New IAG President Professor Rizos

Professor Chris Rizos, head of the UNSW School of Surveying & Spatial Information Systems (SSIS) in Sydney, Australia, was named the new President of the International Association of Geodesy (IAG). The IAG advances the use of Geodesy across an increasingly broad range of ‘geoscience' applications by providing reference systems and vital services that use earth observation space-based systems.

"Geodesy is booming as society increasingly relies on geospatial technologies and global services to monitor and understand our dynamic world," Professor Rizos told an audience of geodesists in his inauguration speech at the "Earth on Edge: Science for a Sustainable Planet" Conference in Melbourne. "IAG is at the forefront of measuring these changes and has established the Global Geodetic Observing System (GGOS) to help unify geodetic services, and provide synoptic data for monitoring the Earth System."

"We need to evolve to respond to the needs of ever more sophisticated consumers of geodetic products," Professor Rizos said and he reminded delegates the IAG needs to continue to lead in promoting Geodesy worldwide. "GGOS is a great opportunity to make the most of the extraordinary capability of modern geodesy to measure the faint four-dimensional signatures of Global Change and Geohazards in surface positioning, and earth geometry and gravity field. Geodesy matters, now more than ever."