Dear colleagues:

We are pleased to inform you that we have changed the venue of ForestSAT 2016. The new venue is campus Huechuraba, Universidad Mayor, located at Camino La Pirámide 5750, Huechuraba, Santiago.

Campus Huechuraba is located in a beautiful place, surrounded by mountains and forests. It has higher size than previous location and can comfortably accommodate all conference attendees. You also has comfortable and spacious rooms and auditorium, completely equipped to perform each presentation.

Therefore, we have arranged Buses that will approach from the two hotels that we have established agreement (See Hotels) to the venue of the conference.

Contact us:
E-mail: info@forestsat2016.com
Blog: http://forestsat.blogspot.com
Web: www.forestsat2016.com

Best regards.

We have achieved an important agreement with Hotel Park Plaza Santiago & Hotel Park Plaza Bonaparte, both located in one of the best places of Santiago, in the comune of Providencia.

This agreement includes significant discounts for all attendees of ForestSAT 2016. The preferential rates are the following:

Hotel Park Plaza Santiago

Location

Avenida Ricardo Lyon 207 Providencia, Santiago. See Map.

Reservations

All reservations must be made ​​via email to bookings@parkplaza.cl with the subject "FORESTSAT 2016 ATTENDEES" and must specify:

1.- Full Name
2.- Check-in & Check-out
3.- Nights
4.- Room
5.- N° of adults & childrens
6.- Method of Payment

Rooms

• STANDARD KING

This room features: King size bed, mini-bar, cable TV, Wi-Fi, safe, private bathroom, air conditioning, radio clock with accessory connections (iPods, mp3 and mp4 players), telephone with national and international direct dial and hair dryer. Includes buffet breakfast. See pictures in Photo Gallery Rooms.




Rate until October 14: USD 153
Rate after October 14: USD 160



• STANDARD TWIN

This room has 2 single beds, mini-bar, cable TV, Wi-Fi, safe, private bathroom, air conditioning, radio clock with accessory connections (iPods, mp3 and mp4 players), telephone with national and international direct dial and hair dryer. Includes buffet breakfast. See pictures in Photo Gallery Rooms.




Rate until October 14: USD 153
Rate after October 14: USD 178

Hotel Park Plaza Bonaparte

Location

Mar del Plata 2171, Providencia, Santiago. See Map.

Reservations

All reservations must be made ​​via email to bookings@parkplaza.cl with the subject "FORESTSAT 2016 ATTENDEES" and must specify:

1.- Full Name
2.- Check-in & Check-out
3.- Nights
4.- Room
5.- N° of adults & childrens
6.- Method of Payment

Rooms

• SUPERIOR DOUBLE ROOM

We want to provide a great break, therefore our rooms are equipped with wooden floor, LCD TV, cable TV, safe, minibar, tea and coffee, central heating, air conditioning, Wi-fi, hairdryer hair, laundry and room service. It includes buffet breakfast. See photo gallery in Superior Double Rooms.




Rate until October 14: USD 115
Rate after October 14: USD 120



• SUPERIOR TWIN ROOM

We want to provide a great break, therefore our rooms are equipped with wooden floor, LCD TV, cable TV, safe, minibar, tea and coffee, central heating, air conditioning, Wi-fi, hairdryer hair, laundry and room service. It includes buffet breakfast. See photo gallery Superior Twin Rooms Rooms.




Rate until October 14: USD 115
Rate after October 14: USD 130

Forest canopy height is an essential biophysical parameter for monitoring forest ecosystems. Under specific observation scenarios, Synthetic Aperture Radar sensors can be used to produce wall-to-wall canopy height maps through a technique called Polarimetric Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolInSAR). Data amenable for PolInSAR have been collected by US American and European airborne sensors, and are expected to be available from ESA’s BIOMASS radar mission, planned to launch in 2020.

The Radar course will be held on Thursday 17th November in the afternoon (4 hours long). The instructors will be Naiara Pinto, Marc Simard and Michael Denbina, who are part of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA.

The cost of course is US$30 per person. The participation to the course is strictly restricted to regularly registered ForestSat 2016 participants. For register, you must fill the Course Registration Form from your user account on the website www.forestsat2016.com

This workshop presents a first introduction of the PolInSAR technique. Students will learn basic SAR concepts and work on a hands-on activity with simulated SAR data. We will cover the following topics:

• Typical scattering mechanisms at forest sites.
• PolInSAR sensor observation strategy.
• Canopy height estimation using Random Volume over Ground model.
• Uncertainty sources: temporal decorrelation and spatial heterogeneity.
• Examples from temperate, tropical, and boreal forest.
• Synergies with LiDAR-derived metrics.

The course would carve out the benefit of airborne LiDAR and spectral information for inventory planning, processing and wall to wall interpolation, permanently focusing on an optimal cost efficiency and sufficient statistical relyability. Presenting examples of inventories for operational forest organisations in comparison with national forest inventories, the course is intended to be mainly practise-oriented and with a not to high scientific claim.

The course will be held on Friday 18th November in the morning (4 hours long). The instructor will be Dr. Günther Bronner who is the CEO and shareholder on Unweltdata GmbH.

The cost of course is US$30 per person. The participation to the course is strictly restricted to regularly registered ForestSat 2016 participants. For register, you must fill the Course Registration Form from your user account on the website www.forestsat2016.com

The proposed workshop would bring the following topics, combined with lots of examples from real projects:

• National forest inventories vs. inventories for forest companies.
• Permanent vs. temporary sample plots.
• Bitterlich angle count method vs. distinct circular sample plots.
• Linear sample plots.
• Regular vs. irregular inventory grids in plantations and natural grown forests.
• Concentration of sample plots in old grown forests.
• Stratification of forest areas by airborne LiDAR and spectral data (pre-fieldwork and post-fieldwork stratification).
• Clustering sample plots to minimize the effort of admission to sample plots.
• Forest inventory related GNSS-navigation.
• Referencing coordinates of fieldwork-assessed trees to a canopy height model.
• Combination of RS-based figures and fieldwork-based figures.
• Plausibility-check of terrestrial measured data by RS methods.
• Wall-to-wall interpolation based on RS data.
• Forest inventory related optimization of cost efficiency and accuracy.
• Representation of inventory results for operational management and decision support.
• RS-based update of inventory data after calamities.

Forested Wetland Monitoring, Assessment and Conservation Session

Forested wetlands are some of the most important and valuable ecosystems and on the planet but their rapid and continued destruction threatens the provision of their essential ecosystem services. Mangrove forests, for example, help mitigate climate change impacts by lessening increased occurrences of floods and catastrophic hurricanes. However, coastal areas are among the most threatened and degraded ecosystems on earth. In addition to being home to numerous endangered species such as the Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae), forested peatlands play a critical role in climate change dynamics through significant carbon sequestration. Yet, some estimates attribute as much as 3 percent of the total global emission of carbon dioxide by human activity to the draining and burning of peat swamp forests. By assessing landscape and ecosystem dynamics across varying scales, remote sensing provides a beneficial and relevant tool in guiding researchers and managers in current and future efforts in management and conservation of forested wetland resources.

This session will focus on remote sensing of forested wetlands across the globe. Forested wetlands include intertidal forest wetlands such as mangrove swamps and tidal-freshwater swamp forests; freshwater, tree-dominated wetlands such as freshwater swamp forests, seasonally flooded forests, or wooded swamps on inorganic soils; and forested peatlands such as peatswamp forests. Presenters will address topics related to remote sensing of spatial, ecological, and temporal conditions of forested wetlands, classification of forested wetlands, forested wetland carbon dynamics, restoration, mitigation and conservation efforts of forest wetlands, and development of tools, techniques, and methodologies related to remote sensing of forested wetlands.

Session Organizer

Kate C. Fickas

Oregon State University Department of Forest Ecosystems & Society

321 Richardson Hall

Corvallis, Or 97331

kate.fickas@oregonstate.edu

FIRE SESSIONS

Objectives

The GOFC-GOLD-Fire Mapping and Monitoring Theme is aimed at refining and articulating the international observation requirements and making the best possible use of fire products from the existing and future satellite observing systems, for fire management, policy decision-making and global change research. GOFC-GOLD is promoting self-organized regional networks of data users, data brokers and providers, where closer linkages and collaborations are established with emphasis on an improved understanding of user requirements and product quality. GOFC-GOLD-Fire is pursuing, in a joint effort with the Committee on Earth Observing Satellites (CEOS) Working Group on Calibration and Validation (WGCV) Land Product Validation (LPV) subgroup, the coordinated validation of fire products by standardized protocols.

The purpose of the meeting is to review the current progress, recent developments and future prospects of satellite based fire monitoring and science for forest/natural resource management and other applications. This will be accomplished by reviewing recent progress in the various themes established by the GOFC-GOLD Fire IT and by discussing strategies towards specific objectives:

1. Active fires and burnt area characterization from polar and geostationary satellite data;
2. Calibration and validation of satellite fire products;
3. Global geostationary network and fire products;
4. Fire observations from new satellite instruments – algorithms and refinements;
5. Fire radiative energy products from polar and geostationary data;
6. Global fire early warning system;
7. Fire management with focus on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation activities;
8. Satellite fire data outreach, dissemination and activities –requirements and challenges.

Fire Session Dates

Fire IT meeting will take place in conjunction with FORESTSAT 2016 meeting:

www.forestsat2016.com

Fire Sessions during the Forestsat meeting:

• November 15th - Full day GOFC-Fire-IT session (invited participants only)
• November 16th - Full day Global Wildland Fire Information Systems (GWIS) Session (Invited participants only)
• November 17th - half day afternoon session - "Characterization of Fire Regimes and Impacts". Chairs: Dr.Chris Justice and Dr. Jesús San-Miguel-Ayanz (open session).

Participants can submit abstracts directly to Claudio Muñoz Riveros by email (claudio.munozr@umayor.cl) with the subject “Fire Session Abstract". Please follow the Guidelines for abstract submission on the ForestSAT 2016 website.

Registration Fee

Please use the below link to register:

https://lclucmeeting.wufoo.com/forms/gofc-fireit-meeting1418th-november-chile/

Attending the Forestsat meeting from 14-18th November, 2016 requires paying registration fee.

REGISTRATION FEE ($450.00) for the Fire-IT members (only) will be paid by the GOFC Fire-IT Office, UMd.

As per the FORESTSAT meeting website, the registration fees includes:

The access to the conference venue, the possibility to submit up to two contributions, the conference information material, six coffee breaks and three lunches for the days of November from 15th to 17th and the welcome cocktail.

The social dinner, participation to courses, excursions and all those costs not specified here above are not included and have to be reserved separately.

Please make your own arrangements for accommodation and local transport.

The LiDAR course will focus on how to create Canopy Height Models and plot as well as raster based forestry metrics such as canopy cover, as well as percentiles, strata, kurtosis, skewness, standard deviation, etc for both normalized heights as well as intensities. The focus of the course would be the many important choices that need to be made and their impact on the resulting output. The course will also emphasize the importance of quality checking the raw LiDAR obtained before starting to produce the needed outputs.

The LiDAR course will be held on Friday 18th November in the morning (4 hours long). The instructor will be Dr. Martin Isenburg who is the developer of LAStools and the founder of rapidlasso GmbH.

The cost of course is US$30 per person. The participation to the course is strictly restricted to regularly registered ForestSat 2016 participants. For register, you must fill the Course Registration Form from your user account on the website www.forestsat2016.com

Martin Isenburg received his MSc in 1999 from UBC in Vancouver, Canada, and his PhD in 2004 from UNC in Chapel Hill, USA -- both in Computer Science. Currently he is an independent scientist, lecturer, and consultant. Martin has created a popular LiDAR processing software called LAStools that is widely used across industry, government agencies, research labs, and educational institutions. LAStools is the flagship product of rapidlasso GmbH, the company he founded in 2012. Martin's ultimate goal is to combine high-tech remote sensing and organic urban farming in a "laser farm" that promotes green projects as hip and fun activities for the iPad generation.