IGARSS 2022 plenary highlights remote sensing technology

The 42nd annual International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS), which was held from 17 to 22 July 2022 at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, brought together thousands of scientists and researchers from around the world.

As part of this major event, a plenary session was held on 18 July 2022, which featured welcome addresses by IGARSS 2022 General Chair and UTAR Council Member Ir Academician Emeritus Prof Tan Sri Dato’ Dr Chuah Hean Teik, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) President and Chief Executive Officer Dr K. J. Ray Liu and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (IEEE-GRSS) President Dr David B. Kunkee. 

Expressing his gratitude to the four keynote speakers from ESA, NASA, CNSA, and Google Earth Outreach, Tan Sri Chuah said, “Thank you for taking the time to share your experience and expertise at this important symposium. This is a crucial session because we are able to inspire some of the young ones. I am certain that many would agree that there had been a decline in the number of STEM students in most countries. This kind of forum will certainly help promote STEM education and promote the creation of more engineers, technologists and scientists.” He also congratulated the winners of the 2022 IEEE Fellow, 2022 IEEE GRSS Outstanding Service Award, 2022 IEEE GRSS Education Award, 2022 IEEE GRSS Fawwaz Ulaby Distinguished Achievement Award, and 2022 IEEE GRSS Industry Leader Award. 

A pre-recorded speech by Dr K. J. Ray Liu was also presented at the plenary session. In his speech, he said that IEEE is the home of engineers, scientists, technologists, practitioners, and entrepreneurs, and they form the community of IEEE. “Our members are experts from the high-risk excellence of industry and academia and are in every vital area of technology, spending almost every area one can think of,” he said, adding that joining the IEEE could help one with career growth through continuous learning and skills development, as well as job openings that offer better career and professional opportunities.

Dr David B. Kunkee, on the other hand, provided an overview of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS) and explained how it serves the communities. “IEEE GRSS is a technical society of the IEEE, focused on the advancement of the geoscience and remote sensing areas. The society provides refereed publications and sponsors international and regional conferences. It also has a range of professional activities, including awards, as well as educational programmes such as courses on IEEE Learning Network, webinar series, technical activities and standard activities,” he said and added, “GRSS does many things, but it’s really about people.” He noted that GRSS is a global community consisting of 70 chapters, 33 student branch chapters and 12 ambassadors engaged with communities in locations where they hope GRSS chapters will form in the near future.

The plenary session was followed by a keynote session, presented by Head of Science, Applications, and Climate Activities in the Earth Observation (EO) Directorate of the European Space Agency (ESA) Dr Maurice Borgeaud, Director of Earth Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Dr Karen M. St. Germain, Director of Earth Observation System and Data Center of China National Space Administration (CNSA) Dr Zhao Jian (video presentation) and Director of Engineering, Google Earth, Earth Engine & Earth Outreach of Google Ms Rebecca Moore.

In his keynote address, titled ESA Earth Observation Programmes Status and the Next Challenges, Dr Maurice Borgeaud explained what ESA does in terms of Earth observation (EO), its current status as well as its future plans. He also spoke about ESA’s role and its works in supporting the global and European Actions. “As you all know, Earth observation can contribute a lot in terms of fulfilling the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the United Nations. Out of the 17 SDGs, at least 10 can be monitored by Earth observation, for example, Sustainable Development Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation for All; Sustainable Development Goal 13: Climate Action, and Sustainable Development Goal 1: No Poverty, to name a few. We also believe that the European Green Deal would greatly benefit from the ESA’s Earth observation capabilities, both now and in the future. In addition to that, we also assist with the Sendai Framework by mitigating environmental threats to society and strengthening Global Resilience through novelty,” he informed the audience. Besides supporting the global and European Actions, he mentioned that the ESA also develops world-class EO systems with European and global partners to address scientific and societal challenges. Moving on, he also shared the challenges of dealing with huge EO data dimensions and the challenges of European new space development.

The next to present at the keynote session was Dr Karen M. St. Germain. Her presentation, which was titled NASA Earth Science: Today and Tomorrow, addressed the current state of NASA, its upcoming plans on the horizon as well as its long-term plans. She stated, “NASA Earth Science is a pretty unique agency in the US government because it is the end-to-end activity from technology investment, developing new ways of looking at our earth through fielding flight systems to doing the research that extracts meaning from those observations. It unleashes the power of science, making it useable and impactful for people who have decisions to make.” She then moved on to explain the 25 missions on orbit and in development by NASA. She particularly highlighted two of NASA’s upcoming missions, namely the SWOT and NISAR which were held in partnership with the French space agency Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) respectively. Next, she explained NASA’s Open-Source Science, in which NASA plans to initiate training programmes, tools, policies, etc. According to her, all of NASA’s missions in the future will abide by this Open-Source Science policy and practice. Last but not least, she shared NASA’s major initiatives for the next decade and its global collaboration with the ESO.

In his video presentation titled China’s Remote Sensing Contributes to the Protection of Earth, Dr Zhao Jian first introduced the background of CNSA and EO System and Data Center. He shared about the remote sensing development in China and said, “Up till now, China has more than 300 satellites on orbit, including satellites in the field of remote sensing, communication, navigation, positioning and technological experiments. In terms of remote sensing, it mainly includes meteorological satellites, ocean satellites and land observation satellites. Since 2015, the State Council has officially issued a plan for the construction of national civil space infrastructure.” He stated that 88 satellites will be developed and launched by 2025 to realise the large-scale and industrialised development of the spatial information industry, and additionally, the China government has also implemented the China High-resolution Earth Observation System Project. He then shared about the application of the project and continued his talk on international cooperation in the field of Earth observation in China. “Up till now, more than 150 inter-governmental space cooperation agreements have been signed with more than 50 countries and international organisations. Among them, there are 39 cooperation agreements in the field of Earth observation,” he said. He also shared the application cases of Earth observation in China as well as the prospects of Earth observation in China. 

Bearing the title Harnessing Geospatial Cloud Computing and AI for this Decade of Action, Ms Rebecca Moore’s presentation focused on Google Earth Engine and its applications, and what people have done with it. She mentioned that the Global Forest Watch uses the Earth Engine to measure and visualise changes to the world’s forests. She said this was also a matter of biodiversity for mapping tigers’ habitats with the goal to increase the global tiger population. “It was built on the global forest map and determined that there was enough potential habitat that if it was preserved, the tiger population could double in the decade, which was a very positive result.” She also shared that scientists did the first Landsat resolution analysis of the potential of restoring or planting new trees as a possible strategy for carbon removal. “That’s the science. Now, they have built an application called Project Restore that is providing high resolution information to tree planting projects,” she said. She also talked about relevant projects and collaboration, as well as shared some analysis examples that were done using the Earth Engine. 

Following the keynote session was an award session and among the awards given away were 2022 IEEE Fellow, 2022 IEEE GRSS Outstanding Service Award, 2022 IEEE GRSS Education Award, 2022 IEEE GRSS Fawwaz Ulaby Distinguished Achievement Award, and 2022 IEEE GRSS Industry Leader Award. A symposium introduction was then given by IGARSS 2022 Technical Programme Chair-cum-UTAR President Ir Prof Dr Ewe Hong Tat. He shared with participants the overview of the programme and activities of IGARSS 2022.

The list of the awardees is as follows:

2022 IEEE Fellow
Dr Ad Stoffelen

2022 IEEE GRSS Outstanding Service Award
Dr Shiv Mohan

2022 IEEE GRSS Education Award
Prof Akira Hirose

2022 IEEE GRSS Fawwaz Ulaby Distinguished Achievement Award
Prof William Emery

2022 IEEE GRSS Industry Leader Award
Ms Rebecca Moore