A National Space Policy: Views from the Earth Observation Community
Dataset Identification:
Resource Abstract:
Australia has been receiving Earth Observations from Space (EOS) for over 50 years. Meteorological imagery dates from 1960
and Earth observation imagery from 1979. Australia has developed world-class scientific, environmental and emergency management
EOS applications. However, in the top fifty economies of the world, Australia is one of only three nations which does not
have a space program. The satellites on which Australia depends are supplied by other countries which is a potential problem
due to Australia having limited control over data continuity and data access. The National Remote Sensing Technical Reference
Group (NRSTRG) was established by Geoscience Australia as an advisory panel in 2004. It represents a cross-section of the
remote sensing community and is made up of representatives from government, universities and private companies. Through the
NRSTRG these parties provide Geoscience Australia with advice on technical and policy matters related to remote sensing. In
February 2009 the NRSTRG met for a day specifically to discuss Australia's reliance on EOS, with a view to informing the development
of space policy. This report is the outcome of that meeting. Australia has some 92 programs dependent on EOS data. These programs
are concerned with environmental issues, natural resource management, water, agriculture, meteorology, forestry, emergency
management, border security, mapping and planning. Approximately half these programs have a high dependency on EOS data. While
these programs are quite diverse there is considerable overlap in the technology and data. Of Australia's EOS dependent programs
71 (77%) are valued between $100,000 and $10 million and 82 (89%) of all these programs have a medium or high dependency on
EOS data demonstrating Australia's dependency on space based imaging. Earth observation dependencies within currently active
Federal and state government programs are calculated to be worth just over $949 million, calculated by weighting the level
of dependency on EOS for each program. This includes two programs greater than $100 million in scale and one program greater
than a billion dollars in scale. This document is intended as a summary of Australia's current space and Earth observation
dependencies, compiled by the NRSTRG, to be presented to the Federal Government's Space Policy Unit, a section of the Department
of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, as an aid to space policy formation.
Citation
Title A National Space Policy: Views from the Earth Observation Community
publication Date
2010-01-01T00:00:00
cited responsible party
-
author
organisation Name
National Earth Observation Group
Metadata standard for this record:
ANZLIC Metadata Profile: An Australian/New Zealand Profile of AS/NZS ISO 19115:2005, Geographic information - Metadata
standard version:
1.1
Metadata record identifier:
a05f7892-f825-7506-e044-00144fdd4fa6
Metadata record format is ISO19139-2 XML (MI_Metadata)