The concept of community remote sensing combines remote sensing with citizen science, social networks and crowd-sourced data to enhance remote sensing data that is collected in the traditional sense. The 2010 IEEE International Gesocience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS), which will take place in Honolulu from July 26-30, is requesting participants for a plenary session on this topic that will support the conference theme, “Remote Sensing: Global Vision for Local Action.”

Instead of relying solely on government-sponsored satellites and earth observing systems, this emergence of citizen science offers a whole new application area of remote sensing, and the potential for new technology development. The emphasis on citizen involvement is becoming all the more crucial in the face of global change that will require greater observations in order to understand our world at all space and time scales.

If you’re involved in projects that could be considered community remote sensing, be sure to contact Bill Gail of Microsoft, who is the conference plenary chair for the event. The event website will highlight existing projects during the build-up to the event in order to provide publicity, and will also work to connect projects with related charitable organization. The organizers are looking for representative projects from the public sector, private sector, academia, and NGO perspectives.

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