Paper development workshop

This 1,5 days workshop, which took place at the end of September 2017 in Salzburg, was organized as a follow-up event of the winter school 2017 held in St. Wolfgang. Around 20 participants, mainly from the Doctoral College “GIScience” and the PhD study programme “Applied Geoinformatics” worked on four different topics such as “Big earth data”, “VGI & Social media for urban context”, “Big trajectories” and “Uncertainty in big geospatial sensor data”.

The idea of the workshop was that each group shall have a clear plan with milestones to develop the research topic / idea of the winter school further via a mini-conference, a final conference and a paper.

The results were presented in a form of a poster and a 5 minutes elevator pitch where all group members were involved. Jury members, consisting of faculty members and young scientists, gave critical feedback and helped the groups to narrow down the topics and to improve the concept.

Although the schedule was very tight during these 1,5 days it was a fantastic and inspiring atmosphere which again strengthened the team spirit.

Satellite Applications for the Alps - Search and Rescue Edition

This year´s conference on "Satellite Applications for the Alps: Search and Rescue Edition" will take place from October 11-12 in Brixen, Italy.

The confernce, entitled IMS "Meet.Mountain.People.Soul", focuses on nature meeting technology. It is dedicated to satellite applications for search and rescue, emergency response, civil protection and risk mapping in and around the Alps, asking: How can satellite communication and navigation enable more advanced emergency call systems? How can it enhance the coordination of teams? How can Earth Observation help to provide better geo-information and post natural disaster imaging?

Z_GIS is again actively involved in the organisation and implementation of this event, together with EURISY, IDM Südtirol, Cluster Satellite Navigation BGL – Salzburg und GI-PLUS e.V., to name just a few.

The two-day event is free.

Find all information on the event online online and take the chance to participate via online registration.


Contact Z_GIS: sebastian.doleire-oltmanns@sbg.ac.at

Successful GeoS4S Meeting in Amsterdam, Netherlands

The consortium members of the ‘GeoServices-4-Sustainability' (GeoS4S) project from 10 partner universities located in Europe (4), China (3) and Thailand (3) met at the School of Business and Economics, VU Amsterdam, Amsterdam from 25th to 27th September, 2017 to review project progress at the completion of the second year of the project. The Interfaculty Department of Geoinformatics - Z_GIS, University of Salzburg, Austria serves as coordinator of this project, co-funded by the European Commission under the ERASMUS+ programme from October 2015 to October 2018.

(GeoS4S Members at Year-2 Meeting)

Three major objectives of the GeoS4S project aim at developing teaching/learning resources of 20 modules; to organise International Summer Schools for testing the relevance and operational feasibility of these modules, and to integrate teaching/learning resources on an eLearning platform for open and free access worldwide. The twenty three experts involved in the project gathered to review the progress of the project during years 1 & 2 and to fine tune the activities planned for the final year of the project.

The progress made by various team members was considered highly satisfactory and the enthusiasm for further enhancement of the quality of the deliverables was widely present. Critical assessment of the milestones achieved during the first two years was taken as the guiding principle for streamlining the activities of the final year. It was agreed upon that the consortium members need to perform beyond expectations during the two International Summer Schools to be conducted in China and Germany as well as introducing and discussing high quality teaching/learning materials during the two dissemination conferences planned in China and Thailand. The consortium will conduct a monitoring review in March 2018 during the International Summer School in Nanjing, China.

Hilfe aus nächster Nähe

"Hilfe aus nächster Nähe" nennt sich eine Ausstellung der Hilfsorganisation Ärzte ohne Grenzen (MSF), die von 4.-15.Oktober am Salzburger Mozartplatz zu sehen ist. 
Ärzte ohne Grenzen zeigt den Besuchern, wie humanitäre Nothilfe funktioniert: Was wird für die Errichtung von Wasserversorgung & Sanitäranlagen benötigt und wo macht es am meisten Sinn, diese zu bauen? 
Wie werden Krankheiten wie Cholera behandelt, wie viele Personen müssen geimpft werden und wie gelangen die Medikamente in Krisengebiete?  Wie Satellitenbilder und räumliche Analysen helfen, diese Einsätze effizienter zu planen, zeigt der Fachbereich Geoinformatik - Z_GIS.

Seit mehreren Jahren analysiert der Fachbereich Geoinformatik - Z_GIS Satellitenbilder für die Hilfsorganisation Ärzte ohne Grenzen (MSF) und unterstützt dabei die Helfer vor Ort beim Aufbau und der Organisation von Camps und der Planung von Logistik und Impfkampagnen.

Mit einer Ausstellung am Salzburger Mozartplatz gibt  Ärzte ohne Grenzen Besuchern von 4. - 15. Oktober einen Einblick in seine Arbeit. Z_GIS zeigt am Beispiel des Flüchtlingslagers Nduta in Tansania Auswertungen, die die Arbeit vor Ort unterstützen. Zusätzlich können Besucher einen 360°-Einblick in das Leben in einem Flüchtlingslager bekommen.

Interessierte können dem Z_GIS-Team, das sich auf humanitäre Themen spezialisiert hat, am Freitag, den 6. Oktober, von 14 bis 16 Uhr Fragen stellen, wenn sie die Ausstellung besuchen. Sie erfahren, mit welcher Detailgenauigkeit einzelne Strukturen und Gebäudearten auf Satellitenbildern identifiziert werden können, und welche Analysemethoden das Arbeiten in Krisengebieten unterstützen können.

Mitten in Salzburg. Hilfe aus nächster Nähe. 
Eine Ausstellung von Ärzte ohne Grenzen. 
4.-15. Oktober 2017, täglich von 10 bis 18 Uhr (6.10., 14-16 Uhr: Z_GIS)
Salzburg, Mozartplatz

Eintritt: frei

Nähere Informationen zur Ausstellung

Johannes Kapser defends his PhD Thesis "Modeling of thermal lifts"

Johannes Kapser, PhD candidate at Z_GIS successfully defended his PhD Thesis “Modelling of Thermal Lift: Techniques for Mining Thermal Eddies from Aerial Movement Data”.

Being a passionate glider pilot Johannes’ research was all centred around the core question “how to model thermal lift based on collectively sensed aerial trajectory data”. Therefore he approached this central research question through three main research themes: thermal lifts, trajectory parameters and patterns, and data-based deterministic and probabilistic modelling.

As one of his major results, Johannes came to the conclusion that there is great potential in the explict geospatial modeling of thermal eddies for better understanding of thermal processes in different environments. The successful modeling of the relation between environmental context and thermals can also accelerate research in the direction of thermal prediction for secure identification of thermal lifts.

A very international audience followed Johannes’ impressive and challenging presentation and actively participated in the lively discussion between after the evaluators, Dr. Josef Strobl and Dr. Robert Marschallinger, both from Z_GIS at the University of Salzburg were satisfied with all their questions. Dr. Thomas Blaschke as the main supervisor acted as the chair. 

Johannes works for a private company in the Munich aerospace industry. We wish him well on his road to a successful career in industrial research!