FEBRUARY 2006 NUMBER 9

EARTH OBSERVATION AND AVOIDING TROPICAL

GOFC-GOLD WORKING GROUP AIMS TO DEVELOP TECHNICAL PROTOCOLS FOR MONITORING TROPICAL DEFORESTATION FOR COMPENSTATED REDUCTIONS USING SATELLITE OBSERVATION

iscussions are underway Montreal summit, the parties within the United Frame- and accredited observers were D work Convention on Cli- invited to submit to the UNFCCC Newsletter content: mate Change (UNFCCC) on the secretariat their views on issues feasibility of compensation for relating to reducing emissions EO and tropical deforestation 1 tropical countries to reduce de- from deforestation in developing GOFC-GOLD LC Office 2005 3 forestation following the first countries, focusing on relevant The GLOBCARBON Initiative 4 commitment period. This con- scientific, technical and meth- TerraNorte 5 cept of avoided tropical defores- odological issues, and the ex- tation has been taken on by the change of relevant information GOFC-GOLD Symposium Jena 7 conference of the parties during and experiences, including policy Krakow Workshop on ECVs 8 the at the Montreal summit in approaches and positive incen- Upcoming events 9 December 2005. Following the tives.

Earth observation has been emphasized as key source of information for implementing the UNFCCC and the Kyoto protocol. Examples were advo- cated for the use of Earth Ob- servation to support national reporting on greenhouse gas inventories and for Clean De- velopment Mechanisms. Al- though observed land change (from satellite) is not easily translated into net carbon emissions, satellite observa- tions have played a dominant role in observing and assessing tropical deforestation (Figure 1). Thus, it is obvious that sat- ellite based information can Figure 1: Hot spots of deforestation derived from synergy of different datasets make a key contribution in as- Source: Lepers, E., E.F. Lambin, A.C. Janetos, R. DeFries, F. Achard, N. Ramankutty sessing avoided tropical defor- and R.J. Scholes (2005). A synthesis of information on rapid land-cover change for the estation. The operational con- period 1981-2000. BioScience, 55 (2), 115-124 1 No. 9, February 2006 GOFC-GOLD LAND COVER NEWSLETTER 9

ceptance and implementation. Such protocols are already worked on at different levels (nationally and internationally) and this will be considered. Furthermore, the group will foster GOFC-GOLD activities to overcome known challenges for implementation (i.e. consis- tency and continuity of satellite and in-situ observations) and promote the open sharing of the international satellite data needed to generate the defor- estation products and the open sharing output products and results of analysis.

Figure 2: Tropical deforestation pattern in Rondonia/Brazil seen from As the next step, a expert ESA’s ERS-2/ATSR instrument. workshop on this issue will be text of the UNFCCC raises the text of these discussions (see organized and hosted by question of technical feasibility box below). There is a strong GOFC-GOLD land cover office in determining historical base- need for such a neutral advisory during the symposium on lines and monitoring future group to foster the implementa- “Land cover and Forest obser- tropical deforestation that would tion of these activities. The work vations” in March 2006 in Jena, enable tropical countries to ob- of the group aims to develop Germany (see contribution in tain carbon credits for reducing and demonstrate internationally- this newsletter). deforestation. Several major is- agreed protocols, and accepted sues emerged from a workshop technical guidelines and proto- Reference: held at the Carnegie Institution, cols for EO-based monitoring of DeFries, R., G. Asner, F. Achard, C. Jus- tice, N. Laporte, K. Price, C. Small, J. Washington in July 2005 (De- tropical deforestation for com- Townshend 2005. Monitoring tropical de- Fries et al., 2005): pensated reductions. The group forestation for emerging carbon markets, 1. Access to data from multiple will build a communication plat- in Paulo Moutinho & Stephan Schwartz- man: Tropical Deforestation and Climate satellite sensors is crucial form with actors involved to en- Change, pp. 35-46. 2. National-level institutional sure consensus and general ac- capabilities and regional partnerships to monitor tropi- Activities of the GOFC-GOLD working group: cal deforestation need to be developed ¾ Outline needs and requirements to understand what is suggested 3. Techniques for monitoring by UNFCCC and Kyoto protocol and IPCC GPG. tropical deforestation are ¾ Assess standard practices for monitoring tropical deforestation. This available as a basis for de- includes the review of national level deforestation observing sys- veloping best available prac- tems with respect to UNFCCC, and an outline of activities by other tices and standards organizations for developing such guidelines and to define the role 4. Transition from the research and need for Earth Observation (requirements versus capability and domain for monitoring defor- efficiency). estation to operational sys- ¾ Develop guidelines for best practices in monitoring tropical defores- tems requires a commitment tation at a national scale considering a range of tropical forest types from international institu- tions. and land uses, different forest change processes and most suit- able methods for their analysis, and related data requirements. The role of the GOFC-GOLD and ¾ Recommend key requirements and current limitations in imple- the established ad hoc group on menting monitoring in tropical countries. This includes the definition this issue is to provide technical of baselines, minimum requirements (transparency, interoperabil- guidance on current and future ity, validation), foreseen data shortcomings and known uncertain- capabilities for monitoring tropi- ties, and avenues for implementation and capacity building. cal deforestation within the con-

2 No. 9, February 2006 GOFC-GOLD LAND COVER NEWSLETTER 9

GOFC-GOLD LAND COVER OFFICE IN 2005 Summary of activities and achievements

Supporting the GOFC-GOLD Land Cover Project Office (LC- Progress and achievements in 2005: PO) at the Friedrich Schiller ¾ State of the art in global land cover assessment University Jena, Germany, the ƒ Collect and summarize published materials and datasets European Space Agency par- ƒ Documentation on land cover algorithms, change routines, data products, in ticipates and contributes to the situ facilities international cooperation and ¾ Strategies for land cover harmonization and dataset interoperability ƒ Review of previous land cover harmonization approaches including advocating communication to coordinate the UN Land Cover Classification System as common ground for land charac- and improve global observa- terization tions of land. During its second ƒ Translation, comparison and semantic similarity assessment of several land year of operation, the GOFC- cover legends using the UN Land Cover Classification System, i.e. IGBP, , CORINE, MODIS Land Cover, USGS Anderson, Continuous Fields Products and GOLD Land Cover Project Office others (LC-PO) has continued to work ƒ Development of strategic documents for harmonization of existing land cover towards operational terrestrial datasets and guidelines for standardized development of land cover legends for earth observations. The list of future mapping ¾ Global land cover validation strategies activities and achievements is ƒ Cooperation with CEOS Cal-Val group on development of validation standards shown to the right. ƒ Participation in ongoing validation activities (GLC2000, GLOBCOVER) and com- parative accuracy assessment of existing global datasets using existing refer- Progress was made through ence information contributions in the following ƒ Outline implementation plan for an operational validation strategy to assess international initiatives includ- the accuracy of existing and future global land cover products and foster their interoperability/ synergy ing the Group on Earth Obser- ¾ Land cover map product applications vation (GEO), Integrated Global ƒ Develop advanced/ refined global land cover maps for global process modeling Observations for Land (IGOL), ƒ Dataset synergy for coarse scale land change analysis and long term trends UN Conventions, in particular ¾ Support development of GLOBCOVER ƒ Comparative assessment of GLC2000 and CORINE for GLOBCOVER develop- concerning the GCOS imple- ment mentation plan, CEOS with the ƒ Contribution to GLOBCOVER legend development group on calibration and valida- ¾ Participation in GEO process tion, ESA GLOBCOVER project ƒ LC-PO acts as point of contact for GOFC-GOLD participation in GEO activities ƒ Outline 2006 work plan tasks for GEO to benefit from GOFC-GOLD implemen- and in implementation of evolv- tation ing standards in land charac- ƒ Coordinate/initiate of GEO user Community of Practice for forest observations terization and validation. ¾ Earth observation to support UN conventions ƒ Active contribution for land cover tasks described in GCOS implementation plan For 2006, the Land Cover Office ƒ Participation in delegations to UNFCCC-COP11 and UNCBD SBSTA priorities are in the establish- ƒ Coordination of GOFC-GOLD working group to evolve internationally agreed ment of a GEO User Community technical protocols for using Earth observation in monitoring avoided tropical deforestation of Practice for forest observa- ¾ GOFC-GOLD science meetings and capacity building tions, to finalize documentation ƒ Active participation in GOFC-GOLD science and technical board meeting and strategies for the land ƒ Organization and co-hosting of the GOFC-GOLD capacity building on LCCS and cover tasks in the GCOS im- evolving standards in land characterization in St. Petersburg, Russia, organiza- tion and co-hosting of the GOFC-GOLD VCF validation expert workshop, or- plementation plan, to coordi- ganization of several small harmonization and LCCS-capacity building events nate the development of robust ¾ Participation in key events to foster international cooperation technical protocols for Earth ƒ Contacts and communications with GOFC-GOLD regional networks Observation based implementa- ƒ Participation in meetings and workshops on: GLOBCOVER meetings, GTOS, IGOS-IGOL, GLC2000 validation, Global Land Cover Network (GLCN), tion of compensated reductions GEOLAND, DLR … for avoided tropical deforesta- ƒ Participation and GOFC-GOLD representation in scientific conferences symposia tion. The office in Jena will re- ¾ Documentation, publication, and outreach: main a focal point for land ƒ 23 deliverables submitted to ESA ƒ Maintenance of webpage and regular updates cover Earth Observations, ƒ Development and distribution of four GOFC-GOLD newsletters evolving standards in land ƒ Contribution to GOFC-GOLD report series characterization and for partici- ƒ Scientific publications pation in ongoing mapping pro- ƒ Assistance and review of key documents: GTOS-Coastal implementation plan, GLOBCARBON product validation plan, CEOS Cal-Val ‘best practice’ document jects, and capacity building. on validation of global land cover datasets, Integrated Global Observations of Land (IGOL) documents, GEO 2006 work plan, LCCS resources

3 No. 9, February 2006 GOFC-GOLD LAND COVER NEWSLETTER 9

THE GLOBCARBON INITIATIVE:

MULTI-SENSOR ESTIMATION OF GLOBAL BIOPHYSICAL PRODUCTS FOR GLOBAL TERRESTRIAL CARBON STUDIES

Background Understanding the spatial and LAI temporal variation in carbon (June 1999) fluxes is essential to constrain models that predict . However, our current knowledge of spatial and tempo- ral patterns is uncertain, particu- larly over land. The ESA GLOBCARBON project aims to generate fully calibrated esti- mates of at-land products quasi- independent of the original Earth Observation source for use in Dynamic Global Vegetation Mod- els, a central component of the IGBP-IHDP-WCRP Global Carbon Cycle Joint Project. The service will feature global estimates of: burned area, fAPAR, LAI and Figure 4: Leaf area index at 10km for June 1999 showing the estimation to be in expected range for the region around Lake Baikal, Siberia (Source: ESA) vegetation growth cycle. Methodology tute for Climate Impact Re- Products To obtain these products, search (PIK); the Max Planck The service is focused on the GLOBCARBON blends data from a Institute for Meteorology (MPI- generation of various global es- total of five European satellite M); University of Toronto and timates of aspects of terrestrial sensors: the VEGETATION instru- the Geoland project. During vegetation: the number, location ments on SPOT-4 and SPOT-5, the the January 17th and area of fire-affected land, Along Track Scanning Radiometer- GLOBCARBON progress meet- known as Burnt Area Estimates 2 (ATSR-2) on ERS-2, plus the ing at ESA/ESRIN, project (BAE), the area of green leaf ex- Advanced Along Track Radiometer partners and end-users were posed to incoming sunlight for (AATSR) and Medium Resolution informed that products for six photosynthesis, known as Leaf Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) on complete years are now avail- Area Index (LAI), the sunlight ac- Envisat. able, covering the whole of tually absorbed for photosynthe- 1998 to 2003. A follow-on sis, known as the Fraction of Ab- The processing algorithms used to phase is planned to cover up sorbed Photosynthetically Active render raw satellite data into final to the end of 2007. Radiation (fAPAR) and the Vege- products have come from a num- tation Growth Cycle (VGC). ber of authoritative sources: the GLOBCARBON is being sup- International Geosphere- ported through the ESA's Data Programme (IGBP); the European User Element of the Earth Ob- Commission's Joint Research Cen- servation Envelope Pro- tre (EC-JRC); the University of To- gramme-2 (EOEP-2), and is ronto, the Centre d'Etudes Spatia- one of a family of projects de- les de la Biosphère (CESBIO) as veloping satellite-based prod- well as ESA's ESRIN centre in ucts and services that support Frascati, Italy. GLOBCARBON beta investigations of global and cli- users comprise the UK Centre for mate change within different Terrestrial Carbon Dynamics elements of the Earth system.

Figure 3: Forest fires pump large (CTCD); the Laboratoire des Sci- ences du Climat et l'Environne- More information: amounts of carbon into the atmos- Stephen Plummer: phere and require better characteri- ment (LSCE); the Global Carbon [email protected] sation within carbon cycle models Project (GCP); the Potsdam Insti- (Source ESA).

4 No. 9, February 2006 GOFC-GOLD LAND COVER NEWSLETTER 9

T E R R A N O R T E

A NEW BOREAL ECOSYSTEMS MONITORING DATA ACCESS FACILITY

Russian Academy of Sciences’ grow on both thematic domains TM/ETM+, Meteor-3M/MSU-E Space Research Institute has de- and geographical coverage. The and etc) to moderate (SPOT- veloped new information system. TerraNorte’s harmonised and Vegetation, Terra/Aqua- “TerraNorte” offers information unique database provides an im- MODIS, Envisat-MERIS) spa- on the status and dynamic of ter- portant input for studying the in- tial resolution, gives an oppor- restrial ecosystems to a wide terconnected processes of terres- tunity to study the boreal eco- Earth Science community inter- trial ecosystems dynamics and system dynamics on different ested in the boreal region, with global climate change, modelling scales, from local to global. particular, but not exclusive focus of biogeochemical and water cy- The continuously updated at Northern Eurasia. cles, along with information sup- multi-annual time-series of port of international conventions the data products (burnt area, TerraNorte contains a number of on climate and environment, and arable land dynamics etc) advanced datasets and products natural resources management. provide an essential contribu- derived from Earth Observation tion to research studies fo- techniques, regarding land cover A wide range of thematic products cused at global change issues. dynamics, natural and human in- available at TerraNorte, derived duced ecosystem disturbances with use of Earth Observation in- The TerraNorte web site and agricultural activity, which struments from high (Landsat- (http://terranorte.iki.rssi.ru)

Figure 4: TerraNorte User Interface, online maps.

5 No. 9, February 2006 GOFC-GOLD LAND COVER NEWSLETTER 9

provides an interactive access for users to the data and de- rived products, as well as to set of flexible tools for on-line visualization of available spa- tial data and for statistical data retrieval as tables or graphs in various aspects of land cover and ecosystem dy- namics. Circumpolar, sub- continental, regional and local levels of databases and web interface have been built upon actual geographical coverage and spatial resolution of avail- able datasets. The TerraNorte system has been developed with financial support from Russian Founda- tion for Basic Research (grant #04-07-90263-в).

More information: Bartalev Sergey Space Research Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences E-mail: [email protected]

Figure 6: Example for online GIS applications to show clear-cuts between 1998 and 2002 (top) and extent of forest and burnt areas (below). GOFC-GOLD

Figure 7: Statistic tool in TerraNorte.

6 No. 9, February 2006 GOFC-GOLD LAND COVER NEWSLETTER 9

SYMPOSIUM ON FOREST AND LAND COVER OBSERVATIONS

21-25 MARCH IN JENA, GERMANY

Organized and hosted by the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, March 25th GOFC-GOLD land cover project March 21st March 22nd March 23rd March 24th office, an international sympo- Workshop of Workshop of GOFC-GOLD GOFC-GOLD ad hoc ad hoc sium on “Forest and Land Cover Workshop on Workshop on working working Monitoring Monitoring GOFC-GOLD GOFC-GOLD Observations” will be held 21- group on group on Boreal Forest Boreal Forest Land Cover Land Cover Monitoring Monitoring GOFC-GOLD Regional Day Ecosystems Ecosystems Implementation Implementation 25th March 2006 in Jena, Ger- Tropical Tropical Network Meeting and Carbon and Carbon Team Meeting Team Meeting Deforestation Deforestation accounting accounting (Day 1) (Day 2) many. The symposium is driven for for (Day 1) (Day 2) by the recent revisions of the Compensated Compensated Reductions Reductions overall GOFC-GOLD strategy at (Day 1) (Day 2) Joint Icebreaker and dinner in Icebreaker &Dinner at SCALA Conference Evening Dinner Adjourn the 3rd Scientific and Technical Jena Botanical Garden Jena-tower Dinner Board meeting in Beijing (2005), Figure 8: Overview of GOFC-GOLD Symposium events. and the challenges posed by in- ternational activities on strategic and involving additional interna- loss. and implementation level. Promi- tional experts and participants in nent efforts include those of the each of the areas of interest. The Symposium participants will Group on Observation (GEO), UN symposium includes the following include the GOFC-GOLD Ex- conventions including the United four events (see figure 8): ecutive, Land Cover Imple- Framework Convention on Cli- mentation Team members and mate Change (UNFCCC) and the 1. Workshop of the GOFC-GOLD working group on monitoring regional network representa- related implementation plan of tives, plus invited international the Global Climate Observing tropical deforestation for com- pensated reductions; specialists in tropical and bo- system (GCOS), the development real forest monitoring to help of the IGOS-P theme for Inte- 2. Workshop on monitoring bo- real forest ecosystems for in- connect and coordinate the LC- grated Global Observations for IT activities with the larger Land (IGOL), and activities of ternational conventions; 3. Fourth GOFC-GOLD Land programmatic and research GTOS, the GOFC-GOLD regional framework. networks, and the UN Global Cover Implementation Team meeting; and Land Cover Network. The meet- More information on the symposium: ing is jointly organized by the 4. GOFC-GOLD Regional Network meeting. Christiane Schmullius: GOFC-GOLD Land Cover Project [email protected] or

Office Jena and the GOFC-GOLD Michael Brady: [email protected]. During the symposium, progress Project Office Edmonton, Canada. will be reported and discussed on The meeting will be organized in the use and refinement of land a number of individual workshops cover data and information prod- reflecting different GOFC-GOLD ucts for resource managers, pol- activities with different objectives icy makers, and scientists study- ing the global carbon cycle and

Figure 9: View of Jena.

7 No. 9, February 2006 GOFC-GOLD LAND COVER NEWSLETTER 9

ENSURING THE QUALITY AND RELIABILITY OF LAND AND ATMOSPHERE ESSENTIAL CLIMATE VARIABLES DATA: THE EU-25 CONTRIBUTION

SCIENTIFIC WORKSHOP IN KRAKÓW, 15-16 DECEMBER 2005

The workshop ‘Ensuring the Objectives • and from the New Member Quality and Reliability of Land The purpose of this workshop States and neighbouring and Atmosphere Essential Cli- was to: countries on the other; al- mate Variables: The EU-25 Con- • Review the state of the art in lowing many of them to tribution’ was held December benchmarking the models have, for the first time, an 2005, 15-16 in Krakow, Poland. and tools used to generate opportunity to meet and The workshop was organized by ECVs identified in the GCOS learn about each other’s the Global Vegetation Monitoring Implementation Plan, work, and (GVM) unit (recently renamed • Assess the accuracy and reli- • Initiating a constructive Global Environment Monitoring ability of the products cur- dialogue on possible future or GEM unit) of the Institute for rently available or proposed scientific collaborations in Environment and Sustainability in this context, support of GMES, especially (IES) of the EC Joint Research • Quality control these prod- on issues concerning the Centre (JRC). ucts through a variety of terrestrial and atmospheric methods, including ensuring components of the climate Background the internal consistency of system. At its 10th session in Buenos Ai- the approaches, the compati- res, the Conference of the Par- bility of products generated This workshop was attended ties (COP) of the UNFCCC from different sensors, and by representatives from sev- adopted the Implementation comparisons with independ- eral EU-15 countries as well as Plan proposed by the Global Cli- ent estimates by other meth- many participants from EU-10, mate Observing System (GCOS) ods, including direct field (in Candidate Countries and to put in place, within a decade, situ) measurements. neighbouring countries, in- an Earth Observing System suit- cluding Russia and Ukraine. able to deliver the observations Conclusions required by climate models. This The workshop showcased exist- GOFC-GOLD activities and Plan identified a number of Es- ing projects and achievements contributions to foster the sential Climate Variables (ECVs) in this domain and seeks the in- GCOS implementation plan for that are deemed critical to un- volvement of scientists from EU improved global land cover derstand and predict the dynam- New Member States. The meet- observations were represented ics of climate change, to guide ing fulfilled its main scientific with a poster. policy making and sound re- objective, which included the source exploitation, as well as to presentation of a wide and com- More information: http://www- evaluate the effectiveness of the gvm.jrc.it/stars/workshops.htm prehensive overview of bench- measures adopted to mitigate or mark programmes and valida- GCOS Implementation plan: adapt to climate changes. The tion procedures to ascertain the http://www.wmo.ch/web/gcos/Imple products and the underlying relevance and accuracy of sev- mentation_Plan_(GCOS).pdf models must thus be accurate eral of the Essential Climate and reliable. The international Variables (ECVs) identified in community launched the Global the GCOS Implementation Plan. Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) initiative and In addition to its intrinsic scien- Europe itself has invested in the tific interest, the meeting ac- Global Monitoring for Environ- complished two further notable ment and Security (GMES), both achievements: of which contribute to the overall • Bringing together specialists goal. from the EU-15 on one side

8 No. 9, February 2006 GOFC-GOLD LAND COVER NEWSLETTER 9

UPCOMING LAND COVER EVENTS

EVENTS / CONFERENCES / WORKSHOPS

March 2006

IGOL meeting - Global Agricultural Monitoring in the Framework of GEOSS Venue: FAO, Rome, Italy Date: 8-10 March Info: http://www.fao.org/gtos/meetIGOL1.html

GOFC-GOLD Symposium on Forest and Land Cover Observations Venue: Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Germany Date: 21-25 March Info: For further information contact Prof. Christiane Schmullius ([email protected])

May 2006

ISPRS Commission VII Mid-term Symposium “: From Pixels to Proc- esses” Venue: ITC, Enschede, The Netherlands Date: 8-11 May Info: http://www.itc.nl/isprsc7/symposium2006

GOFC-GOLD will organize and host a special session during this event.

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries Venue: Bad Blumau, Austria Date: 10-12 May Info: http://www.joanneum.at/REDD/

GI2006-SYMPOSIUM - GeoINSPIRE'd EU-X-border-GI&SDI in Europe of Regions Venue: Dresden, Germany Date: 11-12 May

26th EARSeL Symposium 'New Developments & Challenges in Remote Sensing', Work- shop on Geohazards Venue: Warsaw, Poland Date: 29 May- 02 June Info: http://www.earsel.org/

June 2006

2nd International Conference on Land cover /Land use study using Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System Venue: Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia Date: 8-9 June Info: For further information contact Dr. Renchin Tsolmon ([email protected])

For this conference, GTOS and GOFC-GOLD will organize a capacity building event on evolving standards in land characterization.

9 No. 9, February 2006 GOFC-GOLD LAND COVER NEWSLETTER 9

EVENTS / CONFERENCES / WORKSHOPS

July 2006

2006 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium Venue: Colorado, USA Date: 31 July – 04 August Info: http://www.igarss06.org/

GOFC-GOLD will be represented with a booth

September 2006

2nd Workshop of the EARSeL Special Interest Group on Land Use Venue: Universitätsclub Bonn, Germany Date: 28 - 30 September Info: http://www.zfl.uni-bonn.de/earsel/earsel.html (Submission of abstracts by 15 May 2006) During this meeting GOFC-GOLD will organize a tutorial on evolving standards in land characteriza- tion. Issues to be discussed: ¾ UN LCCS as common land cover language and legend translator ¾ Guidance for mapping projects in land cover harmonization and legend development/translation ¾ Harmonization and validation: acquisition of in-situ and land cover reference data and CEOS Cal-Val validation standards.

October2006

2nd Göttingen GIS&RS Days "Global Change Issues in Developing and Emerging Coun- tries" Venue: Göttingen, Germany Date: 4–6 October Info: http://www.ggrs.uni-goettingen.de/

THE ESA GOFC GOLD LAND COVER Prepared by PROJECT OFFICE NEWSLETTER: M. Herold, K. Neumann & C. Schmullius

The Newsletter is distributed free of charge to ESA GOFC-GOLD Land Cover Project Office all members listed in the ESA Land Cover Pro- Friedrich Schiller University ject Office database. To update your informa- Department of Geography tion, to subscribe or to be removed from our Loebdergraben 32 database, please contact us or visit the news- letter website: 07743 Jena Germany

Tel: +49-3641-948887 http://www.gofc-gold.uni-ena.de/sites/letter.html Fax: +49-3641-948882

If you have any suggestions or recommenda- Email: [email protected] tions for future contributions in this Newslet- Web: http://www.gofc-gold.uni-jena.de ter please feel free to contact us.

10 No. 9, February 2006