SKANEATELES - Technology created at Cayuga Community College may send ripples through Central America.
Jason Rearick / The Citizen
Gwen Artis, SERVIR project manager, listens during a presentation at the SERVIR Summit 2006 at the Welch Allyn Lodge Monday.
Gwen Artis, SERVIR project manager, listens during a presentation at the SERVIR Summit 2006 at the Welch Allyn Lodge Monday.
SERVIR, the Spanish word meaning to serve, is a regional visualization and monitoring system for Mesoamerican countries so they can examine other nations' data to help them make decisions on planning for natural disasters, reserving natural resources and managing the environment.
Not counting teleconferences every other week, Monday marked the first time all the partners in the SERVIR project met to discuss their project.
“I look at it like a wheel,” said Jessica Coughlin, IAGT director of GIS technology services. “The center is the project and all the partners are the spokes, and we're all feeding into the center without necessarily talking to each other.”
The Institute for the Application of Geospatial Technology, based on the CCC's campus, uses three-dimensional mapping, Geographic Information System and satellite imagery.
Government leaders and decision-makers can use the technology to trace weather and also the land's propensity for landslides to determine where and when they need to dispatch assets before a disaster even occurs.
Of the 35 people attending from California to Maine, from North Dakota to Panama, there are representatives from the Central American Commission on Environment and Development, the World Bank, the Water Center for the Humid Tropics of Latin American and the Caribbean.
The two-day conference is taking place at the Welch Allyn Lodge in Skaneateles Falls.
Monday's agenda consists of participants presenting their progress using the system. Coughlin hopes partnerships spring from that portion of the seminar. Institutions working on the same subject can share data and work together.
The second day will be devoted to plotting long-term goals.
“This started as a grassroots project. Now we will be talking about where do we go from here,” Coughlin said. One possibility is to create a similar system of information sharing in Africa.
The project began a couple of years ago with funding by NASA. Dan Irwin of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center invited IAGT employees to present their technology during a summit in Japan. The presentation was so successful, the two institutions continued their cooperation. Irwin now serves as the principal investigator for the SERVIR project.
IAGT's software is free to the public and costs nothing to the countries using it.
“Maps aren't intuitive to everyone, but the 3D makes it easy for people to see,” Coughlin said.
Staff writer Jessica Soule can be reached at 253-5311, ext 267 or jessica.soule@lee.net
Not counting teleconferences every other week, Monday marked the first time all the partners in the SERVIR project met to discuss their project.
“I look at it like a wheel,” said Jessica Coughlin, IAGT director of GIS technology services. “The center is the project and all the partners are the spokes, and we're all feeding into the center without necessarily talking to each other.”
The Institute for the Application of Geospatial Technology, based on the CCC's campus, uses three-dimensional mapping, Geographic Information System and satellite imagery.
Government leaders and decision-makers can use the technology to trace weather and also the land's propensity for landslides to determine where and when they need to dispatch assets before a disaster even occurs.
Of the 35 people attending from California to Maine, from North Dakota to Panama, there are representatives from the Central American Commission on Environment and Development, the World Bank, the Water Center for the Humid Tropics of Latin American and the Caribbean.
The two-day conference is taking place at the Welch Allyn Lodge in Skaneateles Falls.
Monday's agenda consists of participants presenting their progress using the system. Coughlin hopes partnerships spring from that portion of the seminar. Institutions working on the same subject can share data and work together.
The second day will be devoted to plotting long-term goals.
“This started as a grassroots project. Now we will be talking about where do we go from here,” Coughlin said. One possibility is to create a similar system of information sharing in Africa.
The project began a couple of years ago with funding by NASA. Dan Irwin of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center invited IAGT employees to present their technology during a summit in Japan. The presentation was so successful, the two institutions continued their cooperation. Irwin now serves as the principal investigator for the SERVIR project.
IAGT's software is free to the public and costs nothing to the countries using it.
“Maps aren't intuitive to everyone, but the 3D makes it easy for people to see,” Coughlin said.
Staff writer Jessica Soule can be reached at 253-5311, ext 267 or jessica.soule@lee.net
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