2018 Dragon 4 Symposium was successfully held
Li Zengyuan, Deputy Director General and researcher of Research Institute of Forest Resource Information, and chief Chinese scientist of Dragon Programme was making a presentation
2018 Dragon 4 Mid-term Results Symposium, hosted by National Remote Sensing Center of China and European Space Agency (ESA), and organized by Xi’an University of Science and Technology, was successfully held in Xi’an from 19th to 22nd Jun. Li Zengyuan, Deputy Director General and researcher of Research Institute of Forest Resource Information, and chief Chinese scientist of Dragon Program and Dr. Yves-Louis Desnos, chief European scientist jointly delivered a presentation on the Dragon 4 mid-term results. Academician Li Deren and Li Yi, researcher from Institute of Atmospheric Physics of Chinese Academy of Sciences made presentations on Tasks of earth observation in China and Results of China Carbon Satellite respectively.
There are five workshops in the Symposium, namely atmosphere, climate & carbon cycle, oceans & coastal zones, hydrology & cryosphere, solid earth & disaster risk reduction, and land ecosystems, smart cities & agriculture. 105 oral presentations and 96 youth posters were delivered. Gao Zhihai, researcher, Chen Erxue, researcher and Sun Bin, assistant researcher from Research Institute of Forest Resource Information Techniques reported on 5 projects of 2 programmes of Land degradation monitoring in arid land in China and Forest Dragon 4 Programme.
The Symposium further identified priority areas and core tasks of the next stage of phase four, enhanced satellite data sharing and cooperation in applied technologies, and promoted earth observation technologies and application in China and Europe.
The Dragon Programme is the largest international cooperation programme in application areas of earth observation launched by Ministry of Science and Technology of China and European Space Agency. The Chinese office is Research Institute of Forest Resource Information Techniques of CAF. Li Zengyuan is the chief Chinese scientist of the Programme. Starting in 2004, there have been 4 phases. The latest phase Dragon 4 (2016-2020) has 28 areas, and brings together more than 600 experts and young scholars, covering most Chinese and European universities and research institutes in remote sensing application research. It has become the most extensive and famous China-Europe cooperation mechanism in remote sensing application. Within the framework of the Dragon Programme, China and Europe have conducted joint research, held training sessions and shared satellite data, achieved a lot of internationally advanced research results, promoted China-Europe earth observation application and remote sensing technologies application development, cultivated a large number of talents, and exerted extensive international influence, becoming an example of China-Europe science and technology cooperation.
Zheng Shimin, minister counsellor from Department of International Cooperation of Ministry of Science and Technology, Wang Qi’an, Director General, and Zhang Songmei, chief engineer of National Remote Sensing Center of China, Zhou Xiaode, Secretary of CPC Committee, Zhang Weihu, Vice President of Xi’an University of Science and Technology, Maurice Borgeaud, Head of the Earth Observation Science, Applications, and Future Technologies Department of ESA, Karl Bergquist, Administrator for the International Relations of ESA, and more than 200 Chinese and European experts and scholars participated in the Symposium. (Sun Bin & Hu Bo, Research Institute of Forest Resource Information Techniques)
