The Fifteenth Asian Conference on Remote Sensing
Bangalore, India, 17-23 November,1994

Participants of the 15th ACRS at the Welcome Party

The 15th ACRS was held in Bangalore, India from 17 to 23 November 1994. There were 320 participants with 83 foreigners and 237 Indian. Out of 83 foreigners, 14 participants were sponsored by UN/ESCAP. The countries present were 20 Asian and near Asian countries: Australia, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Kajakhstan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Viet Nam, and 6 non-Asian countries: Canada, France The Netherlands, Switzerland, USA and UK.

Participants on a cultural visit.

There were two plenary sessions, two commercial sessions (Technical Information), 13 technical sessions (oral presentation), and 3 poster sessions. Although, it was scheduled to present 93 oral presentations and 39 poster presentations, actually a total of 67 papers were presented in the 13 technical sessions and 28 were presented in poster session.

Instruments, ITC, C-DAC & PCI Committed, Susee Spacetek Ltd., Siemens Information Systems Ltd., National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA), ISRO/ANTRIX, IN-RIMT and Rolta India Limited.

Two sessions of the Annual General Conference of the AARS were also held on 18 and 21 November 1994 under the Chairmanship of Professor U.R.Rao. The General Conference established two new Working Groups of AARS in addition to the existing one on 1km. Land Cover Data Base of Asia. These new Working Groups are: Working Group on GIS Text Book (Chairman: Dr. R. Shibasaki, University of Tokyo, Japan and the Working Group on GIS Software for Educational Purpose (Chairman: Dr. Kohei Cho, Tokai University, Japan). The General Conference also decided that the annual contribution of membership shall increase from 100 US dollars to 200 US dollars from 1995.

Findings of the 15th ACRS are summarized below:

1. The quality of presented papers has much improved as compared to those presented a few years ago.
2. New technologies and unique applications have been presented by Asian and non-Asian experts.
   
3. Remote sensing agencies or institutions are increasing in Asian Region which are promoting operational applications, education and training, user's service etc.
   
4. Integration of remote sensing and GIS was recognized as of great importance for operational applications.
   
5. Regional co-operation in Asia was more and more emphasized with respect to database of Asia, education and training, and public domain software for educational purpose.
   
6. Environmental and natural resource management for sustainable develop-ment at local, regional and global scale was a key issue in applications of remote sensing and GIS in Asia.

The following spirits of ACRS have been accepted by the participants:

• Friendship first
• Openness to share experience and information
• Willingness to work together
• Mutual understanding
• Co-operation among governmental, academic and private sectors.

(Compiled from the Report of the AARS General Conference by the Editor.)

Contributors

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