FIG Climate Compass Task Force 2023-2026

The Surveying Profession's Global Response to Tackling the Climate Agenda

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The task force is holding its inaugural Annual Meeting as three virtual seminars (in each of the three major time zones) from February 20-22, where we will be hearing from preminent experts of surveying in each region and then bringing together the audience to collectively create a mindmap of the opportunities and gaps for surveying to help in the climate agenda for that region and globally.

Request 1: Please bring your expertise to create a mindmap of surveying's ability to manage, mitigate, and prevent the climate crisis

These seminars are a chance for you to bring your important expertise to the FIG's latest publication on climate and be acknowledged for this, and we hope that you can make at least one of the three calls - please do register for the one/s that work for your time zones here:

Request 2: Please share these events with those in your network by forwarding this email to them

Could you also please support our quest to get representation from as many facets of our diverse industry as possible, and as many voices with local knowledge as possible, by forwarding this email to your networks? The information about the event is summarised below:

'Regionally relevant case studies showing opportunities and gaps for surveying and climate': Climate Compass Task Force Annual Meeting and Seminar Series Feb 2024

A revolutionary interactive seminar series for all surveyors interested in climate. Join to meet, learn, inspire and share your expertise. The FIG Climate Compass Task Force is holding a series of three virtual seminars across different global time zones across February 20-22, 2024 with:

  • Diverse global expert surveying/geospatial practitioners providing case studies of climate impacts and resilience
  • Audience-driven brainstorming livescribed to inform the FIG Climate Compass Task Force’s latest FIG publication
  • Extensive audience involvement and interactivity for learning, sharing and problem-solving discussions

We need your voice on how spatial intelligence, space technologies, digital transformation and innovation come together for surveyors for climate action. It’s about using geospatial technology and innovations to protect our planet by improving data capture, maintenance, modeling, analysis, maintenance and use for climate action.

Together, we will be defining and assessing what the big global land, carbon and biodiversity issues are that are relevant for surveyors working at national and local levels. This means thinking about what the legal, policy, financial, and capacity implications are for rolling out new solutions at the scale necessary. Opportunities will be identified for the development of the future of the surveying profession, including technical opportunities and how surveying education needs to be rethought.

There will be a total of three meetings held across the three major global time zones to reach all surveyors interested in climate no matter where around the world. Speakers and registration links for each are available below - please register for the ones accessible to your time zone here:

    • Dr. Paul van Asperen works as Advisor, Digital Systems Environmental Act, National Water, the Netherlands. He has a Ph.D in land administration. His presentation will cover the Netherlands experience with their new environmental planning act and how the digital land administration system has been adapted to support it.
    • Dr. Eranda Gunathilaka, Senior Lecturer at Faculty of Geomatics, Sabaragamuwa University, Sri Lanka. He has a Ph.D in tidal monitoring and is Chair of FIG Commission 4 on Hydrography. He will speak on Sri Lanka’s national environmental plan (NDC) and surveying challenges and opportunities.
    • Ms. Rumbidzai Chivizhe has an Engineering Masters (Geomatics) and is a Lecturer at Midlands State University in Zimbabwe. She will speak on how to use a range of survey tools to monitor flooding from tropical cyclones.
    • Dr. Charisse Griffith-Charles is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Geomatics Engineering and Land Management at the University of West Indies in the Caribbean. She will speak on informal settlement regularisation, disaster management and small island developing states (SIDS) using the extensive work she has done on this in the field.
    • Ms. Kate Fairlie, with a Masters from Oxford University in Sustainable Development, works for a globally respected Australian surveying company, Land Equity International, as a land administration specialist. From their work in the region she will present 4 case studies from Asia-Pacific linking land and climate.
    • Third speaker to be confirmed
    • Ms Usue Donezar is the Expert Lead of Copernicus at the European Environment Agency. She has 2 Masters degrees (Geoinformation Science; Law and political science). She will speak on Copernicus’ climate change service, its free data sets and dashboards used by the world on climate, land, water and marine.
    • Mr Simon Mwesigye is a Land Tenure specialist at UN-Habitat supporting Ugandan country operations. He is a valuer with a Land Management Masters. He will talk on customary tenure and local forms of land certificates within the national land administration system linked to natural resource certificates for access to wetlands.
    • Third speaker to be confirmed.
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