Slashgeo

The preliminary report to the Future Land Imaging Working Group on The American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing Survey on the Future of Land Imaging is now available (via the Applied-GIS-RS mailing list). From the presentation: "Goals of the survey: - To estimate the societal benefits of US moderate resolution data. - To better understand current operational and research uses of moderate resolution data. - To identify user requirements in moderate resolution technology and data policy" There is a clear focus on the Landsat satellite in the survey.

The short issue #10 of the Global Land Cover Network bulletin is now available. This "global alliance for standard multi-purpose land cover data production" focuses on United Nations activities and projects. From the 6-pages documents: "As anticipated in the last edition, this issue hosts a detailed report of the activities of the Northern Eurasian Earth Science Partnership Initiative (NEESPI)." See global land cover related stories below.

Very Spatial blogs about release of the plan for the U.S. National Land Imaging Program [pdf, 14k]. From the blog: "The plan is contained within a 120-page report, which is available here [pdf, 6.8Mb], and offers a set of policy recommendations, most importantly the creation of a National Land Imaging Program under the direction of the Department of the Interior. [...] I think one of the more interesting points in the policy report is the statement that, despite its amazing success, the Landsat program “has never been considered a truly operational capability. All Landsat satellites have been justified, built, and flown as experimental, scientific research systems with no assurance of the long-term continuity of the data.”" See related stories below.