is jointly managed by theITC Geoinformatics programme direc-tor and the head of the UCLAS LandSurvey Department. The teaching isalso shared by staff from both insti-tutes.

The GFM.4 course in Dar es Salaam isone of the first initiatives to offer jointeducation of this kind. CurrentlyUCLAS and ITC are working to ex-tend the cooperation still further andto develop joint Professional Masterand MSc degree programmes as well.

23ITC News 2004-3

E D U C A T I O N N E W S

GFM Diploma Course in Dar es Salaam

Tom Loran loran@itc.nl

Participants in ceremony launching joint GFM.4 UCLAS-ITC, Dar EsSalaam (13 September 2004)

Opening ceremony of the joint UCLAS-ITC GFM.4 course, Dar EsSalaam

We have received the sad news that our former colleague Ms Riet Allessie passed away on 11 September 2004.

Riet worked at ITC for 24 years, from1 December 1977 until taking earlyretirement on 1 December 2001.When someone stays so long with anorganisation, it means the work suitsthem and they enjoy it. That was cer-tainly the case with Riet. Her workdemanded skills in mixing and com-municating with people from diversecultural, religious and national back-grounds - it demanded empathy. Ourstudents are generally away fromhome for a year or longer, away fromtheir families, friends and work. Thatoften leads to emotional problems.So Riet's work demanded a capacityfor improvisation. After all, there's nomanual available for the problemsarising in a community of this kind.For example, how do you trace afamily relative when a student is seri-ously ill? - a student who comes fromsomewhere in the heart of Africa,where means of communication arefar from optimal. And how do youget that relative to Enschede within24 hours?

When Riet arrived at ITC in 1977, herstrong international orientation wasimmediately evident. She had trainedas a teacher, and had spent time inthree different countries, extendingher knowledge of languages. Shestudied in London at the LondonCounty Council and received herdiploma in English language and liter-ature. She also studied at the univer-sity in Madrid, where she was

awarded her diploma in Spanish lan-guage and literature. And after gain-ing her diploma in French languageand literature in Paris, she went on towork there for several years.

In 1988 she became, although notwithout a struggle, head of theStudent Support and AssistanceBureau of the Student Affairs depart-ment. And it soon became clear thatshe was excellent in this capacity. In1989 she went to Delft one day aweek to help the students there andto show a new colleague the ropes.Her good work led to promotion on 1 July 1989.

Her strength lay predominantly in hercontacts with various associates. Witha cigarette between her fingers(smoking was allowed at that time),she frequently conferred with em-bassy and consulate staff. Wheneverthere were stumbling blocks, shemanaged to get hold of the ambas-sador's private number and called tosort things out personally. She was areal go-getter. During her illness shereceived an enormous bouquet froman embassy, showing just how closethese contacts were.

Day and night she was on hand forher students, and was often busyuntil late in the evening organisingsomething or other for them.

In the last few years before she leftITC, she was the energetic organiserof the "illegal" happy hour on Fridayafternoons, a lively get-together witha drink and a bite to eat.

Unfortunately she was taken illshortly after leaving ITC, so there wasno opportunity for her to say an offi-cial farewell to all her colleagues andbusiness associates.

She remains in our thoughts as apleasant colleague with a warm heartfor students.

24 ITC News 2004-3

O B I T U A R Y

Obituary

Riet Allessie (1940-2004)

Martien Molenaar molenaar@itc.nl

All 21 MSc students of ITC'sGeoinformatics (GFM) course at-tended the second week of theISPRS congress in Istanbul, Turkey.The scientific fields covered by ISPRSand the topics of the congress pre-sentations fitted well with the mainobjective of the GFM MSc course:"Critical understanding of and com-petence in the development of sys-tems and tools for the acquisition,processing, transformation, analysis,storage, presentation and use ofgeo-information".

The last six months of the 18-monthMSc study period are dedicated to re-search but, before starting their re-search period in September, thestudents have to prepare, submit anddefend a research proposal. The ISPRScongress took place in July and was agreat opportunity for these particularMSc students to gain an overview ofthe state of the art in research relatedto geoinformatics, to learn moreabout their topics of interest, and tomeet the geoinformatics community.Some developed ideas about new re-search topics while they attended thepresentations.

The vibrant city of Istanbul providedmore than enough to see during thepost-congress hours and added tothe lively atmosphere in which thetrip took place. Animated discussionson the presentations, research, thecity, and life in general continued tillfar beyond midnight.

Each student had the task of giving acritical report about the relevance offour of the presentations attended

and of committing to paper a generalimpression of this second week of thecongress. All agreed that gaining in-sight and feeling the pulse of thegeo-information community hadmade the congress a very useful ex-perience. The exhibition providedadded value, because they learnedabout not only the research field butalso the market field. Since researchand market go hand in hand, this isimportant for future careers.

Students were critical of the huge di-versity in quality of the presentations:ranging from "state of the art" to"total waste of time". Apparently,the large number of accepted presen-tations resulted in low average qual-ity. So, they concluded, one should beselective when attending presenta-tions. Some of the attended lectureswere not well presented despite thehigh level of the content. Studentswere therefore glad that they developpresentation skills during their studyat ITC.

Students noted that the knowledgegained during the MSc course at ITCenables them to orient themselves inthe geoinformatics research environ-ment. Many students believed theywould be able to prepare papers orposters of the level required for thecongress, and remarked it would bevery nice if ITC encouraged them todo so.

We would like to finish this report byquoting one of the GFM MSc stu-dents, Gustavo Zarrate: "The GFM.2programme offers the foundation re-quired to follow, understand andcontribute to the research, studiesand experiments related to geo-sciences in process in different univer-sities, organisations and teamsaround the world. In this context it iseasier to identify and access subjects,order and interrelationships betweenmodules included in the GFM MScprogramme."

25ITC News 2004-3

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announcements

MSc Students of Geoinformatics at ISPRS

Gerrit Hurrneman huurneman@itc.nl

Wietske Bijker bijker@itc.nl

Valentyn Tolpekin tolpekin@itc.nl

GFM MSc students with consul (lady in blue),ITC alumni and staff

The World Urban Forum is a majorbiennial international event thataims to focus attention on one ofthe main challenges of the new mil-lennium: our planet's transition toan urban world. The theme of theforum came in the form of a ques-tion that national and local govern-ments, and the public at large, needto keep asking: Cities: crossroads ofcultures, inclusiveness and integra-tion?

The Second World Urban Forum at-tracted more than 4,200 delegatesand provided a platform for the par-ticipation of non-governmental or-ganisations, community-basedorganisations, urban professionals,academics, governments, local au-thorities, and national and interna-tional associations of local govern-ments. The main foci were nine dia-logues that allowed for the interac-tion of all types of participants on thefollowing topics relating to urbanisa-tion and urban development: • Cultures: globalisation and culture

in an urbanising world• Realities: innovations and new

urban policies• Renaissance: the evolving city• Governance: involving civil society

to improve local governance• Poverty: improving the lives of slum

dwellers• Resources: ecology, economy and

society• Services: making the private sector

work for the poor• Disasters: sustainable relief efforts

in post-disaster environmentsIn addition, more than 80 networkingevents for more specialised audienceswere organised, as well as an exhibi-tion.

Dr Jan Turkstra and Dr Richard Sliuzasmanned a stand at the exhibition,promoting ITC's work in the urbanmanagement field, and they also par-ticipated in several network events re-lated to GIS. The network meeting on"Urban inequities and GIS: puttingthe poor on the map" was organisedby UN-HABITAT's Global UrbanObservatory (GUO) programme. Inthis session, which was chaired byRichard Sliuzas, Jan Turkstra pre-sented some ongoing work related tocurriculum development on urbanpoverty under the EU-Asia Link pro-gramme. This project is being carriedout with partners from the Universityof Dortmund, the University of thePhilippines and Wuhan University,and includes the development of atraining module on urban povertymapping. The meeting also drew at-tention to GUO activities, and specifi-

cally to the current work on develop-ing GIT-based methodologies formonitoring urban inequities, in whichJan Turkstra has been involved overrecent months. More information onGUO can be obtained via Dr MartinRaithelhuber at GUO@unhabitat.org.

Richard Sliuzas also participated as adiscussant in the network event or-ganised around the project ManagingInformation for Local Environments inSri Lanka. The event brought to-gether several participants with expe-rience in implementing andinstitutionalising urban environmentalplanning and management ap-proaches, including the developmentof environmental management infor-mation systems (EMIS). Exampleswere taken from various cities wherethe EPM and EMIS approach of theUN Sustainable Cities Programme has

26 ITC News 2004-3

A N N O U N C E M E N T S

ITC Staff Participate in the Second World Urban Forum Barcelona, 13 to 18 September 2004

Richard Sliuzas sliuzas@itc.nl

During the network meeting on "Urban inequities and GIS: putting the pooron the map"Jan Turkstra presented some ongoing work related to curriculumdevelopment on urban poverty under the EU-Asia Link programme.

been adopted. GIS was seen as beinga very important component for de-veloping EMIS, but there were alsoconcerns about the need to build andmaintain the required GIS capacity atlocal government level. Although GISexpertise and training are increasinglyavailable locally, because the skilledare highly mobile, EMIS is often quitevulnerable to staff changes. Thisproblem increases the need to creategood documentation for all data-bases, procedures and systems.

MalaysianAt the end of 2003, the Malaysianlanguage version of the ITC textbookPrinciples of Geographic InformationSystems was completed by theUniversity of Technology of Malaysia(UTM: Universiti Teknologi Malaysia),and a copy of this version is nowavailable in the ITC library. ITC andUTM entered into an agreement forthe translation of this textbook inJanuary 2002.

KoreanOn Monday, 12 July 2004, Dr Kyu-JonCho, president of the KoreanAssociation of Surveying andMapping (KASM), and ProfessorMartien Molenaar, rector of ITC, puttheir signatures to the foreword ofthe Korean language versions of theITC textbooks Principles of RemoteSensing and Principles of GeographicInformation Systems. This brought toa close the two-and-a-half-year pe-riod of translation and editing thatfollowed the signing of an agreementin January 2002 between ITC andKASM regarding the Korean transla-tions. The Korean versions of the twoITC textbooks are available in the ITC

library (together with a Korean-English dictionary).

For Dr Cho and his wife, it was a re-turn visit to Enschede, since Dr Chocompleted his MSc study at ITC in1976. Dr Cho, who was also accom-panied by two KASM staff, took theopportunity to meet with Korean stu-dents at ITC.

The World Urban Forum has alreadybecome an important internationalevent on urban issues. It is very likelythat GIS-related activities will have amore important place at the forum inthe future. Watch out for the nextWorld Urban Forum events in 2006 inVancouver, Canada - 30 years afterthe first UN-HABITAT event in 1976 -and in 2008 in Nanjing, China.

Jan and I met several ITC alumni inBarcelona and we would like to seemore at future events, where wehope to be able to devote more at-tention to the use of GIS technologyfor effective urban management. Forthose of you who wish to obtainmore information about the WorldUrban Forum, the background docu-ments and reports, please go theconference website (http://hq.unhabi-tat.org/wuf/2004/).

27ITC News 2004-3

A N N O U N C E M E N T S

ITC Textbook Principles of Geographic Information Systems Translated intoMalaysian and Korean

Sjaak Beerens beerens@itc.nl

Textbook Malaysia Textbook Korea

Professor Molenaar and Dr Cho signing theforeword of the Korean translations of theITC textbooks

After Zürich, Vancouver and thisyear Tokyo, SVG Open 2005 will takeplace in Enschede, the Netherlands,from 15 to 19 August 2005.

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is anexciting new World Wide WebConsortium (W3C) open standard en-abling high-quality, dynamic, interac-tive, stylable graphics to be deliveredover the web using accessible,human-readable XML. SVG is used inmany business areas, including webgraphics, animation, user interfaces,graphics interchange, print and hard-copy output, mobile applications andhigh-quality design. SVG is a royalty-

Sokhon Phem (author) and KarlGrabmaier (co-author) of the EarthObservation department received aBest Poster Award at the 20th ISPRScongress in Istanbul. A jury selectedtheir poster Refresher course in digi-tal photogrammetry, presented inCommission VI, out of approxi-mately 1,200 posters on display dur-ing the congress. Only two postersfrom each of the seven commissionsreceived an award.

The poster presents the successful re-fresher course DigitalPhotogrammetry that was given tosenior photogrammetrists, ITC alumniand ITC's sister institute Rectas inNigeria in 2001. The objective was toraise awareness of new developmentin digital photogrammetry systemsand to maintain institutionalstrengthening for modern digitalmapping techniques.

To receive the ISPRS award, aposter had to:• give clear information about

the objectives, methodologyand outcomes of the researchor application

• present innovative researchthat could advance the disci-pline or show the applicationof an existing technique in anew and innovative manner

• present techniques and/orcase studies relevant to theactivities of ISPRS

• be well designed and of ahigh aesthetic standard, andcapable of being viewed andread from a distance of ap-proximately 2 m.

free vendor-neutral open standarddeveloped by the W3C.

At the SVG Open 2005 conferenceyou will have the opportunity to learnabout the SVG standard, how to useit to create effective and compellingweb content, techniques for develop-ing SVG software solutions, and thelatest developments from the W3C.You will meet the authors of the SVG

specifications and the creators of SVGapplications in person, and you willhave the opportunity to provide yourown input for future development.SVG Open 2005 courses will en-lighten you on SVG, XML and relatedstandards, graphic design and webapplication design. Courses will beavailable at both introductory and ad-vanced levels, in order to serve theneeds of all conference attendees.

28 ITC News 2004-3

A N N O U N C E M E N T S

ITC, Telematica Institute and University of Twente organisers of SVG Open 2005 Conference and Exhibition

Barend Köbben kobben@itc.nl

Best Poster Award for Sokhon Phem and Karl Grabmaier at ISPRS Congress 2004

Mireille Meester meester@itc.nl

SVG Open 2005 is organised by the Telematica Institute, the University ofTwente (UT) and the International Institute for Geo-Information Scienceand Earth Observation (ITC).

For more information: http://www.svgopen.org/2005

At this moment the authorsare working on a new refresher course on the same subject, which willbe held in the near future. More information on ITC refresher coursescan be found at http://www.itc.nl/alumni/refresher_courses/default.asp

Map Asia 2004, a three-day confer-ence, was held from 26 to 29 August2004 in Beijing, China, and wasjointly organised by the ChineseAcademy of Surveying and Mapping(CASM), GIS Development, Centrefor Spatial Database Managementand Solutions, (CCDSM), India, andthe Asian Institute of Technology(AIT), Thailand.

This was the third annual Map Asiaconference, following Bangkok in2002 and Kuala Lumpur in 2003.Map Asia has become a platformwhere all stakeholders such as re-searchers, users, technology develop-ers and policy makers can discuss,deliberate and share knowledge andexperiences for the benefit of theAsian geoinformatics community.

Map Asia 2004 attracted 614 dele-gates and 150 visitors from morethan 30 countries. Director-GeneralChen Bangzhu of China's StateBureau of Surveying and Mapping(SBSM), Thailand's Minister of Science& Technology Korn Baddaransi, andthe Indian Surveyor-General PrithvishNag attended the opening ceremony.They all stressed the importance ofregional cooperation and the achieve-ments of the Asian countries.According to Chen Bangzhu, China,India and many other countries in theregion are extremely well equippedwith knowledge of geospatial scienceand its applications, with researchand domain expertise being in-depthbut scattered.

Map Asia provides an opportunity forall to come together and re-state theforce that the Asian community as awhole represents as both a marketand an indigenous power. Regionalcooperation remains based on theneed of the hour, and Map Asia 2004

enables the Asian geoinformaticscommunity to learn about one an-other's skills and requirements andexplore the possibilities of collabora-tion for mutual benefit.

The two Asian representatives of ITCattended the conference. ProfessorKarl Harmsen, director of the UNCenter for Science and SpaceTechnology Education in Asia and thePacific (CSSTEAP), chaired the plenarysession on NSDI and gave a presenta-tion during the workshop on regionalcooperation in geospatial education.During the same workshop, MarjanKreijns, ITC's representative in China,gave a presentation on the Master'scourses run jointly by Chinese univer-sities and ITC. Both ProfessorHarmsen and Marjan Kreijns werevery pleased to meet so many col-leagues, partner organisations,friends and ITC alumni during thisthree-day event.

Map Asia 2004 had an exhibitionarea of more than 2,700 m2, withstaff from Chinese and internationalorganisations, representing govern-ment, academia and industry, display-ing their services and products. ITChad a booth to promote its educa-

tional programme, where Mr ChangZheng, a recent GFM.2 graduate, dis-tributed brochures and enthusiasti-cally explained to visitors about hisexperience at ITC.

During the gala dinner offered byOrdnance Survey, a group of AsianITC alumni shared one large tableand spent a very enjoyable eveningreminiscing about their time inEnschede.

For more information pleasevisit www.mapasia.org.

29ITC News 2004-3

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Map Asia 2004: Building Asia - Multilateral Geospatial Ties

Marjan Kreijns kreijns@itc.nl

Chang Zheng and Marjan Kreijns

Marjan Kreijns giving a presentation at theworkshop on regional cooperation ingeospatial education

Presentation of former ITC rector ProfessorKarl Harmsen

I am pleased to inform you that on22 July 2004 Director-General ArdSomrang of the Land DevelopmentDepartment (LDD) received the hon-orary degree of Doctor in Soil Sci-ences from the Kasetsart Universityin Bangkok. The Board of the uni-versity agreed that Mr Somrang wasa qualified person who devotedmuch time and energy to organisingknowledge and information onsoils, and to developing land re-source management approaches topreserve and/or rehabilitate land re-sources for sustainable use - all toenhance the quality of life of Thaifarmers. LDD missions under hisleadership are highly successful, andwidely known and accepted by Thaifarmers and all the organisations in-volved.

The rector went on to mention anumber of works carried out or stim-ulated by the director-general. Oneprominent undertaking concerns thedevelopment of the land informationsystem in Thailand. It is the basis ofsoil information in digital form, which

During the ITC alumni gathering atthe Dutch consulate in Istanbul on 20July, it was the pleasant duty ofRector Professor Martien Molenaar toinvite Professor Klaas Jan Beek topresent the Klaas Jan Beek Award tothe author of the winning MSc thesis.Named after the former rector of ITC,this award is granted annually to thebest ITC MSc thesis and is made pos-sible through the ITC SchermerhornFund.

The best thesis, placed first by almostall members of the Scientific Counciland thus the one winning this year'saward, was written by Ms DeryaÖzisik from Turkey and was entitled"Post-earthquake damage assess-ment using satellite and aerial videoimagery" (complete thesis available athttp://www.itc.nl/library/Papers_2004/msc/upla/derya_ozysik.PDF).

can be further applied to other stan-dard application programmes for spe-cific purposes. To date, the LDD hasdeveloped the following specific GISsoftware packages, most of which areavailable on CD-ROM and/or online: • Soil database (Soil View 2.0)• Permanent forest (1.0)• Typical soil profiles representative of

the Thai Soil Series (Thai Pedon 1.0)• Zoning of economic crops (AgZone

2.2)• Soil erosion (ErosView 1.0) • Soil and water conservation plan-

ning in land development village(ConsPlan 2.0)

• Physical land evaluation for farmpond (FarmPond 1.0)

• Supporting system for soil manage-ment (SoilMan1.1)

• Land evaluation for economic crops(LandSuit 1.2)

• Information system for designingland development action plan atlocal level (LandPlan 3.0)

In the course of our relationship withthe LDD (the former Soil ScienceDivision), which dates back to 1978,we, together with groups of post-graduate or MSc students, have beenreceived for regular fieldwork mis-sions and warmly welcomed for re-search assignments. Some ITC alumnihave always played a role in keepingthis relationship alive, and among themost active are Ms Parida Kuneepongand Mr Anukul Suchinai. The ongo-ing research project Development ofMethodologies for Natural HazardAssessment and Early Warning inThailand is being coordinated by DrD.P. Shrestha (ITC) and Mr A. Suchinai(LDD).

30 ITC News 2004-3

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Klaas Jan Beek Award 2004

Janneke Kalf kalf@itc.nl

Honorary Degree Director-General Ard Somrang of the Land DevelopmentDepartment

Abbas Farshad farshad@itc.nl

Director-General Ard Somrang of the LandDevelopment Department (center),Dr Abbas Farshad (left), and ITC Alumna Ms Parida Kuneepong (right)

Ms Derya Özisik joined the UrbanPlanning and Land AdministrationMSc programme at ITC in Enschedein September 2002 and received herMSc degree (with distinction) in geo-information science and earth obser-vation, specialising in urban planningand management, in March 2004.

She works as a city planner in theUrban Planning Department of theBank of the Provinces (Iller Bankasi),which carries out urban planningstudies for local authorities all overTurkey. As a city planner and Turkishcitizen, Ms Özisik is very well awareof the immediate need after an earth-quake to obtain information aboutthe damaged area in order to enableeffective emergency management.

In her thesis she explores the role ofremote sensing technology in post-earthquake damage assessment. Theroles of different data types, fromsatellite images to airborne videos(made in rapid response by TV newschannels), are investigated. Digitalprocessing of airborne video imageryprovides promising improvements toearthquake damage assessment, andin particular the synergistic potentialof spaceborne and airborne informa-tion is highlighted. Ms Özisik is alsoaware of the gap between research

Jamshid Farifteh, a PhD studentunder the supervision of ProfessorFreek van der Meer, Dr AbbasFarshad and Dr Mark van der Meijdeof the Earth Systems Analysis de-partment, won the award for beststudent poster presentation at theNear Surface 2004 conference heldfrom 6 to 9 September in Utrecht,the Netherlands. The 2004 meetingon near surface geophysics was the10th in an annual series initiated by

the European Section of theEnvironmental and EngineeringGeophysical Society in Turin in 1995.

The poster Detecting salt-affectedsoils; integrating surface and sub-sur-face measurements describes onecomponent of a laboratory experi-ment in which soil spectra and soilproperties were directly measured atdifferent salt concentrations. Themeasurements were used to establish

an empirical relationship between soilspectral variations and characteristicsand electrical conductivity of salt-af-fected soils. The observed relationshipsupports the hypothesis of integrat-ing remote sensing and geophysicsmeasurements. This provides the pos-sibility of progressing from two non-unique salt identification methodstowards a unique and new approachfor salt detection in early stages ofsalinisation. Successful field imple-

(into tools) and user requirements,and this was the basis for doing auser needs assessment too. She con-cludes that satellite imagery can beuseful at the national level in strategicdecision making, while video imagerycan be very useful at the local level tocoordinate emergency activities.

Ms Özisik had very clear ideas aboutthe topic of her MSc research and shecarried out her research in a highly in-dustrious, resourceful and independ-ent manner. She was able to combine

different approaches in a creative wayand apply them in a complex situa-tion. Reflecting well the interdiscipli-nary nature of her thesis topic, shealso collaborated intensively with theEarth Observation Science depart-ment.

Ms Özisik was presented with a cer-tificate and a cheque for Euro 1,000by Professor Beek. Moreover, she re-ceived flowers, and a generous roundof applause from those present, inrecognition of her achievements.

31ITC News 2004-3

A N N O U N C E M E N T S

Best Poster Presentation Award for Jamshid Farifteh

Janneke Kalf kalf@itc.nl

The best MSc thesis was written by Ms Derya Özisik from Turkey

mentation would support the nextphase of the research, in which dataof different natures (remote sensing,geophysics and solute modelling)could be integrated to identify thepresence and abundance of salts insoils, based on their varied influenceon the soil spectra. The establishmentof such a method to detect salt-af-fected areas at an early stage wouldbe a significant development in termsof management of agricultural prac-tices, and a great benefit to bothfarmers and states.

During the 20th ISPRS congress heldfrom 12 to 23 July in Istanbul,Turkey, an alumni meeting was or-ganised at the Dutch consulate onTuesday, 20 July. More than 130people attended the reception,which took place in the beautifulconsulate garden. Mr Hennis, theconsul-general, and ProfessorMolenaar, rector of ITC, welcomedall participants. At the reception, Ms Derya Özisik, much to her sur-prise, was presented with the KlaasJan Beek award by ITC's rector.

ITC was represented by staff mem-bers as well as the MSc geoinformat-ics students. For many people it was anice surprise to meet so many oldfriends again. Some were even argu-ing who was the "oldest" ITC alum-nus present. Was it Fritz Ackermannfrom Germany (alumnus 1957) orwas it Peter Waldhausl from Austria?

Anyway, after a very lively reception,alumni were presented with a smallgift from ITC: a satellite image of theNetherlands. And of course theywent their separate ways only after

promising to meet one another againat the next congress, which will beheld in Beijing in 2008.

32 ITC News 2004-3

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life after itc

Alumni Meeting at ISPRS Congress in Turkey

Saskia Tempelman tempelman@itc.nl

Jamshid Farifteh doing research in the field

ILWIS 3.21 Update

ILWIS 3.21 is a service pack onILWIS 3.2. Some new function-alities have been added: exten-sions in spatial multiple criteriaevaluation, improvement incalling external executablefiles, and geostationary satel-lite projection. Some bugs havebeen fixed too. The servicepack can be downloaded athttp://www.itc.nl/ilwis/down-loads/patch321.asp.

During the 2004 ESRI User Confer-ence in San Diego, California, an ITCalumni reception was organised on10 August 2004. Mark Noort hostedthis reception, which was well at-tended by some 20 to 25 alumni andassociates from various countries, in-cluding Colombia, Ghana, Nigeria,China, Mongolia, Indonesia, Indiaand of course the USA.

Preference was given to the relaxedsetting at a downtown tapas barrather than a formal dinner. Thismade it easier to talk to differentpeople and for the alumni to mingle.Five ITC staff members were present,and we were also honoured by thepresence of Emeritus Professor IanMasser, who was warmly welcomedby the alumni.

Many stories were exchanged aboutthe good times at ITC and about ca-reers embarked on after "life at ITC".The wide range of nationalities pres-ent turned this reception into a

unique experience. Other receptionsgenerally have a more regional or na-tional character, whereas for manythis reception rekindled the feeling ofbeing back at ITC, where all cornersof our world are represented.

33ITC News 2004-3

L I F E A F T E R I T C

Alumni Reception in San Diego, California

Jeroen Verplanke alumni@itc.nl

Among alumni in many countriesthere is a growing interest in form-ing a local ITC alumni association.During a recent visit to ITC, DrTenalem Ayenew discussed such anidea with the Communication de-partment's newly appointed alumnicoordinator, Jeroen Verplanke. DrTenalem's initiative was most timely,as it enabled a reception to be or-ganised at the Ghion Hotel in AddisAbaba on Friday, 1 October, whichcoincided with my visit to supervisethe fieldwork of three Ethiopianstudents.

Despite the rather short notice, nearly40 alumni from various disciplineswere able to attend. Although mostcame from Addis Ababa itself, somehad travelled more than 800 km toparticipate in the event, which wasalso attended by First SecretaryEducation Mieke Vogels andFellowship Officer HannahMohammed from the Dutch embassy.

The warmth and hospitality that I ex-perienced during my short stay inEthiopia was outstanding, and host-ing the reception on ITC's behalf wasa great personal pleasure. I also ob-served a considerable amount of GITactivity in Addis Ababa, and it ispleasing to note that various ITCalumni are playing important roles inmany of these activities. After I hadpointed to the great value that ITCplaces on maintaining strong tieswith its alumni in my welcomespeech, Dr Tenalem outlined the in-tention to form an ITC alumni associ-ation. He called for those interestedin supporting this initiative to contacthim, and requested support from theDutch embassy. Ms Vogels said sheappreciated the efforts being madeby our alumni and announced that

she would be inviting some alumni toparticipate in a workshop to mark theopening of a new embassy buildingthat is scheduled for completion inMay 2005.

Following the words of welcome, weall enjoyed some delicious Ethiopiandishes and used the opportunity torenew acquaintances and make newfriends. The lively discussions com-

bined recollections of the tormentsand pleasures of life at ITC with ex-changes regarding ideas for futurecooperation or for maximising thebenefits of the alumni networkthrough the association. The eveningwas rounded off with a traditionalcoffee ceremony - I now know whatcoffee should taste like! As thosewho attended took their leave, itcould safely be said that the recep-tion had been a successful kick-offmeeting for the new association. Ofcourse more work remains to bedone, and those Ethiopians who wishto have further information or con-tribute support to the associationshould contact Dr Tenalem(tenalema@yahoo.com orayenew@itc.nl) or Jeroen Verplanke(alumni@itc.nl).

34 ITC News 2004-3

L I F E A F T E R I T C

First Steps to Form Ethiopian ITC Alumni Association

Richard Sliuzas sliuzas@itc.nl

Establishing a Turkish ITC Alumni Association

Since the establishment of ITC in 1951, Turkey has sent many people to theInstitute to study various disciplines related to aerial photography, remotesensing, cartography and geo-information.

ITC alumni in Turkey wish to establish a society that will provide a forum formeeting one another a few times a year and enable them to remain in closecontact with ITC and other alumni associations around the world.

Recently, ITC, the Dutch consulate in Istanbul and the Dutch embassy inAnkara indicated they would support the establishment of a Turkish ITCalumni association, which could be inaugurated in the first half of 2005.

If you are interested in being closely involved in establishing this association orif you would like more information regarding this subject, kindly contact theaddress below:

Prof. Dr A. SesorenE-mail : asesoren@yahoo.comPhone & Fax: +90-212-42177393

Or ITC's alumni coordinator: alumni@itc.nl

European Higher Education Fair andAsia Link Forum

19 November 2004 - 21 November 2004Thailand, Bangkok

http://www.ehef-bangkok.orgfairs@nuffic.nlITC attendance: Paul Schoonackers, TinaTian (ITC Booth)

1st Asian Space Conference

22 November 2004 - 25 November 2004Thailand, Chiang Mai

http://acrs2004.gistda.or.th/d.n.soo@let.leidenuniv.nlITC attendance: Sjaak Beerens

ACRS 2004

22 November 2004 - 26 November 2004Thailand, Chiang Mai

http://www.aars-acrs.org/invitation.htmITC attendance: Sjaak Beerens, PaulHofstee, Paul Schoonackers (ITC Booth)

Advanced Remote Sensing for EarthObservation; Systems, Techniques and

4 December 2004 - 7 December 2004Saudi Arabia, Riyadh

http://www.remotesensingarabia.orgregistration@remotesensingarabia.com

ESRI Middle East User Conference

7 December 2004 - 9 December 2004UAE, Dubai

http://www.gistec.com/meuc2004/meuc2004@gistec.com

Fourth International Conference LaserScanning and Digital AerialPhotography

9 December 2004 - 10 December 2004Russia, Moscow

http://www.geokosmos.com/about/news_detail.php?ID=323Inna_Bartchan@geokosmos.ru

Workshop on Standardization in thecadastral domain

9 December 2004 - 10 December 2004Germany, Bamberg

http://www.gdmc.nl/CadMod.htme.fendel@otb.tudelft.nl

Holland Education Fair 2005

29 January 2005 - 6 February 2005Indonesia, Surabaya, Jogjakarta,Semarang, Bandung and Jakarta

http://www.nec.or.id/Layout3/nec_jakarta/home.htmproj@nec.or.idITC attendance: Tom Loran, Robert Voskuil(ITC Booth)

Environment 2005

30 January 2005 - 2 February 2005UAE, Abu Dhabi

http://www.ee-uae.com/conference/index.htmlee@gec.co.ae

35ITC News 2004-3

L I F E A F T E R I T C

Dear Editor,

After completing the Diploma course in photo interpretation in geology at IPI, Dehradun (now IIRS) in 1972, I wasselected for a Netherlands Government Scholarship in 1974. I completed my MSc course in geology (N.1.3) at ITC,Enschede, in 1975.

After my return to Poona University, my parent institute, I established a section dealing with remote sensing in theDepartment of Geology. After 37 years' service, I retired in 1999. During my career, 10 of my students completedtheir doctoral research. Besides teaching and research in remote sensing, I worked as a consultant in remote sens-ing for several irrigation and other projects. Our team carried out a number of investigations in the field of remotesensing applied to seismicity.

I sincerely feel that whatever I have achieved is entirely due to the training I received at ITC. My teachers, namelyProfessors Meckel, Koopmans, Van Der Meer Mohr, Rengers and Meijerink, gave me a lot of encouragement dur-ing my work.

I visited ITC in 1984 and again in 1990. I was amazed by the rapid development taking place at that end. Iearnestly wish I could come again to Enschede and experience the ITC ambience once more.

With regards to my teachers and good wishes to the students,Yours faithfully,

Dr V.V. PESHWAE-mail: peshwa@vsnl.net

letter to the editor

CONFERENCE CALENDAR

CALENDAR CALENDAR CALENDAR CALENDAR CALENDAR CALENDAR CALENDAR CALENDAR CALENDAR CALENDAR CALENDAR

WSCG '2005

31 January 2005 - 4 February 2005Czech Republic, Plzen

http://wscg.zcu.cz/wscg2005/wscg2005.htm

Map India 2005

7 February 2005 - 9 February 2005India, New Delhi

http://www.mapindia.orginfo@mapindia.org

6th Geomatic Week Conference

8 February 2005 - 11 February 2005Spain, Barcelona

http://www.setmana-geomatica.org/front/en/info@setmana-geomatica.org

CORP2005 & GeoMultimedia05

22 February 2005 - 25 February 2005Austria, Vienna

http://www.corp.atoffice@corp.at

ASPRS Annual Conference

7 March 2005 - 11 March 2005United States, Baltimore

http://www.asprs.org/asprs/meetings/ calendar.html

Joint Conference on Remote Sensingof Urban Areas

14 March 2005 - 16 March 2005United States, Tempe

http://www.urban-remote-sensing.org

First International Symposium onGeo-information for DisasterManagement (Gi4DM)

21 March 2005 - 23 March 2005Netherlands, Delft

http://www.gdmc.nl/gi4dm/e.fendel@otb.tudelft.nl

4th International Symposium onDigital Earth

28 March 2005 - 31 March 2005Japan, Tokyo

http://www.isde-j.com/secretariat@isde-j.com

FIG Working Week 2005 and GSDI-8

16 April 2005 - 21 April 2005Egypt, Cairo

http://www.fig.net/cairo/fig@fig.net

Geospatial World 2005

26 April 2005 - 28 April 2005United States, San Francisco

http://www.geospatialworld.com/rita.roberts@intergraph.com

25th EARSeL Symposium

6 June 2005 - 11 June 2005Portugal, Porto

http://www.fc.up.pt/earsel2005/index.htmearsel@meteo.fr

3DIM 2005

13 June 2005 - 17 June 2005Canada, Ottawa

http://www.3dimconference.org/3DIMconf@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca

31st International Symposium onRemote Sensing of Environment

20 June 2005 - 24 June 2005Russia, Saint Petersburg

http://www.niersc.spb.ru/isrse/31_ISRSE@niersc.spb.ru

CC: The Exchange

3 July 2005 - 6 July 2005United Kingdom, Southampton

http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/nmonetwork/nmonetwork@ordnancesurvey.co.uk

6th Joint ICA/ISPRS/EuroGeographicsWorkshop

8 July 2005 - 10 July 2005Spain, A Coruña,

http://geo.haifa.ac.il/~icaupdt/meetings/meetings.htm

International Cartographic Conference

9 July 2005 - 16 July 2005Spain, A Coruña

http://www.icc2005.orgsecretary@icc2005.org

XXII IUFRO World Congress

8 August 2005 - 13 August 2005Australia, Brisbane

http://www.iufro2005.comiufro2005@ozaccom.com.au

SVG Open 2005

15 August 2005 - 19 August 2005The Netherlands, Enschede

http://www.svgopen.org/2005svg@lists.telin.nl

ICAS 4

20 August 2005 - 24 August 2005China, Shanghai

http://www.icassecretariat.org/icas4@sass.org.cn

Africa GIS 2005

29 August 2005 - 2 September 2005South Africa, Johannesburg

http://www.africagis2005.org.za/info@africagis2005.org.za

Workshop Laser Scanning 2005

12 September 2005 -14 September 2005The Netherlands, Enschede

http://www.itc.nl/isprswglll-3/ laserscanning2005vosselman@itc.nl

ITEE 2005

25 September 2005 - 27 September 2005Germany, Magdeburg

http://www-wi.cs.uni-magdeburg.de/itee2005/info/gomez@iti.cs.uni-magdeburg.de

CIPA International Symposium

26 September 2005 - 30 September 2005Italy, Torino

http://www.cipatorino2005.orginfo@actacongress.com

36 ITC News 2004-3

C A L E N D A R