Supergeo and IIES Establish GIS and Remote Sensing Lab at Kuwait University

Supergeo Technologies, a leading global provider of complete GIS mapping software and solutions, cooperates with IIES (International Integrated Environmental Services Ltd) to establish a whole new Postgraduate GIS and Remote Sensing Laboratory at Kuwait University.

The new SuperGIS Lab will bring positive research results of geographic information and remote sensing technologies, as well as facilitating a closer academic-industrial collaboration among Kuwait University and two companies for achieving a variety of GIS projects.

Due to the great support from Supergeo and IIES, the laboratory was successfully established and served to spread the complete knowledge of GIS, cultivate young GIS talents, and facilitate better resource and knowledge exchange for the local government agencies, educational institutes, and businesses.

Through learning and using the professional GIS software, the postgraduate faculty is equipped with the latest GIS technologies. This would stimulate the development of academic research and hands-on experience related to GIS applications, consequently increasing the productivity and competitiveness on the domestic job market for the postgraduate students in the region.

Supergeo and IIES plan to offer advanced product training program at Kuwait University and share the best practices with the users in order to aggressively encourage the use of SuperGIS solutions. As IIES is deemed as one of the most important partners for Supergeo to develop in the Middle Eastern countries, the two companies will also co-host more GIS events in the Middle East soon.

More information about Supergeo, please visit: http://www.supergeotek.com/

More information about IIES, please visit: http://iies-kw.com/en-us/home.aspx

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About Supergeo

Supergeo Technologies Inc. is a leading global provider of GIS software and solutions. Since the establishment, Supergeo has dedicated to providing state-of-the-art geospatial technologies and comprehensive services for customers around the world. It is our vision to help users utilize geospatial technologies to create a better world.

Supergeo software and applications have been spread over the world to be the backbone of the world’s mapping and spatial analysis. Supergeo is the professional GIS vendor, providing GIS users with complete GIS solutions form desktop, mobile, server to Internet platforms.

Monday, September 30th 2013

http://www.directionsmag.com/pressreleases/supergeo-and-iies-establish-gis-and-remote-sensing-lab-at-kuwait-university/357185

Research and Markets: Precision Farming Market (GPS/GNSS, GIS, Remote Sensing & VRT) 2013 - 2018

DUBLIN -Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/4tdmh6/precision_farming) has announced the addition of the "Precision Farming Market by Technology, Components & Applications - Global Forecast & Analysis 2013 - 2018" report to their offering.

'Precision Farming Market by Technology (GPS/GNSS, GIS, Remote Sensing & VRT), Components (Automation & Control, Sensors, FMS), Applications (Yield Monitoring, VRA, Mapping, Soil Monitoring, Scouting) - Global Forecast & Analysis (2013 - 2018)'

The growth of the market is expected to be remarkable, and is estimated to reach $3.72 million by 2018, at an estimated CAGR of 13.36% from 2013 to 2018. The major players in this industry are Deere & Co. (U.S.), Trimble Navigation (U.S.), Topcon positioning systems (U.S.), Raven Industries (U.S.), Precision Planting (U.S.), AGCO (U.S.), and so on.

The major drivers for this market are augmented yield & profitability, energy & cost saving, and government assistance. Major restraints such as high initial investments and lack of awareness and their impact analysis are also covered under this study. North America, currently, leads the market share for precision farming as this region has the maximum adoption. APAC is the emerging market for precision framing and has been enjoying the highest growth rate among all the geographic regions. It is believed that the APAC market will grow at a CAGR of 25.16% from 2013 to 2018.

The report covers all the technologies, components, and applications of precision farming; it provides a detailed analysis of the current market scenario and estimation for the next five years. Major applications like field mapping and yield monitoring are driving the market. Moreover, the market is driven by important technologies like Global Positioning System (GPS) and variable rate technologies. This market is already progressing well in developed countries and it is also expected to grow well in the developing nations as a result of their ever growing food demands.

This study describes the value chain for precision framing market by considering all the major stakeholders in the market, and their role analysis. The report also performs a detailed scrutiny of the Porter's five force analysis for the market. All the five major factors in these markets have been quantified using the internal key parameters governing each of them. ...

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/4tdmh6/precision_farming


Published: Tuesday, Sep. 24, 2013 / Updated: Tuesday, Sep. 24, 2013 12:13 PM

http://www.fortmilltimes.com/2013/09/24/2979290/research-and-markets-precision.html

Fighting fire with data: how mapping tech helped beat back the Rim Fire

The past month's Rim Fire blazed through more than a quarter million acres of land in California, but the tensest moment came on August 27th, when the fire came close to threatening San Francisco's water supply. If the blaze had advanced any closer than it did, it would start dumping ash into reservoirs, spurring a potential public health crisis. Stopping the fire required the forestry equivalent of a goal line stand, dropping three DC-10s worth of retardant in an attempt to push back the blaze.

"YOU HAVE VERY LITTLE ROOM FOR ERROR."

The planes were easy to assemble, but the larger problem was knowing where to drop the payload. According to Russ Johnson, disaster response chief for a mapping company called Esri, firefighters usually target fires as they cross ridges, allowing the retardant will flow downhill and cover more ground. But the threat to the water supply had forced their hand. The fire had to be stopped on a relatively flat plane, and even minor changes in slope would make an immense difference in the payload's effect on the fire. Suddenly, firefighters needed detailed meter-to-meter elevation data on a patch of land that no one had cared about just hours before. "You have very little room for error," Johnson says, "and the consequences can be really devastating."

WHERE ARE THE IMMEDIATE THREATS?

Fortunately, they found the information they needed, pulled from government survey data and routed through Esri’s servers. The payload was dropped, together with brush-clearing bulldozers and efforts from thousands of firefighters, and the fire turned back. It’s a sign of how crucial mapping technology has become in modern disaster response. FEMA still takes the lead providing relief, but a new breed of mapping companies has sprung up to make that relief smarter and more directed, manipulating geographic information systems (GIS) to show responders where their help is needed most. Simply corralling publicly available data can be the difference between containing a fire and watching it slip out of control.

Esri is one of those companies, currently working with FEMA to manage the Colorado floods. The important thing to remember, Johnson says, is that when first responders arrive in a flood-ravaged town, they know very little about what the town was like before. Where are the immediate threats? Where are the hospitals and power plants that will be needed once the waters subside? Working from household income data, responders can steer resources towards poorer neighborhoods where residents are less able to self-evacuate, or identify potential infrastructure failures before they occur.

As long as cell service stays up, Esri collects data from citizens on the ground, who can send in geolocated cell phone photos through Esri’s app infrastructure. "In the old days, you would be allocating new sets of resources on paper every 12 hours, and then you would get radio updates and try to make adjustments." Johnson says. "With GIS and mobile, you can model everything as it happens." And because of the open nature of the data, it can all be published on the web, as the company has done for both the Colorado floods and the Rim Fire.

"IF A MODEL HAS AN ERROR OF LESS THAN 50 PERCENT, IT IS REGARDED AS EXCEPTIONAL."

For wildfires, the same technology could someday be used to go on the offensive, predicting where fires are likely to break out and how existing fires will spread. After the Australian brush fires of 2009, which left 173 dead and more than 2,000 homes destroyed, researchers at CSIRO created the Fire Danger and Fire Spread Calculator to address just this problem, bringing together data on vegetation, land mass, moisture conditions, wind, temperature and countless other data sources to produce a comprehensive look at how wildfires develop. The software is mobile, so firefighters can take the information into the field and calculate on the fly how fast fire will spread in the region they're in, and whether it’s so dangerous that a team needs to be called back.

CSIRO combines that data with lab tests on fire itself, conducted in a massive wind tunnel they’ve dubbed the Pyrotron. Despite the massive data, it’s still a work in progress. "If a model has an error of less than 50 percent, it is regarded as exceptional," says Andrew Sullivan, a fire scientist at CSIRO. But with every well-monitored wildfire, the model improves and the number ticks a little bit higher.

The result is a dance between anticipating wildfires and monitoring them. Civil air patrols send in aerial photos of the blaze while engineers work on predictive models of where it will be hours or days into the future. Just predicting that San Francisco’s aquifers were in jeopardy required tracking wind speeds, burn rates, and dozens of other factors that change from minute to minute. The best data managers can do is build out better reporting tools until, as Johnson puts it, "all these people in the field become sensors." Until we know how to predict where a fire will go, responders and scientists alike will focus on knowing where it is as it burns.

By Russell Brandom on September 21, 2013 10:00 am Email @russellbrandom

http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/21/4753164/fighting-fire-with-maps-how-gis-tech-helped-beat-back-the-rim-fire

GIS technology automates utility operations

May 8, 2012 — 6:48am ET | By Barbara Vergetis Lundin

According to a new case study released by the Gas Technology Institute (GTI) and Ubisense, Intermountain Gas Company (Intermountain) was able to obtain a 20 percent improvement in efficiency with field survey crews in addition to automating records to assist in meeting compliance requirements.

Using Ubisense VeroTrack technology, legacy processes were streamlined by shifting from a paper process to an electronic process. The project is an example of leveraging GIS technology to automate the collection of field data to reduce costs and improve data quality.

"The GPS concept helps with the compliance requirement because it proves, with GPS location and time/date stamps, that our field technician was at the location, further validating that we are performing the required maintenance activities," said Hart Gilchrist, Manager of Operations Services for Intermountain.

The project has succeeded in demonstrating that modern gas detection devices can connect with GPS devices for accurate location, and store the information in a database to track compliance.

For more:
- see the report

Related Articles:
Geospatial Technology: Is your GIS Smart Grid Ready?
Geospatial data critical to smart grid success - FierceSmartGrid

Read more: GIS technology automates utility operations - FierceEnergy http://www.fierceenergy.com/story/gis-technology-automates-utility-operations/2012-05-08?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss#ixzz1uJq15tH7