Prof. Christian Heipke during the discussion with GIS&RS users in Suva

The Secretary General of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS), Prof. Christian Heipke, met with the SPC Deputy Director, Fekitamoeloa Utoikamanu and SPC’s Geoscience Division Director Prof. Mike Petterson, last Friday to discuss further enhancement of the link between ISPRS and SPC-GSD.

ISPRS bundles national geospatial societies and through this, ISPRS has the largest network of research and method development in the geospatial area.

SPC-GSD has been the regional member for Pacific Island countries for the last 10 years with the rationale of using this network to benefit its member countries.

In 2005 the former president of ISPRS Prof. John Trinder visited the Pacific Islands GIS&RS User Conference and started the tradition of a discussion session where Pacific islanders highlight problems in adapting to remote sensing application from outside the Pacific to Pacific environment. This discussion session continues to be facilitated in every GIS&RS User Conference since and is the only documentation of such Pacific issues.

Now, Christian Heipke pushes the visibility of Pacific GIS&RS users within the society. This will increase the link to other users outside the Pacific working on similar method development and might provide solutions usable for the Pacific environment.

The GIS&RS user meeting being held every Friday afternoon at SPC-GSD was utilised by the Fiji GIS&RS user group to discuss with Prof. Heipke method adaptation problems and possible solutions where the SPC GIS officers presented on the Pacific.