GIS

£1.5 million geospatial competition open to improve public services

The Geospatial Commission has partnered with Innovate UK to launch a new government competition, where organisations can apply for a share of £1.5 million to fund projects which use data linked to a location. Between £50,000 to £750,000 could be granted to eligible organisations.

The aim of the competition is to explore the benefits and challenges of crowdsourcing data. It will encourage different organisations to work together to identify innovative new ways for crowdsourced data, to either:

▪ improve the delivery of public services

▪ support the third sector

▪ enhance the quality of open public datasets

This new competition an example of how advances in technology can be used to foster economic growth, deliver outstanding public services and generate savings for the public.www.gov.uk

UK Hydrographic Office presents Guyana with marine geospatial data

The UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) has officially handed over marine geospatial data to the Guyanese Government after a campaign of hydrographic surveying.

Delegates from UKHO presented the data to government officials at a special event to celebrate the completion of the survey. Two workshops were held to brief ministers and provide technical support for applications of the data, which will help Guyana support the development of its marine economy.

The data, which was collected over a period of four months between 2016 and 2017, will initially be used to update nautical charts of the Demerara River. This will enable ships to confidently reduce underkeel clearance and maximize cargocarrying capacity, paving the way for increased import and export activity.

UK Galileo engineers forced to move to EUROPE as EU blocks British from project

Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL), an independently operated subsidiary of aerospace company Airbus, took the decision in order to carry out a vital classified test on the navigation payload which it supplies to Galileo once Britain quits the bloc on March 29, 2019.

Brussels is planning to cut Britain’s access to the secure elements of Galileo, arguing EU law prevents non-member countries from using the system’s encrypted navigation system.

The move has enraged the British Government – UK scientists were instrumental in developing much of the technology utilised by Galileo, while Britain has believe to have ploughed £1billion into the project.

Work on Galileo accounts for half of SSTL’s annual revenues, and unless the dispute is worked out, the company’s latest contract to carry out work on the system will be its last involvement. SSTL is not allowed to bid to provide the fourth set of satellites due to be launched under the umbrella of Galileo. www.express.co.uk

NMCG brainstorms on G-governance of Namami Gange programme through Geospatial technology

National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) organized a brainstorming session on World GIS Day 2018 in New Delhi with the theme ‘G-Governance of Namami Gange programme through Geospatial Technology’. The objective of the session was to share the knowledge on use and application of geospatial technology for monitoring and management of various activities being undertaken under Namami Gange Programme, and also provide feedback on the current use of this technology with reference to Ganga Basin.

Speaking on the occasion Shri U.P Singh, Secretary, Ministry of Water Resources River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation said that the lack of reliable data is the biggest challenge in the water sector. Geospatial technology can give vital information about the river basin for better monitoring, planning and feedback about programmes for river cleaning and rejuvenation, he said.

NMCG has signed an MoU with National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) in the use of geospatial technology in June 2015. They have developed Bhuvan Ganga Geoportal and Bhuvan Ganga Mobile Application .

Bhuvan Ganga Geoportal is available for water quality monitoring, hydrological monitoring, geomorphological monitoring, bio-resources monitoring, and comprehensive geospatial database. Speaking on the occasion Shri Santanu Chowdhury,Director, National Remote Sensing Centre said that the Bhuvan Ganga mobile application is a userfriendly application to enable user/ public to collect and report information on various pollution sources that affect water quality of River Ganga.

IIT Kanpur is executing a project on ‘Reconstructing the Ganga of the Past from Corona archival imagery’Deliverables of Corona project would be to make all processed Corona images available for upload on public portal such as Bhuvan, develop an Atlas of the Ganga River showing a comparison between 1960s and the present, establish the reference condition of the Ganga river and quantify the changes in morphological characteristics and landuse/ land-cover within the Ganga valley between 1960s and present, propose a policy document on ‘desirable’ landuse within the Ganga valley, capacity building for Corona image processing through training workshops including development of a working manual.

Another project under execution is on ‘Generation of Digital Elevation Model/ Digital Terrain Model using suitable sensors on airborne platform for a corridor along the main stem of River Ganga’ by Survey of India. http://pib.nic.in