PHL hosts 36th Asian Conference on Remote Sensing

MANILA, PHILIPPINES – The Philippines will host the 36th Asian Conference on Remote Sensing (ACRS) on Oct. 13-23 at the Crowne Plaza Galleria in Ortigas Center.

In a press conference held Wednesday in Quezon City, Enrico Paringit, chair of the ACRS 2015 local organizing committee, described remote sensing as getting data and information about the earth surface using devices.

“Remote sensing has been proven to be capable of monitoring El Niño, for instance,” he said. Among the technologies in remote sensing include satellites with high resolution camera, and sensors mapping flooding areas.

With this year’s theme, “Fostering Resilient Growth in Asia”, Paringit also described that the event would be one of the biggest scientific gathering in the country.

First organized in Bangkok, Thailand in 1981, the Philippines first hosted the ACRS in 1998. The Asian Association on Remote Sensing Society (AARS), an international organization of remote sensing institutions and groups in Asia, is the one in charge of choosing the country that will host the event.

For this year, the local organizers are the AARS, the Philippine Geosciences and Remote Sensing Society (PhilGRSS) and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).

Students, researchers, scientists, policy-makers and practitioners both here and abroad will gather for the event. The local organizers said they’re expecting around representatives from 40 countries having 1,000 participants.

“We’d like to know from other countries what are the latest in remote sensing. We’d like to update our knowledge about it,” said Paringit.

He cited as an example, that there are researches pointing the possibility of mapping and identifying where there are bountiful fishes.

Sessions

There will be various sessions, which include three plenary sessions, six sub-plenary sessions, and 75 technical parallel sessions where renowned specialists will serve as speakers. Also, there will be 16 special sessions organized by different organizations.

Among the keynote and plenary speakers include DOST Secretary Mario Montejo; Tom Veldkamp, dean, ITC Faculty of Geo-Information and Earth Observation, University of Twente, Netherlands; Shizuo Yamamoto, Vice-president of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency; Alfredo Majar Lagmay, executive director, Project Nationawide Operational Assessment of Hazard (NOAH) Project; and Josefino Comiso, senior research scientist, NASSA Goddard Space Flight Center, USA.

Furthermore, attendees can expect technical paper presentations and poster sessions. Exhibition and Exhibit Night were also scheduled.

While there’s a registration fee of USD 150, Paringit noted that this is much lower compared to other international conferences that normally have USD 500 as registration fee.

AARS general secretary Kohei Cho noted in a statement that the conference will take place at a significant moment when disasters and climate change continues to negatively impact the people and the community. Thus, the conference will provide an outstanding opportunity to learn and explore how remote sensing will help build resiliency to those disturbances, and therefore strengthen people’s capability to adapt to stress and change.

Meanwhile, Paringit sees 2015 as a fitting time to conduct the ACRS in the country since we have the ‘Visit the Philippines 2015’ campaign. “Here, one can enjoy the festivities, culture and cuisine among the country’s more than 7,000 islands,” he remarked.