Implications of PPI for the South African geospatial industryby Clare van Zwieten, editor, PositionIT
South Africa's proposed privacy law calls for fines of up to R10-million rand or prison terms of up to 10 years for directors of companies and organisations failing to comply with its provisions. The Protection of Personal Information Bill (PPI), which is in its seventh and final draft, is being circulated in parliament and is expected to be signed into law in the next few months... ( more)
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Update on Technical Methods for Highways 11 Information from Joe Fraser, MHP Geomatics and the Manco Aurecon Joint Venture
An update on the "Technical Methods for Highways 11 (TMH11) Standard Survey Methods" specification document which has been compiled under the umbrella of the Committee of Transport Officials (COTO). TMH11 has been written for the practicing surveyor and describes current practices for surveys relating to highways, roads and other surveys... (more) |
Improving your geospatial employment prospectsby Chlodwik Rossouw, Latitude Resource
This is the second in a series of articles in which we are trying to assist newly qualified, as well as experienced, geospatial professionals to find and apply for new employment opportunities. The pointers given in these articles cannot guarantee a successful application, but can increase your chances of being invited for an interview and ultimately securing your dream job... (more)
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PositionIT InBox
This month's PositionIT Inbox features a letter from Dr. Mark Norris-Rogers on the PLATO CPD programme and a response from PLATO President Paul Marshall... (more)
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Coal mining subsidence: A cautionary tale for surveyors by Gareth Powell, University of Glamorgan, Keith Leighfield, Mining Qualifications Board (UK), and Andrew Abraham, ALT Surveying
Subsidence as a consequence of mining activity has been a continuous problem in Britain. Despite the existence of legislation providing for compensation for damage as a consequence of coal mining activity, in the 1980s environmental concerns were also being expressed about the adverse affects of coal mining... ( more)
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Natural approach to mined land rehabilitation by Rod Eckels, Landforma and Nicholas Bugosh, GeoFluv
A major challenge of open pit mine operations is to efficiently dump the overburden waste material in a cost effective way. The traditional approach is to pile the overburden material in a large pyramid shaped "dump" ... ( more)
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Global soil moisture observations for climate applications Information from ESA
Water held in soil plays an important role in the climate system. Recognising this, the European Space Agency (ESA) has released a remote-sensing soil moisture data record spanning the period 1978 to 2010. This dataset is a predecessor of the data now being provided by ESA's Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite... ( more)
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Analysing commons to improve the design of VGI repositories by Heinrich van den Berg and Dr. Serena Coetzee, University of Pretoria and Antony Cooper, CSIR
Is there anything to be learnt for volunteered geographic information (VGI) repositories from the approaches, methodologies and technologies applied in open source projects and Web 2.0 encyclopaedias, which have been around for longer and have a larger user base?... ( more) |
Integrating photogrammetry with traditional survey applications by Ken Joyce, Martin Koehler and Michael Vogel, Trimble
The camera in a Trimble Vision instrument captures millions of survey observations almost instantaneously. This article explains how the pixels in streaming video and still images become survey observations through the integration of calibrated cameras with optical total stations... ( more)
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Modelling waste stockpiles Information from Maptek
Energy Resources Australia (ERA) Ranger Mine in Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory of Australia uses mine planning and modelling software for stockpile modelling in preparation for reclamation and rehabilitation... ( more) |
Where is the business? by Etienne Louw, MapIT
Making informed decisions is essential for business success. Demographic research tools make it possible to analyse, compare, evaluate and calculate virtually any scenario taking into account customer profile, census information, competitor analysis data and any other set of business-related statistics... ( more) |
Using location intelligence to maximise the value of business intelligence Information from Esri
Until it added spatial analytics to its business intelligence system, one of the country's leading retailers was wasting money on how it routed 10 000 technicians who make 11-million home-repair calls each year... ( more) |