"“One of our missions here is to deliver a 30 meter pixel high resolution
data gathered from a satellite launched back in 2000, which is a digital
elevation map data set taken from space, covering the entire continent of
Africa.” He further added “nobody has had access to such data at high
resolution scale with such high accuracy, so Ethiopia will be the first one”
http://www.capitalethiopia.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4705:ethiopia-gets-first-topographic-data-from-nasa&catid=35:capital&Itemid=27
Ethiopia gets first topographic data from NASA
By Groum Abate
Monday, 10 November 2014 09:12
0 Comments
“We are not alone in this universe”
Charles Frank Bolden, Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA), gave Ethiopia the first high-resolution topographic
data generated from NASA’s Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) in 2000,
which was previously only available for the United States.
I an exclusive interview with Capital, Bolden revealed that this release of
topographic data for Africa will help empower Ethiopia to better plan for
the impacts of severe environmental changes such as drought, glacial
retreat, inland flooding, landslides and coastal storm surges.
“One of our missions here is to deliver a 30 meter pixel high resolution
data gathered from a satellite launched back in 2000, which is a digital
elevation map data set taken from space, covering the entire continent of
Africa.” He further added “nobody has had access to such data at high
resolution scale with such high accuracy, so Ethiopia will be the first one”
Lower-resolution SRTM topographic data having 90-meter pixels were released
publicly in 2003 for many parts of the world, providing a global standard
for many applications. The new data increases the detail of 30-meter pixel
spacing, now revealing the full resolution of the world’s landforms as
originally measured by SRTM.
“The availability of enhanced global SRTM topographic data will greatly
benefit international efforts to better understand natural processes that
shape our planet, prepare for and respond to natural hazards, and
anticipate and prepare for the impacts of global change,” said NASA’s
administrator.
“Food security and programs to build capacity, focuses on the regional
climate, should be based on information. The earth is a very complex thing
and you have to understand what goes on in the atmosphere and the real
concern is to know the environmental dynamics. We need to know about
everything so we can predict what will happen,” he further said.
Topographic data benefits a wide variety of activities, from aviation
safety to civil engineering projects. Topography also strongly influences
many natural processes, such as the distribution of plant communities and
the associated animals that depend upon them, weather and rainfall
patterns, and the flow and storage of surface water. The data aids in
better understanding, predicting and responding to flooding from severe
storms and the threats of coastal inundation associated with storm surge,
tsunamis and sea-level rise.
Multiple training workshops on SRTM data are planned for users in Africa.
The administrator also said that he is one of those who believe humans are
not alone in this galaxy. “I am one of those who believe that the universe
is so vast and we know that literally the universe consists of millions of
other stars not planets, stars like our sun, so thousands and thousands if
not millions of the galaxies like the milky way where we live, every single
of those are each universes, and it’s hard for me to conceive, a universe
as vast as this, and only the milky way have a form of life, and there are
also a lot of reasons for me to believe we are not alone,” he said.
NASA predicts that 100 million worlds in our own Milky Way galaxy may host
alien life, and space program scientists estimate that humans will be able
to find life within two decades.
During his stay he will meet government and Africa Union officials to
discuss applications for NASA’s Earth science research.
Capital will feature the full and exclusive interview with Chales Bolden in
next week’s issue.
Received on Tue Nov 11 2014 - 16:59:58 EST