Remote sensing

Order 372 (1978)

Author(s):

Parliamentary Assembly

Origin

Assembly debate on 2 October 1978 (14th Sitting) (see Doc. 4196, report of the Committee on Science and Technology). Text adopted by the Assembly on 2 October 1978 (14th Sitting).

The Assembly,

1. Recalling its Orders Nos. 310 (1971), 323 (1972) and 360 (1976), instructing its Committee on Science and Technology :

1.1 to promote European collaboration in specific scientific fields ;

1.2 to strengthen liaison between parliamentarians and scientists ; and

1.3 to establish a European Joint Committee on Scientific Co-operation, bringing together parliamentarians of the Committee on Science and Technology and scientists from the various working parties and study groups set up by that committee within the framework of its exercise in scientific co-operation ;

2. Welcoming the holding of the European public parliamentary hearing in Toulouse on 11 March 1978 on the theme : "Europe's specific needs in the field of remote sensing" ;

3. Convinced of the value of organising such parliamentary hearings as a means of informing parliamentarians as an aid to political decision-making ;

4. Emphasising the importance of the part played on the scientific and technical level by the European Association of Remote Sensing Laboratories, created jointly by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Commission of the European Community and the European Space Agency,

5.

a Instructs its Committee on Science and Technology to invite the European Joint Committee on Scientific Co-operation :

5.1.1 to organise further parliamentary hearings on important subjects on the agendas of its committees, bearing in mind the value of this political decision-making aid to parliamentarians and to the persons in charge of the matters under study at European and national level ;

5.1.2 to arrange for the Working Party on Polar Research to undertake a forecasting and feasibility study on the use of icebergs for the production of fresh water in the developing countries and on the potential value of remote sensing satellites in locating particularly promising icebergs ;

5.1.3 to prepare a report on the value of the use of remote sensing techniques to the developing countries, which could be transmitted to the United Nations Conference on Science and Technology for Development, to be held in Vienna in 1979 ;

5.1.4 to draw up a report on experiments using remote sensing for crop prediction in Europe, indicating the results obtained and the expected economic impacts ;

5.1.5 to arrange for the EARSEL Working Party (European Association of Remote Sensing Laboratories) to draft a report intended for the Committee on Agriculture on the particular aspects of remote sensing for European agriculture, forestry and fisheries ;

b Instructs its Legal Affairs Committee to make proposals for the formulation of a European doctrine on the problem of access to and dissemination of medium and high resolution data obtained by remote sensing techniques, in order that these techniques may serve as instruments of supervision for the purpose of a European policy on environmental management, and especially for pollution monitoring.