Variety

It's almost impossible to encompass all subfields of geomatics in one issue of GIM, and although we try to serve you up as varied a menu as possible every month, it's not always easy. But I think we're there with this last issue of 2010!

We start with an interview with Paul van der Molen, recently retired as head of the Kadaster (Dutch Cadastre, Land Registry and Mapping Agency). We've carried a range of articles on cadastres, the Invited Reply series on Cadastre 2034 in our September and October issues, and the interviews with Professor McLaughlin and Professor Hernando De Soto, and now this interview with Van der Molen forms an endpiece, again offering views on the future role of cadastre. Van der Molen, continuing in his professorial role at the International Institute for Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation (ITC), Netherlands, sees the biggest challenge in combining knowledge of technical subjects like data-acquisition, database technology and data distribution with process design and workflow management, planning and control, all seasoned with a good sense of politics.

The place of cadastre in, among other things, alleviating poverty, is presented by Bernard Puépi, who contributes the first piece in our new series on Statutory versus Customary Ownership in the developing world. Luigi Colombo discusses terrestrial laser scanning  and the quickly growing importance of this technique for surveyors. Colombo gives a clear explanation of benefits offered by the technique, illustrating his remarks with examples from his own research activities. Terrestrial laser scanning appropriately conducted and applied will have a major impact on the efficiency of survey work.

All this, together with a feature on Mobile GIS  by GIM senior editor Mathias Lemmens, makes the banquet almost complete. Mobile GIS systems have found their place in work processes, instigated by the rapid adoption of internet; it is a means of geo-data collection using GNSS positioning, GIS functionality, wireless connection and mapping integrated in one compact device. A truly rich variety of aspects and angles.

Well, this is indeed already the last issue of GIM International of 2010. We look forward from here to the year 2011, in which we hope to bring you plenty of fresh in-depth articles, interviews, reports, surveys and all the latest on news-breaking products from manufacturers all over the globe. Imagine. We are almost 25 years old as a publication, moving fast towards that milestone in 2012, and still finding new things to tell you every month! Let me end this last editorial of 2010 by wishing all our readers a great end to this year and an even better start to the new one. To a healthy 2011!