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The 4th international conference + workshops on Geomorphometry / Digital terrain modelling and analysis will be held next year in Nanjing, China. If you have not done already, put this date in your agenda: October 16-20, 2013 (Wednesday to Sunday). We expect again an exciting programme with several workshops and training sessions. This edition of Geomorphometry is kindly sponsored by the Geographical Society of China, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Key Laboratory of Virtual Geographical Environment, Ministry of Education, and Nanjing Normal University. For all other info please refer to www.geomorphometry.org/meetings/nanjing-2013/

Colleagues from ESRI are actively producing geomorphometry tools and data sets for public use. This is an example of a multiscale slope map built using the ArcGIS JavaScript API. The ESRI’s World Elevation Services is expected to become fully operational in mid 2012. It will contain image services, data download services, and analysis task services available, as well as sample applications.

Google has recently released a Google Elevation service. The Elevation service provides SRTM/bathymetry elevation data for locations on the surface of the earth, including depth locations on the ocean floor (negative values). It can be used to produce elevation paths and get elevations for any point on Earth’s surface (maximum of 2,500 requests per day).

Have you missed the Geomorphometry 2011 conference? No problem. All presentations from Geomorphometry 2011 are available via the ESRI proceedings website. All papers and attached datasets can also be accessed freely from the Geomorphometry homepage.

TanDEM-X is the new generation satellite (owned by the German Aerospace Center) that aims at producing new generation radar-based DEMs with a horizontal detail of 12 meters) and a height accuracy of better than 2 m. The data will likely not be publicly available, but the new global DEM will completely change the world of geomorphometry. http://www.dlr.de/hr/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-2317

A recent geography Master’s thesis by Jason Goetz from the University of Waterloo, Canada utilizes terrain analysis tools implemented in open-source software (SAGA GIS, R) for exploring the regional controls of landslide initiation on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. A nonparametric regression technique, the generalized additive model (GAM), was used to model the relationship of topography, climate, forest harvesting activities and geology to landslide initiation, underlining the importance of the impacts of logging roads. Based on the model predictions, the most susceptible 4% of the study area had 29 times higher density of landslide initiation points than the least susceptible 73% of the study area,

Attachment e_democracy_2011.xls

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.