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Following our geomoprhomerty.org 2011 conference in Redlands we created a group called geomorphomerty at arcgis.com. The objective is to facilitate and engage a larger community of people around the world outside geomorphometry.org, especially esri users as well as the general GIS community.

Group members can create and share maps within the group and to the public as well. As a start a selection of global landforms maps are displayed, which will be expanded in the future.

DEADLINE TO SUBMIT ARTICLES 1st OF MARCH

This is to remind you that the deadline to submit extended abstracts for the Geomorphometry 2011 conference is due in 6 days (1st of March).

We encourage all potential participants (and especially ones that require some additional time) to sign-up for this deadline at http://geomorphometry.org/content/geomorphometry-2011-paper-submission-deadline (you will need to be registered on the website to do this). This way we can have a good idea about how many people require some extra time, so that we can contact you to check status of your work (if your submission is not in the EasyChair system). To avoid any uncertainties please submit your article before the indicated deadline.

To prepare your article, please closely follow the author guidelines.

GEOMORPHOMETRY 2011 WORKSHOPS

The Geomorphometry 2011 Workshops have been published on the geomorphometry.org website. Workshops received so far are:

• (Reuter Hannes) ArcGIS Geomorphomerty Toolbox
• (Lucian Dragut & Clemens Eiseink) Discrete analysis of the land-surface: Burning issues and upcoming topics in linking geomorphometry with OBIA
• (Phillip Verhagen, Lucian Dragut & Frederick W. Limp) Geomorphometric approaches in archeology
• (Tomislav Hengl & Carlos Grohmann) Automated analysis and visualization of elevation data using open source tools R+OSGeo

Workshops will take the form of either tutorials in a particular method or technique, or provide the opportunity for detailed discussion of upcoming topics. The workshops will be designed based on the sign-ups (after March 2011). A minimum requirement to run a workshop is to collect 10 active participants. To sign-up for a workshop follow the link from above and add your name by selecting “Sign-up for ***”. You will have to confirm your sign-up in May when we open the early registrations (Note: In principle, any user registered at this website can sign-up for workshops, however, only the users that register for the conference/workshops will be finally considered as active participants). The price for attending workshops has not yet been set, but it is likely to be in the range $100-150 USD.

If you have any questions about this conference please feel free to write to the conference organizers via mail: 2011@geomorphometry.org (this will forward your message to the Organizing Committee and the conference secretary).

all the best and hope to see you in California!

Geomorphometry 2011 open for registrations
We are happy to inform you that the registration for the Geomorphometry 2011 have now open (see also the daily programme). Prospective authors are invited to submit poster presentations for this conference. The registration costs are:

• $200.00 - Student Registration
• $375.00 - Non-Student Registration
• $300.00 - Student Registration w/ Workshop
• $475.00 - Non-Student Registration w/ Workshop

See the complete list of workshops. The deadline for early registration is 1st of July 2011. After you register for the conference and/or workshops, please sign-up for the workshops of interest (login to the geomorphometry.org, then go to the workshop of interest and select “sign-up”). A list of recommended accommodation is also available via the conference homepage.

We look forward to seeing you in Redlands!

New book on “Digital Terrain Analysis”
New book on Digital Terrain Analysis for soil and geology science by Igor Florinsky (Institute of Mathematical Problems of Biology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pushchino, Russia) has been recently published via Elsevier. It includes sections on historical perspectives of digital terrain analysis and an introduction to theoretical concepts, examples of using DEMs for soil predictive mapping, and in geology e.g. to represent tectonic structures lineaments and faults. Book can be ordered via Amazon or directly via Elsevier’s website. A table of content is available via author’s homepage.

World as a potato? After just two years in orbit, ESA’s GOCE satellite has gathered enough data to map Earth’s gravity with unrivaled precision. Scientists now have access to the most accurate model of the ‘geoid’ ever produced to further our understanding of how Earth works. With a bit of exaggeration, one would get an idea that our globe is a large potato. The map of gravity undulations can be downloaded from here. See also the complete video about the project.

Short title: GDEMerr

A methodological framework for assessment of accuracy of a DEM product is described using four case studies (Booschord in the Netherlands, Calabria in Italy, Fishcamp in USA and Zlatibor in Serbia). Focus is put on evaluating the true accuracy of ASTER GDEM using LiDAR data aggregated to 30 m resolution. Three aspects of accuracy have been evaluated: (a) absolute accuracy of elevations (goodness of fit between true and GDEM elevations), (2) accuracy of stream networks (goodness of fit for buffer distance maps for stream networks), and (3) accuracy of surface roughness parameters (goodness of representation of nugget variation and residual errors).

Purpose and use:

Procedures are explained how to assess:

• Accuracy of absolute elevations (absolute error);
• Positional and attribute accuracy of hydrological features (streams, watersheds, landforms etc);
• Accuracy of surface roughness (i.e. representation fo the short-range variation);

The script is attached to the paper indicated below.

Programming environment: R / S language
Status of work: Public Domain
Reference: How accurate and usable is GDEM? A statistical assessment of GDEM using LiDAR data
Data set name: Fishcamp

Attachment:

GDEM_assessment.zip

Geomorphometry 2011: Second Call for papers

The third Geomorphometry conference will be held in September 7-11, 2011 (Wednesday to Sunday) at the ESRI Campus Redlands, California, USA. Prospective authors are invited to submit extended abstracts of up to 4 pages (ca 2000 words) by 1st of March 2011. Extended abstracts must be original works by the authors, not be currently under review in the same form by another outlet and not submitted elsewhere prior to the notification date. The conference will host 6 keynotes plus 38 oral talks and a number of posters. In addition, three 2-day workshops will be held immediately after the conference (Saturday/Sunday; Redland Campus). Registration fees for the conference are $375 USD ($200 USD for PhD students). There are 23 days left to submit an extended abstract. For more info visit the official website: http://geomorphometry.org/2011

To submit an extended abstract, follow the author guidelines published at http://geomorphometry.org/content/manuscript-preparation-guidelines; abstracts (line numbered PDF) can be submitted via the EasyChair system at: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=geomorphometry2011

9 PhD Scholarships in GIScience, Salzburg, Austria
Doctoral College - DK-GIScience Salzburg in Austria has recently published an open call for 9 PhD Scholarships in the field of GIS Science. Requirements include the excellent completion of a degree at the Masters level in Geoinformatics, Geomatics, Geography, Computer Science or any scientific/technical subject in a relevant field, and excellent English language (both oral and writing) skills.

Annual brutto salary: 26.278 Euro per year (Gross)
Job duration: 3 years
For all inquiries, please contact giscience@sbg.ac.at

OpenTopography - publicly available elevation data
San Diego Supercomputer Center, University of California has recently launched a portal to share High-Resolution Topography Data and Tools. Visit http://www.opentopography.org to obtain the publicly available data sets and tools. At the moment the portal offers a large number of LiDAR surveys (mainly in USA) and will hopefully lead to complete-coverage publicly available elevation data sets.

Geomorphometry is the science of quantitative land-surface analysis (also known as the science of DIGITAL TERRAIN MODELLING AND ANALYSIS). The focus of geomorphometry is calculation of surface-form measures (land-surface parameters) and features (objects), which may be used to improve the mapping and modelling of landforms, soils, vegetation, land use, natural hazards, and other information.