[IGSMAIL-5076]: End of Year Message from IAG

[G. Beutler]

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IGS Electronic Mail      31 Dec 10:36:32 PST 2004      Message Number 5076
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Author: Prof. Gerhard Beutler, President, International Association of Geodesy
  (via IGS Central Bureau)


Dear Friends and Colleagues,

it is not unusual that presidents of Associations like the IAG try
to summarize the important events in the Association's life of the
elapsed year. In an attempt to be brief I will focus only on few
topics, which I believe to be noteworthy.

Business as usual (?)
-----------------
In 2005 the new structure of IAG really started functioning. From
my perspective, most elements are now performing well, today. Let
me therefore express my thanks to all Commission and
Intercommission Committee presidents, and to the heads of the
services for their excellent work in support of IAG.

I would like to express my personal gratitude to our
Vice-president Michael Sideris, who serves (among other) as the
interface of the Executive with the IAG Communications and
Outreach Branch and as IAG's representative in the scientific
organizing committee of next year's Scientific Assembly with the
theme "Monitoring and Understanding a Dynamic Planet with Geodetic
and Oceanographic Tools". The assembly is a common symposium of
IAG, IAPSO, and IABO. More information about this important
upcoming event may be found at http://www.dynamicplanet2005.com/.

Let me also cordially thank Jozsef Adam, the head of our
Communications and Outreach Branch. It is amazing how efficiently
Jozsef and his Hungarian crew assumed their role to the benefit of
IAG. It is also a remarkable achievement, and probably to a great
extent thanks to the Outreach Branch, that IAG has now more than
200 individual members, including students and retired geodesists.

Last, but not least, I would like to express my sincere gratitude
to Christian Tscherning, our Secretary General. It is essential
for the Association that it can rely on his many years of
experience as a secretary general with a high scientific and
administrative profile. It is, by the way, not really appropriate
to mention Christian's work for IAG under the title "business as
usual": Christian had a pacemaker implanted in the fall and, very
recently, he broke his arm. It is more than remarkable that his
work for IAG remained (almost completely) unaffected by these
health problems.

IUGG Matters

The IUGG Executive usually meets in its new configuration in the
year following an IUGG General Assembly. This year's IUGG
Executive Committee Meeting was hosted by the IUGG General
Secretary, Jo Ann Joselyn, early in September in Boulder,
Colorado. From my perspective the creation of (or the plan to
create) a new IUGG Association was the outstanding topic. ICSI,
the International Commission on Snow and Ice (till 2004 an entity
of the IAHS - International Association of Hydrological Sciences),
made the proposal to become a new association of IUGG (under a new
name). This is a very unusual step -- the current seven IUGG
associations are all "well established" (all considerably older
than fifty years).

It was decided in Boulder to "upgrade" the ICSI right away to an
IUGG Inter-Union body and to postpone the decision to create the
8th Association of the IUGG to the 2007 IUGG General Assembly.

The GGOS Project

IAG Projects are, according to the bylaws of IAG, of broad scope
and of highest interest for the entire field of geodesy. They
serve as the flagships of the Association for a long period of
time (a decade or longer).

Under the leadership of Proffs. Christoph Reigber (President) and
Hermann Drewes (Secretary) the steering committee of GGOS showed
an amazing amount of initiative. GGOS established itself as the
interface of IAG and the GEO-Group (Group on Earth Observation). I
could only follow these activities from the distance and I am
deeply impressed by the impact the group made on the official GEO
documents. We now sincerely hope that the initiative will lead to,
among other things, a much stronger and safer global geodetic
infrastructure (among other things).

The group also tries to establish geodesy (and/or GGOS) as a theme
in the in the United Nations' Integrated Global Observing
Strategy, IGOS. This work is in progress.

The two aspects mentioned above are rather of a political nature.
Traditionally, policy has not had too high a standing within IAG.
It is, however, important or even vital to establish IAG as THE
partner for all UN activities involving geometry and gravity on a
global level. Often (too often!) geodesy is not viewed as a
science, but "only" as a tool in some of these circles ... Science
of course matters in geodesy as much as in the other geosciences.
It will, e.g., only be possible to establish a geodesy-related
theme in IGOS, if a strong science case can be made. The GGOS
group will invest a lot of work in this area in 2005. My cordial
thanks go to Chris Reigber and his team.

FIG and IAG

FIG views itself as the international organization for the
surveying community. This assessment is certainly correct. On the
other hand, IAG has a strong link to application, as well; think
of Commission 4, for example. To me it seems that geodesy and
surveying engineering (i.e., IAG and FIG) are too closely related
to go separate ways. This is why I invested personally quite some
time in the attempt to bring the two associations closer together.
This was a rather "easy" task because I experienced a lot of
support from Matt Higgins (FIG), Chris Rizos (IAG) and the
president of FIG, Prof. Holger Magel. It seems that we will be
able to sign a new, more concrete and substantial MoU between the
two associations at the Cairns Scientific Assembly.

Let me mention that I represented IAG at the FIG working week in
Athens and at the FIG regional conference in Jakarta (after the
bombings and before the earthquake ...). It seems that AFREF can
be established as a common project of IAG and FIG. This is of
particular importance in view of FIG's links with the national
mapping and surveying agencies.

MoU with ION and planned MoU with UN-OOSA

Thanks to Dorotha Brzezinska and Ruth Neilan we have today an MoU
between ION and IAG (ready to be signed) clarifying the
relationships between the two organizations. I would like to thank
Dorotha Brzezinska for her initiative and Ruth Neilan for her
assistance.

FIG signed an MoU with the UN Office of Outer Space Affairs
(UN-OOSA) at the UN/USA International meeting on the Use and
Applications of Global Navigation Satellite Systems, December
13-17 2004, in Vienna, Austria. IAG and UN-OOSA plan to sign a
similar document in spring 2005 (hopefully on the occasion of the
EGU Spring Conference). In view of IAG's contribution to all
high-accuracy applications of all operational GNSS systems, and in
particular through the International GPS Service (IGS), but also
the IERS, it is very important that IAG's work is recognized also
in this context.

Earthquake in the Indian Ocean

While preparing this review, the tragic news of the earthquake off
the coast of Sumatra and the devastating tsunami affecting the
entire region was received. On behalf of IAG I offer our deeply
felt sympathy to the suffering people in the countries of the
region. IAG, as a scientific organization, does not have much to
offer to relieve the current situation. Ruth Neilan's end of the
year message as director of the IGS Central Bureau indicates,
however, that strong links exist to countries and individuals of
the region. These links should be fully exploited and if possible
improved in order to relieve the situation. This event certainly
underlines the importance the global geodetic infrastructure. Only
with such infrastructure it will be possible to keep track of all
the local and regional displacements, which took place as a
consequence of the earthquake.

Concluding Remarks

 From the above report one can conclude that 2004 was a very busy
year for IAG, despite that fact that there was neither a General
Assembly nor a Scientific Assembly. Nevertheless, many important
developments were initiated.

We have every reason to be optimistic regarding the future
development of our Association. With this positive undertone I
would like to conclude, hoping that you had a Happy Holiday
Season. I wish all of you A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Gerhard Beutler, President of IAG