Organisation: NASA Applied Remote Sensing Training Program (ARSET), Conservation International (CI) and the AmeriGEOSS program of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO)

Location: Online training/webinar

Course Overview:

Indigenous territories are threatened by fires, illegal logging, mining, and other external land use activities. The sustainable management of such land, most effectively stewarded by indigenous peoples, is critical for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, increasing resilience to climate change, conserving biodiversity, and protecting the heritage of indigenous cultures.

Earth Observations for Indigenous-led Land Management (EO4IM) is a NASA-funded project implemented by a team from Conservation International (CI) and is aligned with the AmeriGEOSS program of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and the Dedicated Grant Mechanism (DGM) for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities. The project's objective is to strengthen the technical capacities of indigenous peoples' organizations in the Americas, and globally, through alignment with the DGM.

This introductory webinar series will share lectures, case studies, and demonstrations with representatives of indigenous peoples' organisations and will focus on how Earth observations (EO) data and tools can provide spatial information for forest monitoring, mapping, and responding to ecosystem threats. This series will help attendees strengthen their technical capacities to use EO data and tools to enhance their sustainable land management practices.

The course will have weekly, 1.5-hour sessions on 5, 12 and 19 February and will be held in Spanish and English.

Organisation: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Registration closes: 22 January 2019

Webinar overview:

The United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment states: "ecosystems are critical to human well-being - to our health, our prosperity, our security, and to our social and cultural identity." Conservation and biodiversity management play important roles in maintaining healthy ecosystems. Earth observations can help with these efforts. This online webinar series introduces participants to the use of satellite data for conservation and biodiversity applications. The series will highlight specific projects that have successfully used satellite data. Examples include monitoring chimpanzee habitat loss, decreasing whale mortality, detecting penguins, monitoring wildfires, and biodiversity observation networks.

Organisation: AGU

Location: Washington, D.C., USA

Conference overview:

Quite noteworthy for the SMOS User community, the session "The global water cycle: linkages of ocean salinity with the atmosphere and terrestrial hydrology" highlights water cycle research that describes linkages between the ocean, atmosphere, and land hydrology.

Contributions are invited on all aspects of water cycle research including analyses undertaken using in situ and remote observations from current (e.g., SMAP, SMOS, GRACE, GPM, GCOM-W), past (e.g., Aquarius, TRMM), and future (e.g., SWOT, GRACE-FO) satellite missions, estimates based on numerical models, data assimilation systems, and climate model projections. Particularly welcome are contributions that consider multiple realms (the ocean, atmosphere, land surface and subsurface), and provide compelling evidence for linkages between these, describing coherent water cycle variability and change.

Organisation: ESA

Location: Salzburg, Austria

Conference overview:

In the context of the EO Science for Society Programme Element, the European Space Agency is organising ATMOS 2018, a conference on the topical theme Atmosphere aimed at exploiting data from ESA and EO Missions for science and application development.

The purpose of this conference is to provide scientists and data users with the opportunity to present first-hand and up-to-date results from their ongoing research and application development activities by using data from past and current atmospheric instruments like Sentinel-5P, Aeolus, ERS-2, Envisat, Metop, and ESA Third Party Missions. Another aspect will be on discussing activities regarding future missions.

The outcome of this conference will help to further shape the next generation of R&D activities in the frame of ESA's Earth Observation Programme.

Organisation: European Space Agency (ESA)

Location: Frascati, Italy

Event overview:

The European Space Agency (ESA) is organising a Φ-week event focusing on EO Open Science and FutureEO to review the latest developments in Open Science trends and kick-start innovative activities of the recently created Φ-department. This department and its associated Φ-lab is looking at FutureEO and aims to identify, support and scale bold EO ideas. This event will be hosted in ESA-ESRIN.

Hear about the latest trends in EO - The Φ-week will include a variety of events (e.g. inspiring talks, workshops, roundtables, start-up pitch, hackathons) to connect multi-disciplinary communities to:

• explore together how EO Open Science and innovation can benefit from the latest digital technologies and
• help shape future EO missions and services.

Organisation: European Space Agency (ESA) & CNES

Location: Paris, France

Conference overview:

Jointly organised by ESA and CNES, the 2018 Ocean Salinity Science Conference will take place from 06 to 09 November 2018 at the Sorbonne University, Paris, France.

Ocean salinity is a key parameter that links various elements of the water cycle to ocean circulation dynamics and climate. Furthermore, salinity is a key dynamical parameter that influences oceans dynamics. Through the advent of new observing technologies, remote sensing and in situ, salinity research has gained much attention over the recent years, now leading to rapidly growing new insights.

The conference intends to bring together communities working on all aspects of ocean salinity investigations, including analyses undertaken from in situ and satellite observations, numerical models, and data assimilation. The conference will review progress and ongoing work, and aims to identify the next frontiers in the fields of ocean salinity science. In particular, it will focus on recent progress in:

1. Observing ocean salinity
2. Process-based insights from field observations
3. Ocean dynamics and salinity assimilation in ocean models
4. Global freshwater cycle and climate variability
5. Biogeochemistry
6. Surface freshwater fluxes, run off, and sea ice.
7. Challenges and requirements for future salinity observing, remote sensing and in situ.

Organisation: Group on Earth Observations

Location: Kyoto, Japan

Workshop overview: Join the GEO community in Kyoto, Japan, for GEO Week 2018 and the GEO-XV Plenary.

This gathering of GEO's 105 Member governments and 126 Participating Organizations will explore efforts and opportunities for the use of Earth observations for the benefit of humankind, focusing on GEO's three priority areas:

• Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction
• Paris Climate Agreement
• UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Side events

Those interested in hosting a GEO Week side event can find all relevant information and the application form here.

Organisation: European Space Agency (ESA)

Location: Frascati, Italy

Event overview:

In the frame of the EO Science for Society Programme Element, the European Space Agency is organising the second conference on Mapping Urban Areas from Space 2018 - MUAS 2018.

The purpose of this conference is to provide scientists and data users with the opportunity to present first-hand and up-to-date results from their on-going research and application development activities by using data from past and current Satellites.

The outcome of this conference will help to further shape the next generation of R&D activities in the frame of ESA Earth Observation Programmes.

The workshop is open to:

• ESA Principal Investigators
• Co-investigators
• Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 users
• Scientists
• Students
• representatives from national, European and international space agencies and value adding industries

Organisation: African Association of Remote Sensing of the Environment

Location: Alexandria, Egypt

Conference overview:

12th biennial conference of African Association of Remote Sensing and Environment AARSE will be held in Egypt, Alexandria, Arab Academy of Science and Technology.

AARSE is the largest gathering community in remote sensing and geospatial information in Africa. The conference title is Earth Observations and Geospatial Science in service of Sustainable Development Goals.

The conference will gather expert, scientists, professionals from all over the globe to deliberate and present the up-to-date outcomes from remote sensing and geospatial information to achieve the global agenda for sustainable development 2030, particularly for Africa and developing countries.

Organisations: ESA and CNES

Location: Chania, Greece

Conference overview:

International Conference on Space Optics (ICSO) 2018 is the 12th edition of the largest meeting worldwide of experts working in all disciplines of Optical, Optoelectronic and Photonic Technologies for Space Applications.

The purpose of ICSO is to bring together the Space Optics Community and exchange information and ideas on the research, development, qualification and flight experience of using optical technologies for space missions. Technology experts meet Mission experts to address the lessons learnt from past developments and identify the next significant developments in employing light-wave technologies and techniques used in all types of Space Missions.

Organisation: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Course Overview: Land cover changes can impact many areas of life. These changes can affect deforestation, ecological communities, wildfire extent, and urban growth. This advanced series will focus on using satellite imagery to map changes in land cover. Attendees will learn change detection methods, including image subtraction and classification. They will also conduct their own change detection analysis. This training will use QGIS, the R statistical program, and the Random Forest algorithm. Both sessions will feature a lecture, time to complete a hands-on exercise, and time for questions.

The course will consist of two sessions, on 28 September and 5 October 2018.

Organisation: European Space Agency (ESA) and Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES)

Location: Ponta Delgada, Portugal

Symposium Overview:

This special symposium has been organised to mark the 25th anniversary of the first supply of ERS-1 and TOPEX/Poseidon data. The event will be sponsored by other partner agencies and organisations supporting the development of altimetry. Along with this symposium, related events will take place in the same week which includes the annual meeting of the Ocean Surface Topography Science Team (OSTST) and the International DORIS Service (IDS) Workshop, as well as other thematic workshops still to be organised; potential topics are Sea Level Budget Closure for Climate, Coastal Zone, Space for Hydrology, Argo, GODAE OceanView, Operational Oceanography, etc.

Organisation: EARSel

Location: Bochum, Germany

Workshop overview:

The Department of Geography, Ruhr-University of Bochum, are hosting a joint workshop of the Special Interest Groups:

• Urban Remote Sensing
• 3D Remote Sensing
• Developing Countries
• Radar Remote Sensing

Some of the topics that will be covered:

• Change detection techniques for urban areas
• Multitemporal analysis of urban areas
• Feature extraction strategies
• Extraction of urban areas
• Extraction of Buildings
• Mapping of road networks
• Urban heat island studies
• Data fusion for urban applications
• Modelling of urban growth
• Analysis of geohazards in urban areas

Organisation: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Course Overview: For certain applications, some satellites take too long to revisit the same spot. Some satellites are capable of consistent monitoring of the same area. This webinar series will cover satellites with a high temporal resolution for air quality applications. Attendees will learn about new and upcoming geostationary satellites, what data is available, and how to access them. The training will cover satellites over the Americas, Asia, and Africa, and feature speakers from NOAA, Yonsei University, and the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing.

Organisation: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Course Overview: Polluted water influences all aspects of life, including people, animals, and the environment. NASA satellite observations provide near real-time information about water quality. This freely available data can help decision-makers in their work. Satellite data can have applications for managing drinking water, public health, and fisheries.

This webinar series will help attendees perform advanced image processing of satellite data. Attendees will also learn about using satellites to track indicators of harmful algal blooms. This will include monitoring water temperature and chlorophyll-a concentrations. Attendees can also use this information for reporting around UN SDG 6.