The latest computer gadgetry to monitor the ever-evolving landscape of our planet and the elemental forces that shape it are the subject of a new knowledge exchange network being led by The University of Nottingham.
The Earth Observation Technology Cluster, led by Dr Paul Aplin in the University's School of Geography, is a two-year project funded with £100,000 by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).
It will focus on technology that can be used for a range of scientific applications — everything from measuring gas emissions from volcanoes to 3-D mapping of natural and urban environments and monitoring the effect of climate change on plant life and the Polar sea ice and icesheets.
Dr Aplin said: "The world in which we live is a complex system of natural and manmade environments which are evolving all the time. In some cases, even the smallest of variations has the potential to have profound implications for the earth's inhabitants and we need to ensure that the technologies we use to monitor this are keeping pace with these changes."
The new network will bring together a community of academics, industrial partners and public research bodies to promote the understanding, development and uptake of the state-of-the-art technologies used to give us the bigger picture on the earth's changing environments and will operate in partnership with the Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society, the National Centre for Earth Observation and the British Association of Remote Sensing Companies..
During the course of the project, it will encourage discussion through a series of seminars, workshops and demonstrations and culminate in a national Earth Observation conference showcasing the success stories of the network — including future research collaborations or published papers — and the latest gadgets in Earth Observation technology.
The network, which is part of the NERC Technology Clusters programme, will focus on five main themes, chosen as part of an open competition and public consultation process within the Earth Observation community.
The five themes are: