The 3rd ERS SYMPOSIUM

• From 17 to 21 March, the ESA Directorate for Observation of the Earth and its Environment held the 3rd ERS Symposium. This event, following similar ones in Cannes in 1992 and Hamburg in 1993, marked a milestone in the evolution of ERS data exploitation. The large number of attendees (some 700) from 35 countries representing the full range of earth observation data users from scientific, operational, institutional and commercial entities, demonstrated the world-wide interest in ERS data. The excellent atmosphere of the Conference was proof of the well established cooperation between all user groups and the Agency.

• The outstanding quality of the 420 presented contributions reflected the evolution of data utilisaton during the ERS mission. This has grown from instrument and performance validation and very general utilisation plans in 1991/92; familiarisation with the data, algorithm and the product tuning in 1993/94; up to the exploitation of ERS data in all areas of EO application.

• Six years after launch of ERS-1, that is, earlier than most previous EO missions, the ERS mission has started to reach its ‘real exploitation phase’ and accordingly, the focus of most projects and presentations has turned back from technology to the data application.

• Scientific work is ongoing to integrate Altimeter and Scatterometer data for land applications and in SAR interferometry for land classification. These are just two examples for newly emerging applications which were not foreseen during definition of the mission and instrument design.

• The complementarity between ERS instruments, or with instruments from other Earth Observation Missions, has found its way into application; examples are the DEMs generated by RA and SAR data or the use of JERS and ERS SAR data for vegetation/forest mapping.

• Instrument validation and improvement of algorithms and products will continue in parallel to the exploitation of the data.

• The 32 sessions were organised according to application subject and covered subjects such as Landuse, Forestry, Geology, Hazards, Global Change including the monitoring of polar ice caps, sea ice, glaciers, oceanography, sea surface temperature, the assimilation of Wind and Wave data, Ocean Circulation, Marine Geoid and Meteorology.

• The Symposium for the first time included some 30 contributions on monitoring of the Atmosphere using GOME, the new instrument on ERS-2.

• This Symposium was not only a forum for the presentation of results and achievements, but an opportunity for ESA and the Earth Observation User Community to discuss future areas of collaboration.

• Announcements of Opportunity and Pilot Projects have proved to be a suitable tool to stimulate and advance exploitation of ERS data. It is now suggested to release a third series of AOs, which shall be more limited, focused and dedicated to very specific subjects.

• The total number of data users and participation to dedicated conferences has increased greatly. ESA intends to maintain the dual concept of large Symposia and smaller dedicated workshops focused on one particular application subject.

• Since the second series of AOs is still ongoing, in 1998 ESA will continue the series of application workshops which was started in Toledo, Zurich and ESRIN. A larger symposium can be envisaged for the end 1998 or early 1999.

• Further ERS-1/2 Tandem operation was requested by participants. First priority shall be given to a full exploitation of the existing Tandem Data set. ESA intends to run limited tandem campaigns to increase the coverage and the data pairs suitable for interferometric exploitation. Nevertheless, the extension of the lifetime of ERS-1 in back-up to ERS-2 is a primary goal.

• One of the original targets in the exploitation of the ERS mission was to broaden the use of remote sensing data; the increasing number of participants, papers and the variety of application subjects of the conferences clearly demonstrate that this objective has been met.

• The 3rd ERS Symposium shall not be seen as the end of the exploitation efforts of the ERS Programme, although most of the mission objectives have been reached, but as one milestone in the process of European Earth Observation applications and market development and in the long term strategy of European programmes and missions.

Keywords: ESA European Space Agency - Agence spatiale europeenne, observation de la terre, earth observation, satellite remote sensing, teledetection, geophysique, altimetrie, radar, chimique atmospherique, geophysics, altimetry, radar, atmospheric chemistry