From gerhard.beutler at aiub.unibe.ch Fri Dec 31 10:36:24 2004 From: gerhard.beutler at aiub.unibe.ch (G. Beutler) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 10:36:24 -0800 Subject: [IGSMAIL-5076]: End of Year Message from IAG Message-ID: ****************************************************************************** IGS Electronic Mail 31 Dec 10:36:32 PST 2004 Message Number 5076 ****************************************************************************** Author: Prof. Gerhard Beutler, President, International Association of Geodesy (via IGS Central Bureau) Dear Friends and Colleagues, it is not unusual that presidents of Associations like the IAG try to summarize the important events in the Association's life of the elapsed year. In an attempt to be brief I will focus only on few topics, which I believe to be noteworthy. Business as usual (?) ----------------- In 2005 the new structure of IAG really started functioning. From my perspective, most elements are now performing well, today. Let me therefore express my thanks to all Commission and Intercommission Committee presidents, and to the heads of the services for their excellent work in support of IAG. I would like to express my personal gratitude to our Vice-president Michael Sideris, who serves (among other) as the interface of the Executive with the IAG Communications and Outreach Branch and as IAG's representative in the scientific organizing committee of next year's Scientific Assembly with the theme "Monitoring and Understanding a Dynamic Planet with Geodetic and Oceanographic Tools". The assembly is a common symposium of IAG, IAPSO, and IABO. More information about this important upcoming event may be found at http://www.dynamicplanet2005.com/. Let me also cordially thank Jozsef Adam, the head of our Communications and Outreach Branch. It is amazing how efficiently Jozsef and his Hungarian crew assumed their role to the benefit of IAG. It is also a remarkable achievement, and probably to a great extent thanks to the Outreach Branch, that IAG has now more than 200 individual members, including students and retired geodesists. Last, but not least, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Christian Tscherning, our Secretary General. It is essential for the Association that it can rely on his many years of experience as a secretary general with a high scientific and administrative profile. It is, by the way, not really appropriate to mention Christian's work for IAG under the title "business as usual": Christian had a pacemaker implanted in the fall and, very recently, he broke his arm. It is more than remarkable that his work for IAG remained (almost completely) unaffected by these health problems. IUGG Matters The IUGG Executive usually meets in its new configuration in the year following an IUGG General Assembly. This year's IUGG Executive Committee Meeting was hosted by the IUGG General Secretary, Jo Ann Joselyn, early in September in Boulder, Colorado. From my perspective the creation of (or the plan to create) a new IUGG Association was the outstanding topic. ICSI, the International Commission on Snow and Ice (till 2004 an entity of the IAHS - International Association of Hydrological Sciences), made the proposal to become a new association of IUGG (under a new name). This is a very unusual step -- the current seven IUGG associations are all "well established" (all considerably older than fifty years). It was decided in Boulder to "upgrade" the ICSI right away to an IUGG Inter-Union body and to postpone the decision to create the 8th Association of the IUGG to the 2007 IUGG General Assembly. The GGOS Project IAG Projects are, according to the bylaws of IAG, of broad scope and of highest interest for the entire field of geodesy. They serve as the flagships of the Association for a long period of time (a decade or longer). Under the leadership of Proffs. Christoph Reigber (President) and Hermann Drewes (Secretary) the steering committee of GGOS showed an amazing amount of initiative. GGOS established itself as the interface of IAG and the GEO-Group (Group on Earth Observation). I could only follow these activities from the distance and I am deeply impressed by the impact the group made on the official GEO documents. We now sincerely hope that the initiative will lead to, among other things, a much stronger and safer global geodetic infrastructure (among other things). The group also tries to establish geodesy (and/or GGOS) as a theme in the in the United Nations' Integrated Global Observing Strategy, IGOS. This work is in progress. The two aspects mentioned above are rather of a political nature. Traditionally, policy has not had too high a standing within IAG. It is, however, important or even vital to establish IAG as THE partner for all UN activities involving geometry and gravity on a global level. Often (too often!) geodesy is not viewed as a science, but "only" as a tool in some of these circles ... Science of course matters in geodesy as much as in the other geosciences. It will, e.g., only be possible to establish a geodesy-related theme in IGOS, if a strong science case can be made. The GGOS group will invest a lot of work in this area in 2005. My cordial thanks go to Chris Reigber and his team. FIG and IAG FIG views itself as the international organization for the surveying community. This assessment is certainly correct. On the other hand, IAG has a strong link to application, as well; think of Commission 4, for example. To me it seems that geodesy and surveying engineering (i.e., IAG and FIG) are too closely related to go separate ways. This is why I invested personally quite some time in the attempt to bring the two associations closer together. This was a rather "easy" task because I experienced a lot of support from Matt Higgins (FIG), Chris Rizos (IAG) and the president of FIG, Prof. Holger Magel. It seems that we will be able to sign a new, more concrete and substantial MoU between the two associations at the Cairns Scientific Assembly. Let me mention that I represented IAG at the FIG working week in Athens and at the FIG regional conference in Jakarta (after the bombings and before the earthquake ...). It seems that AFREF can be established as a common project of IAG and FIG. This is of particular importance in view of FIG's links with the national mapping and surveying agencies. MoU with ION and planned MoU with UN-OOSA Thanks to Dorotha Brzezinska and Ruth Neilan we have today an MoU between ION and IAG (ready to be signed) clarifying the relationships between the two organizations. I would like to thank Dorotha Brzezinska for her initiative and Ruth Neilan for her assistance. FIG signed an MoU with the UN Office of Outer Space Affairs (UN-OOSA) at the UN/USA International meeting on the Use and Applications of Global Navigation Satellite Systems, December 13-17 2004, in Vienna, Austria. IAG and UN-OOSA plan to sign a similar document in spring 2005 (hopefully on the occasion of the EGU Spring Conference). In view of IAG's contribution to all high-accuracy applications of all operational GNSS systems, and in particular through the International GPS Service (IGS), but also the IERS, it is very important that IAG's work is recognized also in this context. Earthquake in the Indian Ocean While preparing this review, the tragic news of the earthquake off the coast of Sumatra and the devastating tsunami affecting the entire region was received. On behalf of IAG I offer our deeply felt sympathy to the suffering people in the countries of the region. IAG, as a scientific organization, does not have much to offer to relieve the current situation. Ruth Neilan's end of the year message as director of the IGS Central Bureau indicates, however, that strong links exist to countries and individuals of the region. These links should be fully exploited and if possible improved in order to relieve the situation. This event certainly underlines the importance the global geodetic infrastructure. Only with such infrastructure it will be possible to keep track of all the local and regional displacements, which took place as a consequence of the earthquake. Concluding Remarks From the above report one can conclude that 2004 was a very busy year for IAG, despite that fact that there was neither a General Assembly nor a Scientific Assembly. Nevertheless, many important developments were initiated. We have every reason to be optimistic regarding the future development of our Association. With this positive undertone I would like to conclude, hoping that you had a Happy Holiday Season. I wish all of you A HAPPY NEW YEAR! Gerhard Beutler, President of IAG