APPLICATIONS
Australia and China: eyes in the sky to monitor climate change
CSIRO and the Chinese Academy of Surveying and Mapping (CASM) will sign a research agreement in Beijing today to collaborate on China’s resource mapping satellite program. The advanced satellite program will gather land and marine observation data which will be used for monitoring climate change impacts in both countries. The program will also advance China’s progress in space technology. “Droughts and flooding rains aren’t unique to Australia,” Dr Murray Cameron from CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences, said.
“China and Australia have many environmental problems in common, such as highly variable rainfall. “One of the projects we’ll be working on over the next five years is putting our heads and our data together to work out in detail what’s happening with climate change and how best to deal with it.” Dr Cameron will sign the agreement of behalf of CSIRO. Mr Weisen Lu, Vice-Director General of the Chinese State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping, will witness the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding. Professor Jixian Zhang, President of CASM, has welcomed the agreement and said that Australia and China had a lot to offer each other with respect to satellite-based resource mapping. “We will be developing sophisticated maths-based information products from the satellite data that will help both countries better manage their environments on the ground,” he said. CSIRO’s remote sensing specialists have more than a decade’s experience using satellite and other data to monitor land condition from catchment to continental scale. Their research has included measuring changes in vegetation, urbanisation, salinity and other environmental indicators. Recent work in tracking land use change across the whole of Australia has been an important input for monitoring Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions for international reporting. CSIRO scientists are currently on a week-long visit to China to plan research projects to take the agreement forward.
