“Geographical Information Systems and Remote Sensing is one of the fastest developing technologies no matter whether you are a provider, and developer or a user. And here in the region and for the benefit of Pacific island countries and territories we are all striving to stay at the ‘cutting edge of the technology.’  In this regard the theme of this Conference focusing on mapping Pacific resources is very timely”, said Dr. Russell Howorth, Director, SOPAC Division of SPC, in the opening keynote at the Pacific GIS/RS User Conference held at Suva last week.

The growing impact of GIS and Remote Sensing was very much evident by the record number of attendees and presentations at the conference. Around 300 participants, from the around the Pacific Region convened for the three and half days of presentations, workshops and discussions.

Current and upcoming trends in the geospatial fields such as LiDAR (light detection and ranging) Imagery, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), recent progress in vegetation and land cover mapping, improvements in satellite technologies, imagery classification and open source software were heavily covered during the conference.

The conference has been held annually in Suva for the Pacific region since 1999, is free to attend and jointly organized by Secretariat of the Pacific Community, University of the South Pacific, various departments of the Fiji Government, with support from GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit), satellite data and GIS software companies.

During the conference, the SOPAC Division of SPC and Digital Globe, a satellite image provider, partnership was launched, which will ensure high-resolution satellite image data for Pacific Islands Countries and Territories are made available at a very cost-effective price.

Dr. Wolf Forstreuter, Senior GIS Specialist from SPC, and chair of the conference organizing committee expressed satisfaction with the attendance and the quality of presentations. He was particularly impressed with the increasing participation of female GIS users in the Pacific, as compared to other information technology fields. He stressed, however, that there is still room for improvement, and the committee will endeavor to make next year’s conference even better.

More Information: http://picgisrs.appspot.com