NASA to Hold International Scientific Meeting in January
On Jan. 10-14, 2013 Karunya University will be hosting the International Regional Scientific Meeting, which focuses on land-use, land-cover, and water resources in South Asia.
The International Regional Scientific Meeting of NASA LCLUC (Land-Cover Land-Use Change) Program will be hosted by Karunya University, Coimbatore, India on Jan. 10-14, 2013. The event has been organized by the joint efforts of the Global Observation for Forest and Land Cover Dynamics (GOFC-GOLD) Program, the International System for Analysis Research and Training (START) Program, and the Monsoon Integrated Regional Studies Program (MAIRS).
The international meeting will bring scientists from around the globe together to discuss the impacts of land-cover and land-use change with a regional focus on the specific impacts on South Asia. Major themes for the meeting include biomass burning, land and atmosphere interactions, water and agriculture resources, urbanization, land use in estuaries, mountains, and coastal zones.
The meeting will also be presenting the recent research accomplishments of those major themes, and the scientists will be considering future research and application developments in order to address those needs further. Research scientists will have a chance to collaborate with other teams for the current, ongoing, or future projects.
During the events, scientists will discuss LCLUC databases, agriculture and forest change and impacts, and the predictive modeling of LCLUC change in South Asian Countries. A “Geospatial tools to study LCLUC: Remote sensing, data, and products” training workshop will be provided at the meeting for early career scientists to learn more about the South Asia region.
There will be eight technical sessions during the meeting, which include dealing with agricultural land use change, LCLUC related earth observations, atmospheric/land use interactions, LCLUC, carbon cycle, LCLUC in mountainous areas, synthesis presentation of land use in coastal zones and estuaries, and urban LCLUC. The Regional and National Priorities for LCLUC research in South Asia countries will be discussed in the panel session to formulate the GOFC-GOLD South Asia Regional Network (SARIN).
Around 80 international scientists from different parts of the world will be participating and presenting their research works in this meeting. Apart from that, Indian experts from Department of Science and Technology, National Remote Sensing Centre, Karunya University, Physical Research Laboratory, Indian Remote Sensing Centre, National Institute of Hydrology, National Crop Forecast Centre have been invited to share their experience on the above mentioned themes.
This meeting will pave way to advance the understanding on the spatial extent, intensity, social consequences, and feedback to regional climate of the large-scale land-cover changes that are currently taking place in South Asia.