Erasmus+ Mobility in the KA107 Program

KA107 - this sounds like a mysterious code providing secret access to something highly desirable, and it is exactly that: this EU programme is key to academic mobility with (non-EU) partner countries.

Z_GIS has a long tradition of facilitating (predominantly) incoming mobility by students and faculty. More than 100 mobility scholarships were the core element of the recently completed gSmart project, and play an important role in the current GeoS4S initiative.

The ongoing KA107 scheme is entirely focussed on academic mobility, with Z_GIS successfully participating with our partner institutions across a wide range of partner countries: these include the Central Asian republics of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as well as Bhutan, Nepal, India, Thailand, China, New Zealand and Australia.

Prof Josef Strobl, Head of Department @Z_GIS states: "We are looking forward to welcome programme participants from universities in these countries and expect them to enrich the international character of our department as well as study programmes, and vice versa take home valuable knowledge, experiences and friendships."

From a broader perspective, Paris-Lodron University Salzburg (PLUS) clearly is a leading university in cooperation with partners worldwide. Compared to other Austrian Higher Education Institutions, PLUS within KA107 organizes a dominant share of Austrian student and faculty mobilities with partner institutions in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Through highly rated and successful applications within the Erasmus+ 'International Credit Mobility' (KA107) program PLUS already has secured 1.6 million Euro in funding, available to attract excellent students and faculty from leading institutions worldwide, as well as opening doors for Salzburg students and academics at these partners.

"This raises the international visibility of Salzburg, increasingly being recognized not only as a cultural highlight, but also as an academic hub for higher learning and cutting-edge research" says Peter Mayr, Director for International Relations.

For details regarding International Credit Mobility (KA107) funding across Austrian institutions, please refer to https://bildung.erasmusplus.at/de/hochschulbildung/internationale-mobilitaet/mein-laufendes-projekt.

agri-HIMAL workshop completed in Nepal.

The GIScience Commission of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the Interfaculty Department of Geoinformatics - Z_GIS, University of Salzburg, Austria and Tribhuvan University (TU), Kathmandu, Nepal jointly organised a regional workshop on 'GIScience Assessing the Feasibility of Agricultural Diversification in the Himalayas (agri-HIMAL)' in Kathmandu, Nepal from 27 to 31 August, 2017.

 (agri-HIMAL organisers and participants at the workshop conclusion)

Dr. Shahnawaz (Z_GIS) and Prof. Krishna Poudel (CDE) coordinated this workshop hosted by the Central Department of Education (CED-TU). The Eurasia-Pacific Uninet (EPU), the event brought together 23 teachers, students and practitioners from Nepal, Bhutan and Austria.

The opening ceremony attended by the workshop participants and dignitaries from various academic and administrative departments of TU was chaired by Prof. Krishna Prasad Gautam (Dean, Faculty of Education). He expressed appreciation of the ongoing cooperation between the GIScience Commission, Z_GIS and TU as well as conveyed thanks to the EPU for supporting such joint activities. The participants learned about the physical, climatic and socio-economic specifics of the Himalayas through a series of lectures. They did 'hands-on' practical exercises on ArcGIS and MaxEnt software to process and analyse various geospatial datasets for assessing the feasibilities of agricultural diversification in the Himalayas.

The Rector of TU, Prof. (Ms). Sudha Tripathi, conferred the 'certificates of successful completion' on the participants. All participants appreciated the organisation of the workshop and expressed a high level of satisfaction about their learning outcomes within the short period of one week, and envisaged to expand academic cooperation between their respective institutions and Z_GIS.

Successful PhD defense of Pablo Cabrera-Barona within the Doctoral College "GIScience"

Pablo Cabrera-Barona, PhD researcher at Z_GIS successfully defended his PhD Thesis “A Multidisciplinary Spatial Framework for Health Inequalities Analysis with Emphasis on Deprivation and Healthcare Accessibility”.

In his research, Pablo focused on the analysis of deprivation and healthcare accessibility, understanding them as integral concepts that incorporate objective and subjective measures, the integration of which enables the representation of multidimensional health-related phenomena. Pablo provided a multidisciplinary spatial framework that uses different mixed-methods approaches to understand health inequalities.

The results showed that the created deprivation indices facilitate the identification of social disadvantages and can support the explanation of health outcomes. It was also shown that the combination of objective measures and perceptions can represent inequalities of multidimensional healthcare accessibility and healthcare satisfaction and that these multidimensional measures can be explained by social factors of human health-related behavior. It could also be demonstrated that area-level features of deprivation and spatial accessibility to healthcare influence individual-level healthcare satisfaction.

Around 30 attendees from 14 different nations listened to Pablo’s impressive presentation which was followed by a fruitful discussion between the evaluators, Dr. Alexis Comber from the University of Leeds and Dr. Stefan Lang from Z_GIS. Dr. Thomas Blaschke as the main supervisor acted as the chair.

We wish Pablo all the best for his future endeavors and career!

MAPATHON goes AGIT / GI-Forum

Z_GIS lädt gemeinsam mit Ärzte ohne Grenzen (MSF) und dem Österreichischen Roten Kreuz  zu einem Mapathon in Salzburg ein.

Mapathons sind eingebettet in das Missing Maps Projekt von MSF, dem Roten Kreuz und dem Humanitären Open Street Map Team (HOT OSM) und bieten engagierten Freiwilligen überall auf der Welt eine Plattform, humanitäre Hilfe mit online mapping in Krisenregionen zu unterstützen. Geografische Details, wie Dörfer, Straßen und Infrastruktur werden basierend auf Satellitenbildaufnahmen interpretiert und kartiert, und bieten somit für die Arbeit von Hilfsorganisationen eine wichtige Informationsgrundlage, damit diese im Krisenfall schneller und gezielter reagieren können. Bei diesem Mapathon, der zum ersten Mal im Rahmen der AGIT in Salzburg stattfindet, wird ein Gebiet bearbeitet, das aktuell von Naturkatastrophen, Krankheiten oder Konflikten betroffen ist und in dem sowohl MSF wie auch das Österreichische Rote Kreuz aktive Hilfe leisten.

Wer kann mitmachen?
Jede/r kann mitmachen, egal ob Anfänger/in oder erfahrene Mapper. Mitzubringen ist lediglich ein eigener Laptop (inkl. Maus).

Wann & wo findet der Mapathon statt?
Dienstag,  4. Juli 2017
17 bis 19 Uhr
im Rahmen der AGIT / GI-FORUM 

Achtung: für die Teilnahme am Mapathon muss keine Konferenzgebühr bezahlt werden! Es genügt eine Registrierung im AGIT Tagungsbüro.

Universität Salzburg, Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät
Dekanatssaal, 1.Stock
Hellbrunnerstrasse 34
5020 Salzburg

Kontakt
Lorenz Wendt
Barbara Riedler

Project X3D4Pop kicked off: Population estimation in urban areas from experimental 3D remote sensing data

How many people live in a city? This seemingly simple question very often arises in the daily work of MSF (Doctors without Borders) or SOS Children’s Villages. Activities like a vaccination campaign or the preparation for natural disasters require up-to-date population figures. With more and more people moving into cities, the sprawling urban areas move more and more into the focus of aid and relief organisations.

Population numbers can be estimated from the number of buildings mapped in remote sensing data, but in urban areas, 3D data is required to account for the building heights. The research project X3D4Pop, which was kicked off in Salzburg in May, aims at exploring the potential of 3D data derived from satellite image pairs initially not acquired for stereo data production, as dedicated stereo image pairs are often missing. Can image pairs from different satellites, acquired at different times, be used to derive building heights?

X3D4Pop brings together experts in photogrammetry from the German Aerospace Center DLR and dasymetric mapping from the Austrian Institute of Technology AIT and the Swiss UNEP/GRID-Geneva, and is led by Z_GIS to further enlarge the portfolio of remote sensing services for humanitarian organisations. X3D4Pop is funded by the Austrian FFG, the Swiss Space Office SSO, and the DLR.

Contact: Lorenz Wendt