At the end of September two important ISPRS events took place in Goa, India. From 27th to 30th September ISPRS Technical Commission (TC) IV held its Symposium on ‘Geospatial Databases for Sustainable Development’, directly followed by the ISPRS Joint Council Meeting.

ISPRS Joint Council Meeting

ISPRS Council Joint Meetings with commission presidents during its scientific and administrative term serve an im-portant mission for the organisation.First and foremost, evaluation takes place during these meetings of the year’s activities of the Technical Commissions and plans are made for the coming year. These meetings are particularly helpful to congress directors, as I discovered whilst fulfilling this role for the ISPRS 2004 Congress held in Istanbul, in those years when Commission Symposiums are held.

This year was no exception. The Joint Meeting held after this year’s Commission IV Symposium carried a special meaning for Chen Jun, the 2008 Congress director. At this meeting we agreed the scientific framework for the Beijing Congress, including technical subject matter for the sessions, and we finalised preparatory work for the 2007 `Second Announcement`. Luckily, we had already planned the Session Layout for the Istanbul Congress in Hyderabad, India back in 2002. Once more this year we experienced the full glory of Indian hospitality and culture. The second announcement for the Beijing Congress will be made within months. I am confident that we will again witness scientific and technical breakthroughs for ISPRS at this coming Congress.

Orhan Altan, Secretary General, ISPRS

Geo-databases and Digital Mapping

The ISPRS TC IV on Geo-databases and Digital Mapping held an International Symposium on ‘Geospatial Databases for Sustainable Development’ along with the Indian Society of Remote Sensing (ISRS) from 27th to 30th September 2006. Dr P. S. Goel, Secretary at the Ministry of Earth Sciences to the Government of India inaugurated the symposium. Prof. John C. Trinder, first vice-president ISPRS, opened an exhibition organised alongside the symposium.

The symposium was well attended. More than three hundred scientists, including 125 from outside India, participated in deliberations. Three plenary sessions were held highlighting the main theme of the symposium. On the first day a total of ten invited talks were delivered by eminent scientists and working-group chairs/co-chairs. Twenty-four technical sessions, two poster sessions and one special session on ‘Digital Asia’ took place. All technical sessions began with a lead-in talk. One hundred and thirty five oral and fifty poster presentations were made. One highlight was presentations on the CARTOSAT-Scientific Assessment Programme (C-SAP), a joint IISRO-ISPRS activity; fifteen principal investigators described their initial findings. During the concluding session, ISPRS president Prof. Ian Dowman made awards to the winners of the oral and poster-presentation competition.

All full papers received have been published as Proceedings.