478
August 2018
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
SECTOR
INSIGHT:
.
org
B
uilding
C
apacity
––P
artnerships
AmeriGEOSS encourages and cultivates public-private part-
nerships to strengthen regional EO systems. AmeriGEOSS
works with Embassies and partners to bring together com-
munities local to global, and to identify communities most
vulnerable to Earth system change processes. There are
partners from non-Americas countries, academia, private
and commercial sector organizations contributing to the de-
velopment. The AmeriGEOSS technical approach is being
shared with UN-GGIM-Americas regional workgroup as an
opportunity to leverage and partner between the two organi-
zations to achieve shared goals and objectives in the Ameri-
cas. AmeriGEOSS also participates in the Working Group on
Environmental Indicators for Latin-America and the Carib-
bean (LAC) that is established in the framework of the ILAC
(Forum of Ministers of the Environment - MoEs) and coor-
dinated by the United Nations (UN) Environment Program
(Latin America and the Caribbean office). This strategic part-
nership seeks to establish a permanent Science-Policy Inter-
face for LAC of the Forum of MoEs
4
ASPRS members can
participate in these working groups and can provide
contributions on projects
.
B
uilding
C
apacity
––C
ommunities
of
P
ractice
and
R
esearch
To provide strategic direction for cooperation and to advocate
for principles
5
of data sharing at the local and national level,
AmeriGEOSS members participate in regional and societal
benefit area (SBA) working groups and other collaborations,
established through high level cooperation agreements be-
tween and among countries in the Americas to provide the
connection between the national and regional understanding
of the needs, and the possibility for greater support to Amer-
iGEOSS activities. The prioritized activities of AmeriGEOSS
associated with the four GEO SBA’s are:
Agriculture
, as-
sociated with climate variability, climate change, and food
security
; Disaster risk reduction
, particularly for data
exchange associated with early warnings and for the gener-
ation of regional products of early warnings;
Water
, associ-
ated with the management approach of water resources and
data management; and
Ecosystems
, monitoring including
biodiversity observation in coastal, marine, and continental
habitats, in the context of capacity building for better mon-
itoring, management, and maintenance of ecosystems and
biodiversity they support; also to predict future changes.
2
AmeriGEOSS is operating in the Agricuture SBA with
Global Agricultural Modeling (GEOGLAM), in Disaster risk
reduction SBA with the Chile Disaster Capacity Building
Working Group (among others), in the Water SBA with the
“Community for the Spatial and Hydrological Information
for Latin America and the Caribbean” (CIEHLYC), a
well-established consortium with Earth science academic
expertise, for water cycle capacity building, and Biodiversity
and Ecosystem SBA with the GEO Biodiversity Observation
Network (GEOBON).
B
uilding
C
apacity
––E
ducation
and
T
raining
AmeriGEOSS seeks to strengthen institutional and personal
capacity, through sustained and targeted education and
training in the use of EO information and technologies. The
region is building awareness of and skills to use EO through a
variety of venues that include webinars, technical seminars,
workshops, and conferences. The initiative coordination
working group hosts
AmeriGEOSS week
annually to provide
hands-on training––2016 took place in Bogota, Colombia at
the National University; 2017 in Costa Rica at the University
of Costa Rica; and for 2018, the “Instituto Nacional de
Pesquisas Espaciais” will host AmeriGEOSS week in Brazil.
This model of intensive training with parallel courses in many
disciplines was initiated in the Americas by the CIEHLYC.
CIEHLYC has led capacity building activities since 2011
with in-person instruction, and webinars in Spanish since
2014.
6
In 2018, AmeriGEOSS in partnership with CIEHLYC
and GEO-Peru, is providing training support to the National
Commission for Aerospace Research and Development
(CONIDA) with courses in processing and interpretation
of satellite imagery. This program seeks to ensure the use
of the PerúSAT-1 satellite imagery in the fields of social
development, economy, defense and security.
B
uilding
C
apacity
––P
roviding
A
ccess
to
D
ata
,
T
ools
and
S
ervices
The key to using Earth observations for decision-making is
making the data open, accessible, discoverable and usable.
AmeriGEOSS is leveraging technical resources, and scaling
up existing capabilities throughout the region to help stake-
holders access, discover, use and apply EO data so they can
solve problems and improve decision making capabilities.
ASPRS members can integrate into these efforts through
contributions on projects.
GEONETCAST A
mericas
is the Western Hemisphere
component of GEONETCast, a near real time, global network
of satellite-based data dissemination systems designed to dis-
tribute space-based, air-borne and in situ data, metadata and
products to diverse communities.
7
While internet and other
communications means exist, satellite broadcasts are inex-
pensive to operate and provide a method of communication
removed from other terrestrial network limitations of peri-
odic failures. The system is especially useful and efficient in
providing access to environmental data in areas where the
internet coverage is limited or non-existent. The system can
be portable, and products can be disseminated on demand
and with low latency, making it a valuable tool in the de-
