Friday, April 28, 2017

Panorama:Uni: Stefan Lang on providing EO-based services for dynamic information needs in humanitarian action


About 100 visitors attended Prof. Stefan Lang´s talk on his work for aid organizations at the Panorama:Uni event in Salzburg on April 24.

Outlining the development within the last ten years, he looked back on the first contact between Z_GIS and  Doctors without Borders (MSF) in 2008. In 2010, Z_GIS started its cooperation with MSF, which has been mainly financed by the Karl Kahane Stiftung since 2012.
Z_GIS´ information products on population density and dynamics, water availability and environmental resources support MSF in organizing and maintaining camps for refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPS). Large numbers of new arrivals can mutate small villages into city-like settlements, raising challenges in terms of resources (water, medical health) and safety.

Within the EO4HumEn+ project, Z_GIS is currently closely cooperating with a wide range of NGOs and humanitarian actors including MSF, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Austrian Red Cross, SOS Children’s Villages, and Groundwater Relief.

More information/video

Contact: Stefan Lang

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

"Nachwuchsförderpreis GI" to Jan Kinne for his master thesis

Jan Kinne is the winner of the 2017 „Nachwuchsförderpreis Geoinformatik” (category ‘master thesis’) which is awarded annually by the “Runder Tisch GIS” to honour outstanding research in Geoinformatics.

Ass.Prof. Bernd Resch, Z_GIS, supervised the thesis on “The Geographic Dispersal of the German Software Industry – Geospatial Analysis and Location Pattern Modeling”.

The objective of the thesis carried out at Heidelberg University was to analyse the geographic dispersal of software companies in Germany. Jan Kinne identified location determinants and developed a model predicting the local occurrence of software companies within each square kilometer of Germany. He showed that the relationship between the number of software companies and the predicting location factors can be adequately estimated.

More information

Abstract (German)

Contact: Bernd Resch

Monday, April 3, 2017

Emergency Management: New Austro-Polish Project on Cross-border Cooperation in Logistical Support after Natural Disasters

© CC: BY – Harald Weber
Cross-border emergency management are of utmost importance in the case of natural disasters. The project „Cross-border Cooperation in Logistical Support in Crisis Situations” aims to enhance collaboration and information exchange in the field of logistical support for rescue operations after natural disasters. The logistical support provides necessary services to support the affected population and to improve rescue services or preventive measures.
The project is funded by the German-Polish Science Foundation (DPWS) and carried out by researchers of University of Szczecin, Poland and University of Salzburg, Austria. The project team will evaluate the current state of the governmental cooperation in crisis situations and identify improvable procedures. The results will be presented at a conference in December 2017 at University of Szczecin and in a book published by Springer.

Contact: Bernd Resch