Thais Help Bhutan with Satellite Imagery and other International GIS News

Bhutan will have satellite images of development facilities in each distric by year's end thanks to a three year project of its National Environment Commission (NEC). The Thailand minister of science and technology, Dr Khunying Kalaya Sophonpanich, visited in September 2009 to begin a technology relationship with Bhutan. The Thai government is providing US 9M for this project; it's not clear what the source of the imagery will be.

- Kuenselonline.com

Serbia's Minister of Environment, Mining and Spatial Planning Oliver Dulic will attend the presentation of a project to form a single geospatial data system. The project is a joint effort of the country and France worth €16 million.

- EMG

India's Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) is mapping its assets. i suspect the company, rather than the press, know what's going on.

The network, called Restructured Accelerated Power Development and Reference Programme (RAPDRP), involves putting its entire electricity distribution network on a Global Informatics System (GIS) — a derivative of the GPS — on a single screen.

- Asian Age

MomentFeed, Foursquare and others in the LBS News

MomentFeed. Inc., the first location-based marketing platform for the enterprise and a leader in the SoLoMo space, today announced a partnership with foursquare to claim venues on behalf of its clients, providing an interface to efficiently manage hundreds or thousands of locations.

- press release

Weather Underground, the world's first online weather service, announced today the availability of a time component to its interactive weather map, WunderMap(R), that enables users to go back in time and view weather overlays from historically significant storms such as Hurricane Katrina or last year's Hurricane Irene. The time controls also move the map forward to plot forecasted weather for up to 10 days into the future.

- press release

Nokia/NAVTEQ are accused of using Thai map data from Globaltech Ltd without permission. They are asked to pay about $17 million.- 

- The Nation

DigitalGlobe Release Image of Bangkok Flooding

Flooding in Bangkok, Thailand-October 24, 2011: This is a satellite image showing flooding near Bangkok, Thailand. Locals are parking their vehciles loaded with belongings on overpasses on highway ramps to protect them from being affected by flood waters. This stretch of hightway is the Sapan Nonthaburi Ban Bua Thong Highways # 3215 where it intersects with the Soi Chai Uea Highway #307. (Image and text Courtesy of DigitalGlobe).

 

Another Woman Uses GIS to Explore Marine World and other Education GIS News

In the Gulf of Thailand, where [SFSU] Associate Professor of Geography Ellen Hines conducts her field work, fishermen, scientists and policymakers know very little about the vulnerable marine life that lives locally.

But she does in part because of the use of GPS and GIS.

- SFSU News

The New Zealand Geospatial Office in collaboration with Eagle Technology has produced a prototype application, currently known as the Educational GIS web portal which aims to introduce the value of GIS to students in New Zealand High Schools.

- FutureGov which seems to source, but does not cite the NZGO blog (please cite, it's the right thing to do!)

H Ramachandran, Department of Geography, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi argues for geography in a piced titled "How to Save the World." In it, he cites some skills those pursuing GIS will/should learn.

Basic skills required are the ability to isolate similarities and diversities, observational skills, the ability to create mental maps and abstraction, and the ability to unravel the relationship between physical and human attributes. It is important to have an ability to analyse, correlate and synthesise as well as to write clearly and cogently. 

Austintown [OH] Fitch [high school] senior Alex While, 17, created a commemorative sign for Ed Wilhelm, a cross country runner for Fitch in the late 1970s who died while trying to save a girl from drowning in 1979. The sign, which also shows a map of Austintown Township Park and the current cross country course route, was installed at the finish line inside the park.

Nepal’s Original Map and other International GIS News

Nepal

Issuing a directive, the Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday asked the government to ensure that Nepali citizens have access to Nepal´s historical documents including its map, for purposes of research, viewing and reading, by setting up an entity like a museum.

The map and other documents have not been accessible to the public and this is an effort to change that. Reports suggest the actual map is in the U.S. Library of Congress.

- My Republica

Pakistan

UNESCO with the financial assistance of Japan is introducing the system to better predict flooding, using remote sensing, at a cost of 3.5 million dollars. It's expected to be up and running by 2013. The hope is the new system will be able to predict floods as early as 1 to 14 days before an event. There are no details as to what sort of remote sensing will be used.

- The News

Thailand

Esri Thailand expects a 50% increase in revenue this year based on selling GIS and services and Garmin GPS. Last year revenue was Bt1.2 billion (US 0.04 billion) and this year the expectation is BT2.0 billion (US 0.07 billion). Severy percent of the GPS devices were sold to women and the plan is to focus on "older and retired" people.

- GPS News citing Nation Multimedia