OpenGeoHub Foundation: Connect | Create | Share | Repeat

Discussion forum: Open Source software and data formats for Big EO data: how to choose between R, Python, Julia, and different data formats?
2022-08-31 17:00 - 18:00 UTC | online
Discussion forum “Open Source software and data formats for Big EO data: how to choose between R, Python, Julia and different data formats?”
Let’s explore the challenges and opportunities of open source software for big earth observation data, together with leading experts and developers, alongside the choice of the best data formats.
Join this interactive discussion, ask us your questions and answer ours online!
This forum is part of the OpenGeoHub Summer School 2022, an annual event that has been running at various locations in Europe and Canada and Australia since 2010. Every year, we invite researchers and specialists who we think are especially active (and successful) in developing open source software and open data, and helping other researchers improve their analysis and modelling frameworks. The 2022 event will be held in a hybrid form with physical lectures and hackathons with the support of the KISTE project.
This year, we will have the pleasure to host the following speakers : Martijn Visser I Maarten Pronk I Edzer Pebesma I Martin Fleischmann I Krzystof Dyba I Ben Graeler I Markus Abel I Edzer Pebesma I Leandro Parente I Christian Autermann I Markus Konkol I Jakub Nowosad I Martin Schultz I Ribana Roscher I Patrick Schratz I Hanna Meyer I Tim Appelhans
For additional information, you can visit the summer school’s webpage, and the websites of OpenGeoHub, 52 north and the KISTE project.
This event is free of cost and no profit will be made.

OpenGeoHub Summer School Siegburg 2022
2022-08-28 - 2022-09-03 | Friendly City Hotel Oktopus, Siegburg (Germany), Zeithstraße 110, Siegburg, Germany
Summer School 2022 / KISTE project workshop: “Open Source solutions for Earth system data (R, OSGeo, Python)”
Dates: 28 August 2022 – 03 September 2022
Location: Friendly City Hotel Oktopus, Siegburg (Germany)
OpenGeoHub Summer School is an annual event that has been running at various locations in Europe and Canada and Australia since 2010. Every year, we invite researchers and specialists who we think are especially active (and successful) in developing open source software and open data, and helping other researchers improve their analysis and modeling frameworks. The 2022 event will be held in a hybrid form with physical lectures and hackathons with the support from the KISTE project. The Summer School will include:

Live presentations and demos by leading R and OSGeo developers,
5 days of Earth System Analysis training sessions and R / OSGeo tutorials
Including 1 day of R-Spatial workshops,
Including 1 focus day “extreme events”,
Discussion panels and break-out rooms.

This Summer School is a not-for-profit event and can be followed online. Registrations are open till May 29th!
Registrations and more information at this link.

Innovative governance, environmental observations and digital solutions in support of the European Green Deal
2022-07-19 08:00 - 22:00 | Wageningen University Campus, Droevendaalsesteeg 2, Wageningen, Netherlands
Open-Earth-Monitor is a Horizon Europe project gathering a consortium of 23 organizations across Europe and beyond. The mission of the Open-Earth-Monitor project consortium is to significantly accelerate the uptake of environmental information to guide current and future users in research, decision-making and citizens toward the most sustainable solutions.
The consortium invites you to join the project launch in Wageningen (NL) & get to know the future activities, outputs and outstanding researchers part of the Open-Earth-Monitor project.
Registration is compulsory at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/open-earth-monitor-project-launch-tickets-324747728197
Deadline for registration: 1 June 2022
Programme

9:00 –10:30 | Open-Earth-Monitor 2022–2026 “Big Earth Observation Data and upcoming ESA and NASA missions” (Room C0222)
10:30 –11:00 |Coffee break
11:00 –12:30 |”From big EO data to decisions” and demo sessions (Eurodatacube, Sentinel-Hub, openEO, eumap, OpenLandMap) (Room C0222) by Tom Hengl (OpenGeoHub), Gilberto Camara (INPE-Brazile), Alexander Jacob (EURAC), Markus Reichstein (Max-Planck-Institute for Biogeochemistry)
12:30 –13:30 | Lunch (1st-floor cafeteria)
13: 30 –15:30 |”How to produce and release FAIR environmental data? A crash course”(Room C0222) by Leandro Parente (OpenGeoHub), Edzer Pebesma (ifGI, University of Muenster)
15:00 –15:30 | Coffee break
15:30 –17:00 | “Global and EU-scale environmental data infrastructures and monitoring initiatives in the context of the European Green Deal” (Room C0222)
17:00 – 17:30 | Discussion forum “How can EO and AI help deliver green new deal/ what could be the most cost-effective path — the win-win-win?” (Room C0222)
18:00-19:00 | Happy hour (Forum building)
19:30 – 22:00 | Closing dinner (TBD)

Open-Earth-Monitor Project Launch
2022-07-17 - 2022-07-20 | Wageningen University Campus, Droevendaalsesteeg 2, Wageningen, Netherlands
A cyberinfrastructure to accelerate the uptake of environmental information and help build user communities at European and global levels

Horizon Europe > CL6-2021 > GOVERNANCE-01-16
Date: July 17–20, 2022
Location: Wageningen University Campus, Forum Building, room C222, Droevendaalsesteeg 2 Wageningen
Official website: https://earthmonitor.org/
Internal (for partners only)

Objectives:

Prepare and launch basic infrastructure for the project management including: project website, initial communication and dissemination plan, a working project management system, common and public calendars (to add events, deadlines etc);
Start doing the production work on first deliverables including: D1.1 Project governance guidelines, D1.2 Implementation plan 2022-2026 1st version, D1.3 Data Management Plan (DMP) 1st version;
Announce the project publicly, collect initial feedback and start networking with potential partner projects and organizations;
Announce the job openings and important project events in year 2022 and 2023;
Initiate a newsletter (public + internal) and a Medium channel where all important blog posts will be published;

About Open-Earth-Monitor project
Open-Earth-Monitor is a Horizon Europe project gathering a consortium of 23 organizations with a total budget of about 13M EUR. The overall objective of the Open-Earth-Monitor is to build a FAIR-compliant cyberinfrastructure, based on the cloud-based implementation of open source software, to serve robust and generic data science tools to a diversity of European and global programmes and actions (e.g. European Green Deal actions, Copernicus Land Monitoring Programme, Copernicus Climate Change Service, GEOSS, Destination Earth and similar) for the ultimate purpose of increasing the health and quality of life of EU citizens now and into the future. Specific project objectives include:

Produce an inventory of user needs, data and knowledge that will be used to develop a general framework for increasing uptake and accessibility/exploitability of environmental observation information.
Design, implement and release an operational solution for processing and serving EO data, environmental in-situ-data, and AI, ML and HPC models (OEMC-computing-engine).
Design, implement and release a suite of intuitive tools to enable targeted end-users to monitor the status of natural resources at European / Global scales and production of environmental B2B solutions.
Design, implement and release a comprehensive and systematic platform to enhance the FAIRness (findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability) of environmental observation data.
Achieve notable and permanent improvement in access for European stakeholders to existing European and Global environmental observation data and actionable information.

MOOD Summer School 2022
2022-06-20 08:00 - 2022-06-22 19:00 | Agropolis Building, 1000 Av. Agropolis, Montpellier, 34000, France
To support the uptake of the Horizon-2020 MOOD project’s innovations, WP6 led by OpenGeoHub will implement a dynamic knowledge transfer and capacity building addressing young researchers (Ph.D. candidates), professionals, and technical staff through an exciting summer school on June 20th, 21st, and 22nd, 2022 in Montpellier (France). Throughout a three-day full-immersion training, expert lecturers will promote developed software and computing techniques, tools, and datasets.
More info & registrations here.
Type: hybrid

OpenDataScience Europe Workshop 2022
2022-06-13 08:00 - 2022-06-16 17:00 | Faculty of Civil Engineering, Czech Technical University, Thákurova 7, Praha 6,, Prague, Czech Republic
The workshop is part of the activities within the framework of Geo-harmonizer: EU-wide automated mapping system for harmonization of Open Data based on FOSS4G and Machine Learning. Geo-harmonizer is an European project, financed by the European Commission through the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA).
Connecting Europe through Earth Observation and Open Data Missions
The workshop 2022 follows the main topics of the project:
1. Dynamic mapping of land cover, vegetation, climate, and environmental quality indices,
2. Spatiotemporal Machine Learning using Ensemble techniques,
3. Earth Data Cubes: spatiotemporal overlay, modeling, and visualization,
4. Geocomputing and geo-harmonization using Python, R, and Open Source GIS GDAL, GRASS GIS, QGIS
5. Processing large raster datasets using High Performance and Distributed Computing,
6. Using geospatial harmonized European map products.
7. Using AR/VR for geospatial data visualization

Info, registrations and abstract sumbission here.

Global Land Use and Land Cover Monitoring: Main Products and Major Perspectives
2022-06-03 14:30 - 16:30 | Wageningen University Campus, Droevendaalsesteeg 2, Wageningen, Netherlands
About:

As the global population grows, humankind continues to modify the land use and land cover (LULC) of the planet mainly motivated by the increasing demand for food and commodities production.
In the last 50 years, about 17% of land use on the Earth’s surface has changed, an unprecedented conversion of natural landscapes modifying climate regimes, reducing biodiversity and contributing to the overall global warming. This process has been under close monitoring for many decades through satellites orbiting the Earth (e.g. Landsat-8, Sentinel-2, PROBA-V), responsible for frequently delivering updated image data on a global scale. Thanks to the recent advances in Machine Learning, high processing/cloud computing and remote sensing have allowed multiple research institutes to transform this large imagery archive into LULC mapping products, contributing to a better understanding of the drivers behind land conversion and their impacts on the global environment.
In this discussion panel, you will learn more about the main LULC products produced by the World Resource Institute, the University of Maryland and Wageningen University, including their methodology, characteristics, applicability, limitations as well future perspectives. During the discussion, the audience will have the opportunity to ask questions and make comments on specific topics.
Follow the live stream with:

Monitoring the pulse of the planet’s land and its nature-based carbon – Fred Stolle (World Resources Institute)
Global land cover change and human impact on natural land – Matthew Hansen (University of Maryland)
Advancements in European efforts in global land cover mapping and map updating – Dainius Masiliunas and Nandika Tsenbazar (Wageningen University and Research)

General information:

This discussion forum is free-of-costs and can be followed in person or via Teams’ streaming service;
To follow the live stream, register on Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/global-land-use-and-land-cover-monitoring-main-productsmajor-perspectives-tickets-344785862797
The event is organized by the OpenGeoHub foundation in collaboration with Wageningen University;
After the discussion panel, we invite the participants to join the Happy Hour at the Spot bar (Orion building, ground floor).

2022 Living Planet Symposium
2022-05-23 - 2022-05-27 | World Conference Center Bonn, Platz d. Vereinten Nationen 2, Bonn, 53113, Germany
The European Space Agency’s 2022 Living Planet Symposium which is held every three years, will take place on 23–27 May 2022 in Bonn, Germany. The symposium is organised with the support of the German Aerospace Center (DLR).
This symposium focuses on how Earth observation contributes to science and society, and how disruptive technologies and actors are changing the traditional Earth observation landscape, which is also creating new opportunities for public and private sector interactions.
Visit the official website.

Applications deadline for the OpenGeoHub vacancies 2022
2022-05-01
Last call to apply for the OpenGeoHub vacancies:

Post-doctoral data scientist: Geocomputation for global environmental monitoring
Research assistant / PhD candidate: Geocomputation for econometric assessment of ecosystem services
Research assistant / PhD candidate: Land Degradation & Land Potential modelling
Project manager – project coordinator assistant
Communication officer/multimedia assistant

Check out the general selection process to work at our institute!
Vacancies will close on May 1st -end of the day.

MOOD Science Webinars
2022-01-26 15:30 - 16:00 | Zoom
Every last Wednesday of the month, as part of the EU-H2020 MOOD communication and dissemination activities, OpenGeoHub hosts a series of science webinars inviting two leading experts to share their research work on disease surveillance and modelling in data science, the impact of global warming on disease outbreaks, and the building of one-health systems across Europe and the world. With the MOOD science webinars, we aim at bringing the leading scientists and professionals in the field to discuss important recent discoveries and discuss implications of their work.
We especially encourage presentations on published research work focusing on: how was the work implemented? What were the main discoveries? What did and did not work out the way you expected? and what are the implications of the main discoveries, especially in the context of the MOOD project objectives?

Join the next MOOD Science webinar!
Every last Wednesday of the month (except August and December), from 3 to 4 PM (CET). Click on the button below to join the Zoom meeting using the passcode.
Join us on Zoom
Meeting ID: 890 6145 6726
Passcode: [REDACTED]

Biodiversity: how big is our global biodiversity debt and what can we do about it?
2021-12-23 15:00 - 16:30 | Zoom
OpenGeoHub Science seminar series 2021
According to climate-expert prof. Johan Rockström, human-induced critical loss of biodiversity on land and in oceans is one of the biggest modern-time risks of leading to global ecosystem instability. Loss of biodiversity, especially in the Tropics, is one of the 9 tipping points of irreversible climate change and life quality degradation on our planet. We have only a few decades to reverse the negative trends and start valuing biodiversity realistically. i.e. using financial damages and risks also affecting the next generations. But how to measure biodiversity and what is our global biodiversity debt? How much can we learn from the further and closer past? Two biodiversity scientists from the University of Amsterdam and Leiden join us to discuss their discoveries with modelling species dynamics through time using historic data and biogeography.
Registration via Eventbrite.
Programme:
15:00–15:20: Introduction to the topic/questionnaire: “what is our (human) global biodiversity debt?”
15:20–15:50: “Biodiversity: some lessons from the last 100k years” by Dr. Kenneth Rijsdijk, Universiteit van Amsterdam

It is long known that the present-day distribution of species (biodiversity) is shaped by geological forces such as mountain formation and drifting of the continents that separated species over millions of years. Also it is well known that present day distributions of plants and animals, including us, are the effect of more recent migrations, be it active (humans) or randomly (seeds). Only recently, we discovered that sea level fluctuations forced by natural climatic change cycles acting over 100,000 yrs played a major part in the distribution of organisms across our planet. This research contributes to our understanding of how much change species naturally endured – if we know the baseline rate of natural change, we can compare it with rates of change induced by humans; and evaluate whether the present-time biota would be able to keep up.

Kenneth is assistant professor at the BIOMAC Research Group of IBED University of Amsterdam. His research is focused on the dynamics of abiotic processes that shape the earth’s surface and affect biota. He is especially interested in how environmental processes affect landscapes and ecosystems.
Recent publications:
Rijsdijk, K.F., Hengl, T., Norder, S.J., Otto, R., Emerson, B.C., Ávila, S.P., López, H., van Loon, E.E., Tjørve, E. and Fernández‐Palacios, J.M., (2014). Quantifying surface‐area changes of volcanic islands driven by Pleistocene sea‐level cycles: Biogeographical implications for the Macaronesian archipelagos. Journal of Biogeography, 41(7), pp.1242-1254.
Fernández‐Palacios, J.M., Rijsdijk, K.F., Norder, S.J., Otto, R., de Nascimento, L., Fernández‐Lugo, S., Tjørve, E. and Whittaker, R.J., (2016). Towards a glacial‐sensitive model of island biogeography. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 25(7), pp.817-830.
Rijsdijk, K.F., Buijs, S., Quartau, R., Aguilée, R., Norder, S.J., Ávila, S.P., De Medeiros, S.M.T., Nunes, J.C.C., Elias, R.B., Melo, C.S. and Stocchi, P., (2020). Recent geospatial dynamics of Terceira (Azores, Portugal) and the theoretical implications for the biogeography of active volcanic islands. Frontiers of Biogeography.

15:50–16:20: “Global hotspots of biological and cultural diversity: exploring the parallels between biogeography & geolinguistics” by Dr. Sietze Norder, Universiteit Leiden

Planet Earth houses a fascinating and abundant diversity in terms of plant- and animal species, as well as in human cultures. Surprisingly, hotspots of biological and cultural diversity are often found in similar locations. A better understanding of the environmental and societal drivers underlying these patterns is urgent because global biocultural diversity is severely threatened. Species are currently going extinct at rates which largely exceed long-term background rates. The same is true for cultures: the global variation in languages for example, one aspect of cultural diversity, is declining rapidly as well. In this talk, SIetze will discuss the spatial distribution of bio- and cultural diversity, their drivers, and how an integrated perspective could provide opportunities for their conservation.

Sietze studies how patterns of biological and cultural diversity have been shaped by interactions between climate, topography, and ecology. While he has a background in biogeography, he is now a postdoctoral researcher at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics where he applies methods and theories from biogeography to patterns of human cultural diversity and migration. He has recently published a book on island biodiversity called: “The World in Miniature” (currently only available in Dutch; an English summary is available here).
Recent publications:
Norder, S.J. (2021) De wereld in het klein: wat eilanden ons vertellen over de relatie tussen mens en natuur. https://sietzenorder.nl/en/island-book/
Norder, S.J. et al. (2021). Global change in microcosms: environmental and societal predictors of land cover change on the Atlantic Ocean Islands. Anthropocene, 30, 100242 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ancene.2020.100242
Norder S.J. et al. (2019). Beyond the Last Glacial Maximum: island endemism is best explained by long-lasting archipelago configurations. Global Ecology and Biogeography. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12835
16:20–16:30: Summary discussion and closing points
Discussion topics:

What are the state-of-the-art biodiversity indices? And which are actually used in decision making / ecosystem accounting?
What is our global biodiversity debt (since pre-industrial time)?
How much do international initiatives such as GBIF and ESA EO missions help tackle the problems of biodiversity loss?
How important is biodiversity in the time of COVID-19 pandemic (and does it have anything to do with the pandemic)?
What can we learn from the past? Which are currently the best models of biodiversity preservation / regeneration?
How will global climate change / global warming affect biodiversity and how much should we worry?

References:

Skidmore, A. K., Coops, N. C., Neinavaz, E., Ali, A., Schaepman, M. E., Paganini, M., … & Wingate, V. (2021). Priority list of biodiversity metrics to observe from space. Nature ecology & evolution, 5(7), 896-906. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-021-01451-x
Perry P. (2019). Easter Island Shows Why Humanity Will Be Extinct Within 100 Years. BigThink.com.
Larry J. Gorenflo, et al., (2012). Co-occurrence of Linguistic and Biological Diversity in Biodiversity Hotspots and High Biodiversity Wilderness Areas. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 109, no. 21: 8032-8037. https://doi.org/10.103/pnas.1117511109
Lenton, T. M., Rockström, J., Gaffney, O., Rahmstorf, S., Richardson, K., Steffen, W., & Schellnhuber, H. J. (2019). Climate tipping points—too risky to bet against. Nature, https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-03595-0
Turner, W., Rondinini, C., Pettorelli, N., Mora, B., Leidner, A. K., Szantoi, Z., … & Koh, L. P. (2015). Free and open-access satellite data are key to biodiversity conservation. Biological Conservation, 182, 173-176. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2014.11.048

Geo-Hamonizer Christmas Party
2021-12-22 16:00 - 18:00 | Zoom
The Geo-harmonizer consortium is organizing the Geo-Harmonizer Christmas Party on Wednesday 22nd December, from 4 – 6 PM (CET) to celebrate the end of the year and the achievements of our project in 2021!

This event aims to present an overview of the project, as well as to announce important information for future appointments. But don’t worry, this is not a usual online meeting! We are inviting you to an engagement party with questionnaires (zoom poll), Xmas toast and an online game: How much do you know about the GeoHarmonizer?

Open Data Science Europe Workshop
2021-09-06 09:00 - 17:00 | Wageningen International Conference Center, Wageningen International Conference Center, Wageningen, Netherlands
The Open Data Science Europe Workshop will be held at the Wageningen International Conference Center (WICC).

Abstract submission deadline: 1st of May 2021
Registration deadline: 1st of July 2021

This event is sponsored by the OpenGeoHub foundation: no participation fees will be charged. Participants are, however, expected to finance their own travel and accommodation expenses. Majority of lectures will be broadcasted live using Zoom and Youtube channels. To submit an abstract and/or register please visit: https://opendatascience.eu

Summer School 2021
2021-09-01 08:00 - 2021-09-03 17:00 | Virtual
The 2021 event took place from 1st to 3rd of September virtually, with all training sessions being broadcasted live on Zoom, giving everyone the opportunity to attend and network from anywhere on the globe!
The Summer School 2021 featured:

Live presentations and demos by leading R and OSGeo developers;
2 days of training sessions and R / OSGeo tutorials;
1 day of R-Spatial workshops;
Discussion panels and break-out rooms;

GEOSTAT Summer School 2018
2021-08-19 08:00 - 2021-08-25 17:00 | Zámek 1, 252 43 Průhonice, Czechia, Zámek 1, 252 43 Průhonice, Czechia, Czech Republic
The IBOT, Prague 2018 Summer School (Sunday, August 19, 2018 to Saturday, August 25, 2018) is the 13th in a series of summer schools organized by R and Open Source (OS) GIS developers and enthusiasts. Summer school theme: spatial and spatio-temporal data analysis with R and OS GIS.

OGH Summer School Wageningen 2020
2020-08-17 08:00 - 2020-08-21 17:00 | Wageningen International Conference Center, Wageningen International Conference Center, Wageningen, Netherlands
The OpenGeoHub 2020 Summer School aims at bringing together the leading FOSS4G and R spatial developers (i.e. actual people involved in developing, documenting and maintaining packages). Lecturers run tutorials and introduction/motivation speeches which will be partially video-recorded. The topics of the summer school are:

New R packages and functionality, new FOSS4G software and standards,
Geocomputing using R and Open Source GIS GDAL, GRASS GIS, SAGA GIS, QGIS,
Processing large raster data sets using R,
Combining computing using R and Python,
Using FOSS4G software for predictive soil, vegetation and environmental mapping,

The special theme of the Summer School 2020 is:
“Developing Machine Learning Algorithms for spatial and spatiotemporal data science problems”

The climate-crisis and the future of our planet: a fact-checking session
2020-02-25 08:00 - 17:00 | Speakers Corner, IMPULSE, Stippeneng 2, Wageningen, Netherlands
Prepared by: Tom Hengl (OpenGeoHub) and Ichsani Wheeler (OpenGeoHub)
Venue: Speakers Corner, IMPULSE (how to get to IMPULSE)
Time: 15:30 uur tot 18:30 uur
Target groups: researchers, start-ups, global data providers
Invitations: ESG mailing list, MSc / PhD level students
Rationale
From the extensive fires in Australia to the melting of glaciers and Antarctica’s ice, it appears that global warming is happening even faster than we may have anticipated2. Could it get even worse and can we save the planet by buying an electric car, installing solar panels around our house and/or going vegan? Is Greta Thunberg perhaps too radical or should we become even more radical? There seems to be plenty of evidence for serious concern about the speed of crisis: after all the COPs, with everything having been said and done, we are still emitting more and more CO2 globally.1,5 Could planting 1 trillion trees potentially save us from global warming? How important is the role of agriculture in mitigation of climate change (and has it been exaggerated?).7,11 What are the best strategies for independent actions (human species) and can these be implemented without international agreements? Is the nature of the current world economy (natural resource exploitation-based for-profit liberal capitalism) basically a prolonged self-destruction?8,9
Ripple et al. (2019) recently published an overview of the main known trends of global ecosystem degradation and related climate-crisis. By reviewing the plots in Ripple et al. (2019) one could conclude that any business-as-usual world economy will certainly bring us to the brink of extinction. Although it seems that we potentially have all the technology and knowledge to transition to a “better”, greener economy, it could very well be that it will eventually require that we entirely give up on GDP growth decades (Meadows & Randers 2012). Or is there a smooth transition + adaptation path where we do not have to immediately stop flying, driving, farming animals, using plastic? In the end, we need an economy to prepare for the adaptation.3 Are there faster and more efficient solutions to address global warming and too much CO2 in the atmosphere? And how can we establish an objective system that tracks and reports on the status of the environment without too much controversy?4,6
The presenters will challenge participants to do some fact-checking to see how environmental- / climate-crisis-aware they are. Presentations will take cca 30 minutes after which the floor will be open for questions and discussion.
Discussion points:

How accurate is your knowledge of the environmental-/climate-crisis and global warming?

Is Australia soon going to all burn up?

What are the currently known, best-bet solutions and strategies for mitigating global warming and similar environmental degradation problems?

Would planting 1 trillion trees by itself solve the global warming problem?

How can we all contribute (locally, regionally, globally) to preventing massive extinction of species in the future (including humans!)?

Programme:

15:30–16:00: (I. Wheeler) Fact-checking: how good is your knowledge of environmental-/climate-crisis? (30 min),

16:00–16:30: (L. Leal Parente) Deforestation and forest fires in Brazil (30 min)

16:30–17:00: (T. Hengl) Earth without people: mapping potential natural vegetation using Machine Learning and global point data sets (30 min)

17:00–17:30: Fact-checking results and discussion panel

17:30–18:00: OpenGeoHub.org borrel

References:

BBC News (2019). Stop abusing land, scientists warn.

BBC News (2020). Sir David Attenborough warns of climate ‘crisis moment’.

Clark, R (2020). David Attenborough is making the same mistake as Greta Thunberg. The Spectator.

Espey, J. (2019). Sustainable development will falter without data. Nature, 571, 299-299.

EuroNews (2019). EU still among top 3 world CO2 emitters, new data shows.

Kulmala, M. (2018). Build a global Earth observatory. Nature 553, 21-23.

Malhotra, A., Todd-Brown, K., Nave, L. E., Batjes, N. H., Holmquist, J. R., Hoyt, A. M., … & Vindušková, O. (2019). The landscape of soil carbon data: emerging questions, synergies and databases. Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment, 43(5), 707-719.

Meadows, D., & Randers, J. (2012). The limits to growth: the 30-year update. Routledge.

Perry P. (2019). Easter Island Shows Why Humanity Will Be Extinct Within 100 Years. BigThink.com

Ripple, W. J., Wolf, C., Newsome, T. M., Barnard, P., & Moomaw, W. R. (2019). World scientists’ warning of a climate emergency. BioScience.

Rogers, A. (2019). Trying to Plant a Trillion Trees Won’t Solve Anything. Wired.

Summer School 2019
2019-09-01 08:00 - 2019-09-07 17:00 | Institute for Geoinformatics, Heisenbergstraße 2, 48149 Münster, Heisenbergstraße 2, Münster, Germany
The 2019 Summer School focussed on ‘Spatial and spatiotemporal computing: processing large-scale Earth observation data’, and was held at the University of Münster.

International Summer School on Geospatial Data Science with R
2019-08-25 08:00 - 2019-09-01 17:00 | Institute of Geography, Loebdergraben 32, 07743 Jena, Loebdergraben 32, Jena, Germany
This “International Summer School on Geospatial Data Science with R” will be held in Jena in the period 25 August to 1 September 2019. For more info see: https://jupiter.geogr.uni-jena.de/summerschool/about/
Organizer: Spatial Data and Visualization, GIScience group,
Department of Geography, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena

UseR 2019 Toulouse - France
2019-07-09 08:00 - 2019-07-12 17:00 | Congress centre “Pierre Baudis”, Congress centre "Pierre Baudis", Toulouse, France
The useR! 2019 will happen in Toulouse – France in the period July 9-12, 2019. Some important dates:

Opening of submission (both tutorials, abstracts and scholarship application): December 17
Closing of tutorial submissions: January 18
Opening of registration: January 21
Tutorial selection: February 15
Closing of abstract submissions and diversity scholarship application: March 1

We are again expecting many exciting session on geographical data processing and visualization (based on the R-spatial and R-sig-geo).
For more info refer to: http://www.user2019.fr/dates/

International Summer School 2019 – Matera, Italy
2019-06-03 08:00 - 17:00 | Università degli Studi della Basilicata, Via del Castello, 75100 Matera, Italy, Via del Castello, 75100, Matera, Italy
One week training course in Geocomputation Using Free & Open Source Software will be held this year in Matera, Italy. To register for this course please follow this link: http://spatial-ecology.net/
Trainers:

Giuseppe Amatulli,Ph.D. (Yale University, USA, Spatial ecology).
Longzhu Shen, Ph.D. (University of Cambridge, UK).
Francesco Lovergine, Ph.D. (CNR Bari, Italy).

Mapping the world's land status and land potential — new data products and services 2018/2019
2018-09-19 15:30 - 18:30 | Speakers Corner, IMPULSE, Stippeneng 2, Wageningen, Netherlands
Public seminar and discussion panel
Prepared by: Tom Hengl (Envirometrix BV) and Martin Herold (WUR)
Venue: Speakers Corner, IMPULSE (how to get to IMPULSE)
Time: 15:30–18:30
Target groups: researchers, start-ups, global data users…
Rationale:
The technology and science supporting environmental and agricultural monitoring have expanded rapidly over the last 5–10 years (Herold et al. 2016; Ouma 2016; Erb et al. 2017). These trends reflect the exponential growth of internet technology, Remote Sensing missions, LiDAR, soil spectroscopy, mobile technology and automated sensor systems. In 2013 ESA (European Space Agency) initiated Sentinel RS missions which now deliver Terabytes of real-time data on land cover dynamics, soil moisture and surface water dynamics. The German Aerospace Center (DLR) TANDEM-x project is planning a release of global land surface model (including global map of forest canopy heights) at 100 m resolution and at unprecedented vertical accuracy (Martone et al. 2018). EU CAP in 2018 is now really starting to focus on Copernicus (Land) with planned performance-based CAP payments of $19bn. If we add to this list NASA’s and JAXA’s land survey missions (e.g. Shimada et al. 2014; Yamazaki et al. 2017), it is easy to conclude that access to management-ready land data, even at the farm level, should no longer represent a limitation. All the mentioned systems are increasingly open i.e. distributing data without limitation, which if especially important for all nature conservation and land restoration projects (Turner et al. 2014; Gibbs & Salmon, 2015). It is increasingly easy to download terabytes of free remote sensing data from the web. This however implies that we will have to change our ways of data storage, management and analysis.
The presenters will describe some new data products and services that are primarily based on the latest Copernicus Land programme, JAXA’s ALOS radar and topographic missions and similar open data projects. Presentations will include live demos of the functionality and instructions on how to access new data and services. Each presentation will take 20 minutes + 10 minutes for questions. After the presentations 30 minutes are reserved for a discussion panel.
Discussion points:

what are the new exciting global data projects in 2018/2019?
what are the new areas/applications that could result from these data?
what have we learned from previous global data releases?
how can we prepare for the big new data workflows and how can we help make these data decision-ready and application-oriented?

Programme:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1t-RXpf1hhA0600hR5kZNtf2DDIbQVV9hO7Emlg4ZmMc/edit?usp=sharing
(Working programme under construction)

15:30–15:40: (T. Hengl) Introduction and overview,
15:40–16:10: (M. Herold) Global Land Monitoring and Mapping at high resolution (20 min + 10 min discussion),
16:10–16:40: (T. Collins) Technological disruptions and challenges for land restoration (20 min + 10 min discussion),
16:40–17:10: (T. Hengl) Mapping Potential Natural Vegetation using machine learning and legacy scientific data / GBIF records (20 min + 10 min discussion),
17:10–17:20: (B. MacMillan): OpenGeoHub.org virtual school on spatial analysis launch
17:20–17:45: Discussion panel
17:45–18:00: OpenGeoHub.org borrel (official launch!)
18:00–21:00: OpenGeoHub dinner (Creative Garden Wageningen)

References:

Copernicus Programme https://land.copernicus.eu/

Erb, K. H., Luyssaert, S., Meyfroidt, P., Pongratz, J., Don, A., Kloster, S., … & Haberl, H. (2017). Land management: data availability and process understanding for global change studies. Global change biology, 23(2), 512-533. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13443

Gibbs, H. K., & Salmon, J. M. (2015). Mapping the world’s degraded lands. Applied geography, 57, 12-21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2014.11.024

Hengl T, Walsh MG, Sanderman J, Wheeler I, Harrison SP, Prentice IC. (2018) Global mapping of potential natural vegetation: an assessment of machine learning algorithms for estimating land potential. PeerJ 6:e5457 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.5457

Herold, M., See, L., Tsendbazar, N., & Fritz, S. (2016). Towards an Integrated Global Land Cover Monitoring and Mapping System. Remote Sensing, 8(12). http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rs8121036

Martone, M., Rizzoli, P., Wecklich, C., González, C., Bueso-Bello, J. L., Valdo, P., … & Moreira, A. (2018). The global forest/non-forest map from TanDEM-X interferometric SAR data. Remote Sensing of Environment, 205, 352-373. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2017.12.002

Ouma, Y. O. (2016). Advancements in medium and high resolution Earth observation for land-surface imaging: Evolutions, future trends and contributions to sustainable development. Advances in Space Research, 57(1), 110-126. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asr.2015.10.038

Shimada, M., Itoh, T., Motooka, T., Watanabe, M., Shiraishi, T., Thapa, R., & Lucas, R. (2014). New global forest/non-forest maps from ALOS PALSAR data (2007–2010). Remote Sensing of Environment, 155, 13-31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2014.04.014

The Global Land Outlook (GLO): http://www.unccd.int/glo

Turner, W., Rondinini, C., Pettorelli, N., Mora, B., Leidner, A. K., Szantoi, Z., … & Koh, L. P. (2015). Free and open-access satellite data are key to biodiversity conservation. Biological Conservation, 182, 173-176. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2014.11.048

Yamazaki, D., Ikeshima, D., Tawatari, R., Yamaguchi, T., O’Loughlin, F., Neal, J. C., … & Bates, P. D. (2017). A high accuracy map of global terrain elevations. Geophysical Research Letters. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL072874
