Minutes European GRASS meeting 2/4/93

[Okke Batelaan]

Fourth GRASS-user meeting, April 2, 1993 Genoa Italy

The meeting was held at AMGA, the gas and water distributor of Genoa.
Hilaire De Smedt, who chaired the meeting, introduced the program.

Presentations
The first presentation was by Raymond Venneker (Free University of
Amsterdam). He created a hydrological model, using GRASS and Bayesian
Inference Techniques for Water Balance Mapping. Target area is the
Dolomites, Northern Italy. Maps for evapotranspiration, infiltration and
surface runoff are created from input themes such as slope, permeability,
vegetation coverage, etc.

Isabel Donadios from EuroGIS, Madrid had a presentation on Radio Coverage
of Spain. In this work integration of GRASS, Genamap and Oracle was
shown. The integration has three levels : 1) data exchange, 2) integration
of the user-interface and 3) combination of the spatial and thematic
databases. Until now the project had reached level 2, and level 3 is being
developed.

Per de Vahl from Swedish National Telecom Agency presented a short review
on their work about radio coverage. A spot landuse-map (20x20 meters) is
generated every three years. A model was created by the swedish army to
calculate contour-lines and interference-areas based on geography, DEM and
landuse.

The last presentation in the morning was by Okke Batelaan, Free University
Brussels, Development and Application of a Groundwatermodel integrated
with GRASS. Two models were presented, a one-layer model and a multilayer
model. The models were applied to the study-area Walenbos (Belgium). A
problem with GRASS integration was the impossibility to do floating-point
calculations on maps.

After having enjoyed an excellent Italian meal there was a presentation of
the University of M
uenster by Sylke Knust, Germany. This group made a
benchmarkstudy for the use of GIS in hydrological research. 30 GIS-
software packages were tested. The conclusion of the group was that GRASS
in combination with Arc-Info were the best tools available.

At the meeting two participants gave an impression of the USA-users
conference in Reston.

Anne Lucas presented her results of the user-survey. The reactions were
limited though interesting. Some conclusions from the survey were added as
items to the user-meeting.


Minutes of the usergroup meeting


Introduction

Prof. De Smedt gave an overview of the activities of the past year. It was
extremely difficult to get the board together on a regular basis. Problems
are geographical distances between the boardmembers (from Greece to
Sweden), lack of travel funds and busy agendas of the individual
boardmembers. Only a subset of the board could meet three times. The main
activities were the organisation of the Genua-meeting and the publication
one European Newsletter.
The board made a financial report, which was approved by the meeting,
about 1000 ECU is in cash.

The meeting decided to elect a small board and taskgroups, with clear
objectives for the coming year.

New board and taskgroups

New board:
Prof. F. De Smedt, VUB, Chairman
Okke Batelaan, VUB, Treasurer
Wim Ploeg, Nieuwland, Secretary

Taskgroup Newsletter:
Raymond Venneker, VU Amsterdam
Carlo van der Rijt, KU Nijmegen

Taskgroup User-survey:
Anne Lucas, Univ. Bergen

Taskgroup Network:
Per de Vahl, Swedish National Telecom Agency
Ron Lassche,  VU Amsterdam
Andrea Patrono, ITC, Enschede

European GRASS development center:
Fernando Picazo, EUROGIS

Tasks of the board:

Regular activities, stimulate and control activities of taskgroups, organize
next (5th) European user conference, in Paris in conjunction with EGIS,
early spring 1994. Another task is to see which connection can be made to
other groups working with GIS in Europe. Possibilities to obtain Ewill be investigated together with Mr. Picazo and Mr. Andreetti.

Tasks of the Newsletter group:

At the moment a separate European Newsletter is difficult to realize. It was
decided to contact the OGF and propose that the EGF gets one or two
pages in the USA Grassclippings. The content of these pages will be
coordinated and prepared by the editorial group.

Tasks of the User-survey group:

Information has to be gathered in a more rigorous way. A proposal is to
combine the survey with prescription on the GRASSclippings and member-
ship fee of the EGF (ECU 15). This implies arrangements with the OGF for
administration and address exchange. This problem will be solved together
with the newslettergroup and the board. The usersurvey and member list
will be available from the network.

Tasks of the network group:

The plan is to create a european UTP-server Swedish Telecom. On this
server a copy of the moon directory and a couple of specific european
items (users, developments, work, possibilities to participate in EC projects
etc.) will be made available.

European GRASS-development center:
EUROGIS plans to establish a european GRASS-development center. The first
step is to create a plan how this can be realized and operated.

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Okke Batelaan                                  email: batelaan at hydr1.vub.ac.be
Laboratory of Hydrology                        tel:   x-32-2-6413021
Free University Brussels                       fax:   x-32-2-6413022
Pleinlaan 2
1050 BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
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