AARSE 2016 Conference

The 11th AARSE International conference took place in Kampala, Uganda from 24th to 28th October 2016. The conference brought together global delegates entailing scientists, academics, practitioners, policy makers, technology developers/experts and business entities from various interdisciplinary fields of geo-information science, hazard and disaster science, humanitarian assistance, geography, engineering, geology, water, ecology, agriculture, social sciences and space science. The parties deliberated on issues of enhancing and accelerating sustainable development in Africa in the midst of natural resource degradation, conflict, global environmental changes and rapid demographic changes.

The conference was organized around 10 subthemes as follows:

  1. Space and earth observation technology for sustainable development goals
  2. Disaster risk management and resilience
  3. From climate change to climate risk management
  4. Human capital development in geospatial science
  5. Big Data and Spatial Data Infrastructure
  6. Space Policy and strategies in Africa: Cost benefit of space technology
  7. Geospatial technologies for smart cities
  8. Geospatial science and technology for water and watershed management
  9. Conflict management, human security and peace
  10. Geospatial technologies for energy management

The conference also included special sessions and workshops that took place during the main conference program or pre- or post- conference respectively:

  1. DBAR & AARSE: New Horizons for Cooperation between Africa and China
  2. UNEDRA Session
  3. GeoGLAMAfriGAM
  4. AfriGEOSS: Working Group on Land Cover for Africa Workshop
  5. COPERNICUS Session
  6. Business to Business Event
  7. GEO commercial sector engagement breakfast
  8. UAVs for Natural Resources Risk Assessment and Management in Africa
  9. Small Holder Agriculture: High resolution remote sensing in support of food production in small holder farming systems
  10. IALE session: Integration of Landscape Ecology and Geospatial technology for Sustainable Development of urban Areas in Africa
  11. Pre-conference Workshop on Data Science and Sensor technology for Emerging Data scientists and Intensive Data end-users
  12. IEEE-GRSS Summer School on Statistical Analysis of SAR Data – From Basics to Information. Scientific Publication Workshop and Introduction to the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Satellite Mission
  13. Pre-conference workshop on Integrating Landscape Ecology & geospatial Technology for Assessing Land use Dynamics & Ecosystem Services across Multiple Scales
  14. Post-conference Workshop: TIGER Initiative’s Contribution to Achieving the Water-related Sustainable Development Goals in Africa

Some of the highlights of the conference included the conferring of the AARSE Top honour award to Department of Science and Technology Director-General, Dr Phil Mjwara for his significant contribution and support to the development of Earth Observation and Geospatial Information in Africa and Africa Group on Earth Observation System of Systems (AfriGEOSS) and Group on Earth Observation (GEO) in particular. ThisHighest Award of Excellence has only been given to three people since AARSE was created 25 years ago.