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| Presented by Earth Observation Marine Surveillance Coordination Committee (EOMSCC) |
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October 23 - 25, 2006
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Workshop Summary The Canadian interest and stake in ocean affairs stems from the fact that the country is bounded by the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans, with over 240,000 km of coastline, 250 ports, and 1700 vessels per day operating in or within proximity to Canadian waters. Canadian coastal regions, territorial waters and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) are important economically, environmentally, and culturally. The general theme of OceanSAR 2006 was "Bridging the Gap between Science and Operations" while the specific objectives were: - To bring marine and SAR scientists together with end-users to understand what is scientifically possible and operationally practical; - To provide a forum for end-users to discuss operational needs; - To provide a forum for scientists to discuss the latest advancements in marine SAR applications; - To identify gaps between science capability and operational needs and to outline the requirements to close the gaps; - To formulate demonstration projects that integrate science and operations; and - To identify the components of observation systems that will meet operational requirements. Bringing together users and the scientific community is consistent with Canada’s thrust to ensure that technology development is tied to user requirement; to ensure that there is cooperation and collaboration amongst government departments; and to ensure that the universities are involved in research and development and industry in the acquisition and delivery of ocean-related information. The workshop was attended by 89 persons from 9 countries, representing government departments, universities, and industry. Over 50 submissions were selected for poster and oral presentation. The workshop was organized along the lines of the following themes: - Stewardship of Coastal and Marine Environments - Monitoring and Surveillance for Security and Domain Awareness - Operational Ocean Management - National and International Collaborations and Programs - Advances in SAR Information Extraction For each of these themes there were corresponding sessions, each of which commenced with two keynote addresses: one on User Requirements and the other on the State-of-the-Art. These were followed by several presentations and posters. Poster presenter had the opportunity to highlight their poster with a brief presentation in the plenary session. A discussion period concluded each session, led by the chair and the keynote speakers. The workshop culminated in a final discussion session that included a summary of the workshop results, a discussion of issues and discussion the Way Forward. From the presentations at the workshop, it is seen that there have been significant advances in the use of SAR for oceanographic applications. In particular for: - Ship Detection: Considerable progress has been made on the research and development side, to the extent that the issue is not so much whether SAR can be used to detect ships but rather how the SAR data can be integrated with other information (as from the Automatic Identification System) in the development of a robust ship detection capability; - Ocean Wind & Waves: Advancements and refinements are being made in this application and some first-hand experiences with operational use were reported. The derivation of high-resolution wind maps from the SAR data is very promising, and further research and development is aimed especially at removing the directional ambiguity; and - Pollution Detection: Much progress is being made toward the operational use of SAR for oil spill detection but work is still needed to reduce the number of false alarms. There were several key Way Forward recommendations from the workshop. Participants expressed a need for the ocean SAR community to have a common and authoritative voice to effectively communicate with space agencies. Furthermore, they expressed concern that available, or soon-to-be-available, SAR satellite systems be inter-operable to ensure there is data continuity, redundancy, and contingency. There was a strong consensus and re-iteration of the fact that scientific advances in the use of SAR for oceanographic applications require large amounts of data. In the past many announcements of opportunity and data support programs have been very restrictive with respect to the amount of data that is available for scientific as well as for research and development efforts. It was recommended the development of Super-Sites be considered where resources from multiple agencies could be brought together for cooperation in calibration and validation of SAR in support for the development of oceanographic applications. Finally, it was recommended that an International Working Group be established that could speak for the ocean SAR community to space agencies to ensure that the needs of this community are reflected in any new space developments and to foster collaboration within this community in the development of applications of SAR in the ocean domain. Work has begun on the formation of such a group and Terms of Reference have been drafted. Representatives of past and present OceanSAR Technical Committees were tasked to initiate plans for the next meeting, with special consideration to expressions of interest by various participants and their organizations. Presentations of the OceanSAR 2006 meeting are available in electronic form by selecting abstracts in the "Program" section of this website. The proceedings of the meeting with a collection of papers will be available in the same format and at the same location by the end of 2006. The Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing released a call for peer-reviewed papers for a special issue on OceanSAR 2006, scheduled for publication in the latter part of 2007. |
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This conference has been organized by
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